Whether you’re a small, independent eatery or a large restaurant chain, a solid restaurant social media marketing plan is essential to staying competitive in today’s market.

Your customers are on social media, and I’ll bet you’re on social media. So see your restaurant to new levels of success and get them on social media, too!

Check out our tips for getting your restaurant social media marketing into five-star shape.

Beautify Your Brand

Presentation is everything! From your food to your feed, every aspect of your restaurant should be appealing.

Consistency Across Platforms

Whether you’re using one social media platform or seven, your brand image needs to stay consistent.

Include an engaging bio, create an eye-catching banner, use a high-quality profile photo. And use the same exact bio and photos for every site!

Keeping your restaurant recognizable from platform to platform is an essential part of growing your social media presence.

Post High-Quality Content

Ensure that the photos and videos you share on your restaurant social media profiles are high-quality. A clean kitchen and crisp lighting will make every meal look extra tasty. Videos that include background music that fits the ambiance of your restaurant makes your brand distinct on explore pages too!

Meaningful Interactions

Your interaction with your followers is what matters most. You want to keep customers coming back and bring new diners through your doors!

Reply, Reply, Reply

It’s not uncommon for restaurant owners to walk around their restaurants and interact with their customers, and the same can be done through social media. Take the time to chat with your customers. Respond to comments with fun emojis and witty banter, answer questions in your DMs, and don’t shy away from the negative comments either!

Showing that you care enough about your customers to interact with them and do your best to improve for them is a huge deal. Take all the engagement you can get and then some.

Everyone Loves a Giveaway

User-generated content is a great way to build your restaurant social media presence. When a customer tags your page in a photo of the meal they shared with their partner at your restaurant, your profile is going to get more attention.

You can also increase this level of engagement through giveaways. Simple things, like asking customers to share a photo of their favorite dish from your restaurant with a specific hashtag for a chance to win a free meal, will get your customers more invested in your business and get your restaurant on more people’s feeds.

More tags means more engagement. More engagement leads to more followers, and those followers soon become diners at your restaurant.

Social Smarts

Social media marketing allows people to see what your restaurant offers and get a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes happenings, but it’s also a great way to make getting a seat at your table even easier.

Utilize Platform Features

Facebook’s “Book Now” and Yelp’s “Make Reservation” buttons are invaluable features that will make dining at your restaurant a stress-free experience. No phone calls, no long wait times. Just a reserved table and time with the simple push of a button.

Ad Your Way Up

Social media ads aren’t as daunting as they sound. In fact, ads are a great way to maximize the traffic you get both online and in your restaurant. Invest now and gain later. And turn them off any time you want!

Consistency is Key

Restaurant social media marketing requires time and patience, and once you’ve developed a following, consistency still plays a leading role.

Post Multiple Times Per Week

The best days and times to post varies from platform to platform.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays tend to generate the most social media engagement. Instagram is the outlier here, with Saturday being the ideal day to post.

As for timing, Tweets gain most of their views between 9 AM and noon, whereas Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube receive the most interaction between 6 PM and 9 PM.

If you have a team member assigned to social, or if you’re feeling especially ambitious, consider posting multiple times per day on all platforms.

Marketing Tools

For anyone looking for a bit more structure, we offer social media and reputation management tools catered to restaurant and bar owners. Our Social Post Composer and Social Inbox help you easily manage your restaurant social media marketing.

You can learn more about our tools with a free demo!

Go Get Social

The bottom line: people gotta eat, and people love to connect.

Now take everything you’ve learned about restaurant social media marketing and get your profiles up and your doors open!