Social Media Marketing For Restaurants

March 15, 2017

Are you in the restaurant business or own a pizzeria? Are you curious as to how social media can help your restaurant or pizzeria?

Do you wonder which social media platforms can best help reach your target audience and how to go about reaching them?

This week on the Social Media Social Hour, Bruce Irving and I discuss social media marketing for restaurants, including which social platforms are preferred and best practices for your niche, including a breakdown of all the main channels from Facebook and Instagram to YouTube and Yelp.

Let’s do this!

About the show:

The Social Media Social Hour is a podcast for marketers and entrepreneurs looking to get on the social media fast track. The podcast is an interview format, where each week I get up close and personal with top brands and influencers to talk social media, tech and online marketing. Each week I share tools that I personally use to help me with social media management, sales, marketing, accounts management, and productivity. The Social Media Social Hour is presented by Tack – Power your marketing with authentic content from customers and fans.

In this episode, here is what you’ll discover:

About Bruce Irving:

Bruce Irving is the marketing visionary behind smartpizzamarketing.com and host of the weekly podcast Smart Pizza Marketing where he interviews the leading minds of the pizza restaurant industry. He also speaks at conferences about how to better use social media in your restaurant or your small business. 

Bruce was recently named one of the Top 30 Restaurant Experts to Follow by Toast Inc.

Mentionable Quotes by Bruce Irving:

  • “Social media & Facebook ads give you the ability to test things out a little quicker and cheaper [than traditional marketing]. You can test things out and see what works, with very little money, then go all in.”

  • “First, figure out who your clientele is and if are they on Facebook.”

  • “Use your address [for location targeting] and then target people who live a few miles in that area or who were recently in that area.”

  • “Things that work best are owner videos – when the owner is the face of the business…people resonate with that.”

  • “Facebook Live is only a good idea if you’re comfortable in front of the camera.”

  • “Come up with a 30-day challenge for yourself. Produce a video every day for 30 days straight that no one will see and, by the end, you’ll be much more comfortable.”

  • “[Posting to social] doesn’t take a tremendous amount of time, you don’t need a computer, almost everything can be done on your phone. Figure out what you’re gonna talk about for the upcoming few weeks. . . It will take an hour or two a week.”

  • In order of priority: “Facebook is a must – start there and also try to gather emails. Second is Instagram. Instagram is a great branding, long-term play. It’s more of a communication tool, a showcase of what you offer.”

  • It’s not just about posting things to Facebook, it’s about being part of your local community outside of social, whether that be sponsoring local teams, being a part of local events or teaming up with local businesses to cross promote.”

  • “It will take you longer if you don’t have an ad budget.  [Try to find] even $50 a week.” 

  • On Yelp reviews: “Be proactive, not just passive. There are ways to ask for good reviews. 10 good reviews can combat 1 bad”

  • “Absolutely respond to every review. If someone takes the time to leave a review good or bad, take the time to write back.”

  • “Don’t recommend Yelp advertising.”

  • “Groupon–use it as a search engine to find you and get them to your page.”

  • “Yelp advertising should not be used for restaurants–get your reviews organically”

A Quick Breakdown of the Platforms:

  • Facebook – “Ads & video! Face to camera video is the best, also try to get photos to look organic.”
  • Instagram – Branding play – better quality photos. Use Instagram Stories.
  • Twitter – “It’s a great way to contact people. It’s the easiest way to reach out to someone and get a response. It’s hard to get traction if you’re a one location business though.”
  • SnapChat – “Create a Geofilter for a small amount of money a day and reach your target audience. 
  • YouTube – “Great search engine and helps with ‘Google juice’ but not a lot of restaurants are using it right now. Are the viewers actually going to buy a pizza from you?”
  • Email – “Email is huge. Set-up an auto-responder – send them a coupon and ask how they heard about you. You can also gGive something away and build instant rapport. If they reply back, they are super engaged.”

Items/people mentioned in the show:

Enjoy the podcast? Give us a rating or a review on iTunes!