Creating a Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare account for your business is as easy as maintaining your personal account.
These three social media platforms are known to be among the top most effective marketing strategies for many businesses, including restaurants.
How do these social media platforms integrate with your restaurant? Well, they all have one thing in common: they make interaction with your customers easy and convenient. There is much more to social media than just creating an account, posting a profile picture and getting your company contact information.
Unlike your personal account, followers actually want to see content and interaction. That is where active social media comes in.
Learn to properly navigate these three social platforms and your market will improve.
Here is how.
Channel One: Facebook
Don’t just create a facebook page, create a page with tone. What is it that you want to convey?
Part of social marketing is knowing your market. Sure, these are your customers, but isn’t social media also about engaging others?
Creating a tone helps distinguish who you want to be known as. For example, do you want to be known as a family friendly restaurant or a more adult-oriented bar food restaurant hangout? Your tone ultimately will depend on what content you will be pushing and also what type of feedback you will be receiving. Your followers will ultimately help embrace and sculpt your tone through their interactions with your page.
Facebook is a great social media platform that allows businesses to get started. Once you know the basics, you will be amazed with the wide variety of other forms to engage your customers.
Here are some Facebook Starter Tips:
- Take advantage of both your profile and cover picture. For the best results, make your profile picture your restaurants logo and your cover photo, one of your delicious cuisines with a brief description or name of the dish.
- Have you ever heard of anyone reaching your max capacity to post photos? No? That is because Facebook doesn’t have a capacity. Post as many savory photos of your dishes and get your viewers salivating to try one! You can even create albums focusing from food to customer interaction within the restaurant, to one on your employees. Show many sides of your restaurant through pictures.
- Post exclusive offers to all of those who “Like” your page. The great thing about social media is that your Fans can help promote your restaurant my sharing your deals or posts. The more shares you get, the more “Likes” and Fans you will get.
- Add videos. Show more than just a still photo, get your Fans to see more than you have to offer.
- Create an event. Forget about snail mail, when was the last time you sent one anyway? Invite all of your Fans and friends with a click of a button. You can see who has seen it, how many are coming and any suggestions that your customers may have.
- Engage with customers by commenting on the posts that they post about your restaurant. Think like a consumer and interact with your customers, after all, if they are posting something about you, they are doing you a favor.
Channel Two: Twitter
Believe it or not, 140 characters are enough to make your restaurant be heard!
Although Facebook has a lot more features, Twitter has been known to be the fastest social media tool to post a status, primarily because most of the users are accessing it on their mobile devices.
Stuck on what to tweet? Here are some Twitter Tips:
- Use active voice. Just like a regular structured sentence, or like a cheerleader, active voice includes many main verbs that make it more enjoyable to read.
- Using active voice shortens your word use and excites your reader.
- Let your website talk. Include a link to a page on your website and get your followers to take further action.
- Don’t just tweet; add photos too. Adding a photo draws traffic to your Twitter page and increases your followers to share your tweet.
- Hashtags! Hashtags! Hashtags! You have seen them everywhere, so use them!
- Be creative with your words and use Hashtags that are not commonly used. For example, #CrabCakeMania. These Hashtags will allow your users to easy access feeds that are solely related to your restaurant.
- Send your tweets at the right times. Of course, no need to remind you, you are a restaurant but don’t just tweet for the sake of tweeting, tweet because you want outcomes. Get results by tweeting before breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Tweet examples:
“Hard day at work? Join us for $2 Drafts – Happy Hour!”
“Come try our new lunch menu – Need I say Succulent Lobster?”
Channel Three: Foursquare
Yes, Facebook and Twitter are both mobile apps, but Foursquare is a social media platform that is utilized solely by a smartphone. Foursquare is a great integration to all of your other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Here are tips on how to properly utilize Foursquare:
- Add your business location, your customers cannot “check in” without a physical address.
- Promote your restaurant by posting updates. Just like Twitter and Facebook, you can send your specials, coupons and deals.
- Follow the tone of your Facebook and Twitter pages and create your Foursquare page Keep your tone consistent but add new creative and unique content . Your Foursquare page keeps all of your location in one page.
- Enhance your events. Even though you may have already posted your event on Facebook, it doesn’t hurt to add it to another platform.
- Give your Mayor, an incentive like a free appetizer or free dessert. Serious Foursquare users like to compete and love being the Mayor and getting recognized for it!
