Top 13 Organic Strategies for Social Media Marketing for Restaurants

Social media marketing for restaurants is playing a remarkable role in the brand positioning of dining destinations in the ultra-modern digital world. The food & beverage industry is also closely acquainted with the digitisation and social media strategy. The mainstay of selection of a restaurant is on attractive images of delicious eatables, the quality of the information in the content, the reviews by other customers, etc.

Today’s consumer is apprehensive and he creates a school of thought about the brand before he makes his way through. The enthusiasm for social media platforms has shown a stunning impact on organic growth. It’s time to make the best out of this. DNY Hospitality has a lot more to serve on the plate once you determine you need professional help in service of social media marketing for restaurants. DNY resolute in delivering services of the highest standards.

Why Social Media Marketing for restaurants?

Social media marketing for restaurants is the crowning trend in the world of food & beverages. It entails using social media platforms and web portals for the promotion of products and services. Most of the social media platforms administer some built-in Data Analytics tools for companies to keep an eye on the progress of marketing. If there is any proverb supporting the idea that the best things come for free, it’s noteworthy that using Google Analytics is free.

You can review the deportment of customers by the frequency of their visits, demographic features, the devices on which they access social media, and every small detail. You may finalise the social media platforms according to the response of your target market for your restaurant business. Suppose you find a number of comments and messages on LinkedIn, it’s important to keep engagement going.

Digital marketing for food brands with social media management provides transparency with one-to-one interaction. A foolproof social media marketing plan brings organic growth in the restaurant business. Because every individual has a mobile phone and a habit to contemplate on the suggestions by all family members regarding the restaurant visit. Social media marketing for restaurants go hand in hand with Search Engine Optimisation and content marketing that we would throw light on later in the article.

How has Organic Social Media Marketing for Restaurants Become a Game-Changer?

Why Invest, when the organic has worked?

With the increasing popularity of social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram have launched marketing algorithms with the targeted location. This strategy has proven itself to be a game-changer because the fruits of marketing are visible when attributes of the products or services reach the target market. The algorithm concentration offered by Facebook and Instagram guarantees the reach with much needed clicks using a social media campaign.

This ensures a sustainable exposure in the local market for a better tomorrow. The target market for restaurants has particular locus with regards to the venue of the restaurant. However, the populace does come a long way to visit promethean restaurants. The costs in social media marketing for restaurants depend on the strategy involved and the frontage attained. A brand doesn’t bear the extravagance of expenses for marketing if they use an ORGANIC reach strategy.

Some points for organic reach are as below 

Followers Via Influencers

Communities

Role of Content

Tags

1. Followers Via Influencers

Follower engagement makes people visit the pages of the restaurant and make them connect with the brand. The restaurants who involve social media influencers have seen a tremendous growth in their organic reach. Pure reason being influencers posting about these brands on their individual pages. Involving an influencer with more the followers in specified location or category, the better the exposure of the brand. An influencer has a specified niche category of audience following them for 1 niche i.e. Food. People spending a long time on your social media pages, promises the chances for them to visit the restaurant soon. 

2. Communities

People join in communities on social media when they share similar interests related to cuisines, liking towards the brands and location based. Social media marketing for restaurants in such communities can help in reaching customers and consumers easily. Creating the posts of tempting visuals of food items catchy content and keywords can bring more customers to the restaurant.

3. Role of Content

Content is omnipresent on the internet. Content is the king and there is a greater impact of taglines and captions over and above long articles. Social media influencers can convey preeminent messages in fewer words. The content for social media marketing for restaurants with impactful, catchy & lesser number of words can influence busy bees of the corporate world. There are different types of content arrangements that influence the mothers engaged in household chores and the youth.

Aesthetic visuals volunteer the release of happy hormones because of varied colour combinations inducing different emotions. A propitious opportunity via content should always be on its way to attach people emotionally. Influence comes like a cakewalk with happiness. Focus on connecting your target market of customers and consumers solely with a specific content approach. Eventually, others are likely to visit your restaurant as a result of social media strategy and management.

4. Tags

The common tags for social media marketing for restaurants are hashtags and location tags. Hashtags for highlighting the content and location tags for highlighting the location. The primary and secondary keywords of your industry and location form hashtags. The consumers search for their desired food items or cuisines or other things related to food and beverage on social media platforms using a keyword.

Example facts related to food consumption, different places to visit, Indian restaurant in Mumbai etc. using hashtags. Then they notice an immediate result with all possible posts, restaurants and content in that specific hashtag. Here’s how they engage using hashtags with the brand, resulting in larger reach. 

What are the 13 Organic Strategies for Social Media Marketing for Restaurants?

Building a successful social media strategy for attracting organic traffic demands qualification, experience, quality, and most importantly familiarity with social media platforms. Great social media influencers always plan each step for social media marketing for restaurants to generate business. Employing the services of a digital marketer is not the sole remedy; the experience of social media platforms holds high-quality importance.

The steps for a flourishing social media management are deciding the objectives, locating the target audience for the cuisines you serve. This involves delving into different social media platforms that your target market approaches to. The message that the restaurant wants to convey is to carve the desired brand image via an unwavering adherence to feedback for or against the restaurant eatables and act on it constructively. If one follows these steps meticulously, then success is sure to follow as a result of social media marketing for restaurants. These are the crucial points for Organic Social Media Strategy:

Content is the king 

Influencer marketing on social media

Influencers on online food ordering platforms

Brand theme alignment and brand language 

Consistent posting

Story engagement

Follower engagement

Follower growth via organic techniques 

Community building 

Hashtag marketing

Visuals in alignment with content 

Google My Business – Importance of Food Brands 

Local Marketing (Limited budgeting)

1. Content is the King 

Content is undoubtedly the king in the arena of successful digital marketing for food brands. The content has to be in accordance with the offered food items and preferences of the target market. Digital Content marketing & SEO intertwines social media marketing for restaurants in a strategic way.

It’s crucial to strategise, manage, monitor, plan and schedule all the steps of social media content marketing with key factors. These factors are an impactful visual creative, whacky caption text, attractive titles and a specific call to action in the post.

The creativity adheres to influencing your audience to notice the visuals posts, taglines, titles to finally hit that “call to action”. The content arrangement plays an important role in decisiveness to trigger a response from your audience.

The amalgamation of content with SEO makes it as precious as gold. Diverse social media handles have distinctive ways of posting promotional content. Some allow posting articles in completion, with thousands of words and some allow posts merely in JPG or PNG format with description in 100-200 words. Get the content ready in both the formats for the most result-oriented social media marketing for restaurants. Likewise, use attention seeking catchy words, point-wise description and hash tags for 100-200 words vivid elucidation.

2. Influencer Marketing on Social Media

Influencer marketing for social media for restaurants has the potential to directly scale up the reach. If you happen to launch a new dish or cuisine or want to pioneer the launch of some amazing recipes, influencer marketing can be of great help. Besides, influencer marketing can attract audience using engagement tactics. There is a multitude of influencers today, for example, food educators, food reviewers, comedian, travel vloggers, etc who have their niche as food & beverage.

Restaurants can target influencer in their niche, to work with them as a barter deal for marketing. Importance of involving specific influencers and bloggers have a great impact on restaurants reach, because their followers are specific to food and restaurants. The follower engagement received via food bloggers is very specific to food industry, hence result to a direct conversion. Restaurants can specifically target college-going students, housewives, and senior citizens, professionals by choosing the right influencer.

A comedian narrating his superb experience of dining-in at your restaurant is a winning strategy as a part of social media marketing for restaurants. Effectively or an entertainer shooting a comic act in your restaurant while appreciating the delicacies and décor

Similarly, you may start a YouTube account and post different videos of recipes, food items, creative presentation and plating, informative content about ingredients like their benefits, interesting details or stories about them, etc. An influencer also could be asked to post videos tagging your restaurant link for higher reach.

3. Influencer Marketing on Online Food ordering platforms

Online food ordering is the most successful strategy that aggregators have developed. Example Zomato and Swiggy being the leaders today In India, have varied techniques to feature restaurants in terms of organic reach. Focus on Zomato blogger marketing is a direct order conversion strategy. A Customer finds in your reviews being genuine and authentic, you get a conversion.

Most importantly, bloggers writing reviews on your page, you get a rating which accounts to the overall restaurant rating. More the positive reviews, more the rating. How-ever it become crucial to understand it always has to be genuine and honest for that algorithm to work for your page.

Zomato supports neutrality. Bloggers and area targeters have a good number of following in specific area. Involving them on page is a good idea for local reach and restaurant ratings.

New restaurants always have a NEW tag showcased on Zomato. With a constant approach via blogger marketing, the tag vanishes as quick as 2 months to showcase your ratings.

4. Brand Theme Alignment and Brand Language 

Brand theme alignment is keeping the exclusive material related to the restaurant brand in alignment with the online theme. The material related to the restaurant covers the menu card, furniture, lighting, staff uniforms, cutlery, crockery, exterior, and interior decoration. The common restaurant themes are fast casuals, corporate touch, royal culture, nature orientation, religious inclination, Bollywood, Hollywood, etc.

Brand theme alignment in a social media campaign is the consolidation of the material designs with theme for social media marketing for restaurants. Every post, article, and GIF must reflect the theme irrespective of the message or occasion. Brand language intermingles with the brand theme. It is the expression or selection of words that matches the Vision, Mission, cuisines, food items, or restaurant brand theme. For example, a restaurant serving South Indian cuisine should not only have staff,interior designing, table decor, entry door design, furniture, lighting, etc.

In South Indian style but also the articles and visuals on Social Media must showcase a South Indian flavor as per the restaurant theme. The brand language covers the tone or conduct of the restaurant. For instance, a restaurant that specializes in catering to the corporate would keep its content in formal English or a restaurant with Rajasthani culture would use the terminology for Rajasthani cuisine. These are small but important nuggets of wisdom for cumulative social media marketing for restaurants. 

5. Consistent Posting

Posting of articles or pictures on social media handles is the most important thing during digital marketing for food brands. This is necessary as an accurate social media strategy because search engine will be ranking an exposure to your posts only when you maintain regularity while posting content for social media marketing for restaurants. The crawler keeps digging through the web for veracious and original content 24/7. It can keep the followers engaged, fabricate credibility, and augment brand awareness. Regular readers would spend more time on the website and increase traffic. It would give a boost to local rank as an added advantage. 

6. Story Engagement

Stories in social media marketing for restaurants can easily bind people with live feed. Stories in digital marketing for food brands are a series of incidents that lead to something concrete reality. Example recipe development, Live customer experience, excellent service, customer video feedback, innovating with contest strategy etc.

Stories promptly interact with customers when they showcase the genuineness of the brand’s presence. For instance, a restaurant brand serving fast casuals or QSR may have a story related to the idea of taking birth to current positioning. One may present the facts that he noticed other brands catering to different meals on visiting the place.

Show the series of events with different posts and interesting captions to build up curiosity. Then move to the idea generation, behind the scenes, challenges conquered, and ultimately the creation of the brand. A story has the ability to engage people for weeks. Make them respond by asking about their reactions to the circumstances mentioned in the stories. They will keenly wait for the next post with excitement and your campaign for social media marketing will be triumphant.

7. Follower Engagement – Never go behind likes and followers

Follower engagement lays the foundation stone for long-lasting Public Relations with the masses. It fulfills the definition of social media marketing for restaurants to let the customer know about the brand in the best possible manner since a follower is someone who admires a brand. Keep them engaged by replying to their comments, providing proper information about the brand, giving free value with interactions.

Try to inculcate amusement in the content, they must feel it’s been created specifically for them and not copy pasted. Disclose new data and engrossing details about your business. Videos and Gifs have an exceptional impact than stationary content. They have life and they can keep the customers attracted for longer.

Remember, never go behind likes and followers on social media. Success is you get a substantial number of engagements with these ways of social media marketing for restaurants. 

8. Follower Growth Organic Techniques 

An increase in organic traffic is the purely fruitful result or award one can have during social media marketing for restaurants. There is some distinctive follower growth organic techniques that can help you improve your business. The first technique is creating interesting, informative, and engaging content. It is advisable to make the messages ready for at least 30 days before you start posting. Decide the messages or topics after stout research based on the preferences and tastes of your niche market.

You must bring regularity in posting and schedule them according to the competitors and market trends. For example, if your competitors are posting alternately, you must maintain the same frequency or more. Similarly, if the target market keeps a steady watch at the social media content, bring the same pace. Meanwhile, also go through the posts and articles written by your competitors and find out the responses to the content that they upload to follow the good techniques and learn from the inappropriate ones while social media marketing for restaurants.

9. Community Building 

Being a part of a community or creating a community of the people sharing common interests is greatly helpful in building a wonderful brand image. You can trigger questions related to the experiences of your restaurant brand in the community groups. The frequent responses as answers to these questions will help your restaurant get trending. Use hash tags and location tags with the questions or concerns for better exposure.

The members of the communities also have high credibility for each other’s reviews because these people have witnessed experiences of similar interests. Community building can generate business, build repute, spread awareness, connect people, provide feedback, etc; which is the need in social media marketing for restaurants.

10. Hashtag Marketing for Organic Growth

Hash tags are the shortcuts to making the post or content reach the customers. Whatever you write with a hash tag, has this symbol- ‘#’. It started with twitter, a social media platform. However, now it is used on all the social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, WeChat, Pinterest, etc. One can reach the content faster by using the hash tags. This is a complete and systematic process of hashtag marketing that is used in articles and visuals in social media marketing for restaurants. 

11. Visuals should Complement the Content 

While writing a 1000 words article, it is advisable to use 2 images or more because simply paragraphs can be tedious to grasp. The presence of creative and interactive pictures for vegetables keeps the readers engaged. However, the visuals must convey the same message as the content. Writing long articles ensures usage of keywords and secondary keywords multiple times. With this Google Crawler would rank the website honestly and images with keywords as ‘alt text’, in addition can do wonders in social media marketing for restaurants.

12. Google My Business – Importance of Food Brands 

Google is not only a search engine but also a provider of integral local business promoter. One can make a free listing, website, create advertisements, submit posts, and generate business with different tools. Google My Business is one of the tools that grows business as a part of geo-marketing for restaurants. You can list your business locally with a specific address to promote dine-in and delivery. Delivery kitchens may or may not require to mention the exact address. Its recommended for QSR and casual diner to list it with proper address and pin-code.

You can create posts and advertise your business in this specific location which and a required keyword. This is more accomplishing than other social media portals for having a local organic traffic for your restaurant business. The reason being Google is the most customary search engine whether one looks for a salon or rental property, offices or restaurants in their “Near me” keyword. This is why digital marketing for food brands using Google My Business is remarkable.

13. Local Paid Marketing (Limited budgeting)

Local paid marketing is also extremely result-oriented in generating organic traffic. People love to visit classy and magnificent restaurants and hotels. Their presence in the nearby areas is preferred. However, restaurants located in remote areas of a city are equally in demand due to their extraordinary services or awesome cuisines. Local paid social media marketing for restaurants is absolutely targeted to get exposure before local people to visit the restaurant. It is easy to make one visit on a weekend for leisure especially if the restaurant is nearby.

Leaders of the Industry with Great Social Media Marketing 

Social media marketing for restaurants is an art to pursue with extreme patience for the reason it gets skyrocketing results. With loads of creativity and passion, one can take the restaurant business to great heights. Here are some industry leaders with an amazing social media presence:

1. Hitchki
2. Behrouz Biryani
3. Theobroma

• Hitchki

Hitchki is a brand worth paying a visit to when in Mumbai. It’s based on the three most important elements for which India is famous: Bollywood, Indian Music, and Indian Food. This brand is an amalgamation of all the three. Looking at their strategy for social media marketing for restaurants, they have social media presence on Twitter, Instagram, 3-4 Facebook pages for Hitchki Restaurant, Hitchki lounge, Hitchki BKC Restaurant.

Bollywood inspiration is visible in their social media posts as well along with the menu. Their brand language in visuals is in Bollywood terminology, evergreen dialogues of Bollywood movies, pictures of Bollywood actors, Bollywood characters, the names of dishes are named after some actors, and movies, the creating presentation and plating is also according to Bollywood movies, etc.

You may not find a plethora of likes on their posts but they are after the principle of consistent posting regarding the latest offers and other details for social media marketing for restaurants. Hichki took no time in becoming a prestigious name because of its most innovative Bollywood-Inspired Menu.

• Behrouz Biryani

Contemplating on Behrouz Biryani is a royal affair. Its logo is breathtaking. Nothing else can be better than the black background and an aristocratic creative presentation of biryani on its social media handles for social media marketing for restaurants. The grandiose is mandatorily present in all the pictures. The brand maintains multiple Facebook pages according to locations. Their brand language fabulously illuminates the priceless taste of the Biryanis as claimed by the restaurant brand theme.

Behrouz Biryani has a social media account on LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Twitter, Medium, Scoop It, YouTube, etc. It maintains all the social media platforms with equal attention and expertise using the principles of social media marketing for restaurants. Videos related to unboxing biryanis, stories related to Behrouz Biryani, reviews of recipes, etc is on its YouTube Channel. On Scoop It, you may order Biryanis, on Medium you may read informative articles related to Biryanis, savour irresistible posts of offers on Twitter. The campaigning activities, approach and presentation of Behrouz Biryani is undoubtedly ideal as per the standards for social media marketing for restaurants.

• Theobroma

Theobroma claims itself to be dessert of the Gods, a landmark tagline for brand building. The multi-dimensional menu in bakery items of the brand has a distinct presentation on the website. It uses light shades of pink, blue, green, brown and other colors. On Facebook, it has 3 pages according to location and food items. Surprisingly, it has multiple accounts on LinkedIn also according to specialisation.

On Instagram, people can get postings related to bakery delights. On Twitter, the posts relate to services given to clients is present, on Pinterest, pics relate with the origin of ingredients, on Reddit, there are informative articles related to chocolates, etc. Theobroma a has a wide social media presence and your campaign for social media marketing for restaurants must also have the same.

Conclusion

The magnitude of successful social media marketing for restaurants is visible with some parameters. An augmentation in website traffic or your page on aggregator portals is a clear sign of more people knowing your restaurant and willing to order from or search for it. A large scale of messages by customers and consumers is another signal that people are consuming meals cooked by your restaurant.

A number engagement activities show the height of brand awareness of your restaurant brand. Find out the data associated with the above-mentioned factors using analytics tools and decide on which social media platforms you must continue for organic growth. All this is achievable by formulating a systematic social media strategy. Investing a reasonable amount for digital marketing for food brands is a wonderful backup plan for crisis management in the restaurant business. DNY Hospitality has been fortunate to provide Digital Marketing service with a focused coverage of all the mentioned points for social media marketing for restaurants.