Facebook Content Marketing Strategy for Restaurants & Bars

Social media has become an important part of our lives and an integral part of making any decision. According to eMarketer, 2.48 billion people around the world use social networks, among which 1.54 billion at least once a month use Facebook.

Still unconvincing? And what about such statistics?

• in 2017, the average user spent almost 2 hours a day on social networks
• only 60% of that time was spent on communication
• 40% of our time in social networks we read the news, watch pictures and products, read reviews about different places, etc.
• more than 200 million posts are marked with the tag “food”, and 23 million with “drinks.”
• 88% of people are influenced by online feedbacks and recommendations.

It would be foolish not to use such a potential in business goals of your eatery. After all, today you can safely say – if you are not on social networks (we mean your business.), then you do not exist. But it is not enough to simply use Facebook. Imagine how much information surrounds your potential audience on their screens and how many competitors in your niche use the same communication messages and targeted advertising, the value of which is constantly growing. You have to not just attend, but also stand out. Therefore, the correctly constructed Facebook content marketing is not just a key to success of your place, but also a cheapening of the lead by means of organic interests.

Come Up With the Weekly Plan

We are sure that you have already found hundreds and thousands of useful tips and used brainstorming of your employees, found those ideas for the Facebook content strategy that is right for your restaurant. But it’s easy to get overcrowded with tons of ideas. Organize all those ideas into Google Spreadsheet, or use one of the social media calendar and scheduling tools like PromoRepublic.

Now, when you already have specific content ideas, you must structure them and follow the developed schedule. You have dozens of menu items you could promote, but choose a dish. It helps if you have a calendar planned out in advance for the year for each month by a week. If it’s summer and you have great salads, showcase your salad options.

Do not forget to leave yourself an “open window” for situational posts, which you did not approve in advance, but which should be published without getting out of the general communication. For example, your chef just found inspiration today and created a dish that you cannot help showing to your subscribers. Make a post about it and watch how your visitors order exactly that one this evening.

Or a customer came to you with a nice pet that you just cannot ignore in your chronic.

Show your visitors, and you will be able to build an associative series – a new audience will identify itself with your constant one and find the atmosphere of your restaurant a comfortable harbor for talking about poetry for young hipsters or an expensive and exclusive place for the crème de la crème.

Make Your Page Attractive for Visitors

Make your facebook page stand out!

Make a few visual blanks according to your brand book, which you can freely use in any situation very quickly, without resorting to complex graphics programs. Develop a separate mini-brand-book specifically for the needs of your posts on Facebook and make your client accustomed to your corporate colors and fonts. Then it will be easier to build an association and to remember your restaurant.

Do not forget about the main visual content — avatar, covers, the illustration of history and information, the extension of posts — everything must match the size of both the desktop and the mobile version. It will be insulting if no one can read an important text message on the cover of your community due to an incorrect size. Use tabs on your Facebook Page to entice people to visit your eatery.

Use Media Content

Photo by Bruno Cervera

In addition to using your graphic designer, you need to maximize visual capabilities from Facebook. This not only diversifies your news feed but also positively affects the delivery of content in the subscribers’ chronic. It has long been proven that the use of Live videos, regular videos, Carousel ads, Canvas ads and 360 panoramas increases the Engagement Rate of publications and is shown to users more often.

Panoramic videos will make your restaurant more comfortable for those who like to choose the best table by the window and imagine in advance how their evening will pass exactly in your place, what outfit will be more photogenic surrounded by your interior.

Live videos from the evening of music in your restaurant will make it more real and close to those who have not yet visited your place. Or vice versa, a regular customer will be sorry that he missed such a concert and he will definitely visit it next time.

Host and Promote the Events

Just to invite a cool city band on Friday is only half the battle. But to coincide their performance with a special offer on your menu – this is a personalized approach to your customers. They come not only to listen to music, but also to feel the atmosphere. If your band has its own page on Facebook, ask them to tag you in their announcement, and their fans will associate your place with their favorite song forever.

Do not forget about international gastronomic festivals and holidays – if you are served Beaujolais as all over the world, you should tell about it on your page and offer your concept of celebration. If there is a week of supply of fresh Irish oysters in your city, come up with your own cocktail, which will go with them. Shoot a video for Facebook about how it will be – to drink your cocktail with your oysters admiring exactly in your window for the evening city.

Do not forget that food is just a meal if you eat it from a simple dish sitting on a chair in your kitchen.

Offer Something of Value for Free

Offer your subscribers special bonuses or present a free certificate for a bottle of good wine, and they will necessarily use it. It is equally pleasant to “play” with the restaurant at the moment of the meal. The client will be able to brag to friends that he tasted your special steak and get a discount. Encourage people to write about your dishes on Facebook.

Offering people tasty food with a pleasant discount, you will always motivate them to spread the glory for you. And what is most important – it is absolutely free!

Undoubtedly, holding various actions positively affects the number of sales. But do not forget that if you make them too often, afterward consumers simply will not want to pay for your services the full cost.

Facebook Ads Is the Single Best Advertising Tool for Restaurants and Bars in 2018

You are probably already using or just thinking about other advertising tools. But just imagine that there is a place where you can target your audience not only by demographic indicators (sex, place of residence, age) but also by interests that are so wide and so personalized that it is difficult to imagine.

Facebook Ads is such a place. This French Restaurant Facebook Ad Targeting is an example. Assuming that this restaurant is located in London, you can use targeting people who not just live in London or temporarily travel at the age of 21 (by the way they are 2 600 000 people), but also find those who are in the week of oysters delivery will see your announcement exactly according to their interests of “oysters lovers.” We can see there are 88,000 people we could target.

The targeting options inside Facebook are many times greater than in other tools.

To compare, you can select people who are interested in restaurants in London via AdWords and get targeting an audience of 2,700,000. Of course you can target them by the search term “French restaurant London”, but you can really show them what you can offer in this three lines you have while setting up AdWords campaign. Not really targeted traffic, is it?

By testing and trailing both Facebook and Adwords as part of the marketing mix, you can find what works best for you. However, from Facebook ad manager, we can see that running Facebook presence.

Summary

Your restaurant is your business, and the goal of any business is to make a profit, which is what all your actions should be directed at, and Facebook content strategy can bring you closer to this goal faster. The recipe for this dish is simple – follow the schedule, show your customers and identify new visitors with your existing audience, be consistent visually and use the variety and quality of media content, deploy activities around your restaurant, give pleasant discounts and season it with quality targeting.

But do not forget – the discrepancy between what is offered in the online environment and what customers receive upon arrival in the restaurant can play a cruel joke and generate negative feedback about your place. Therefore, it is very important that people responsible for keeping active in social networks on behalf of your brand own reliable and up-to-date information about promotions, dishes, and services.