Why is Social Media Such an Important Platform to Help Grow your Brand?
There are 3.2 billion social media users – which equates to about 42% of the world population. With the power of the internet at their fingertips, consumers can know an immense amount of information about your business before stepping foot in your establishment. One of the main reasons, a consumer will choose to dine at a specific restaurant is trust. Customers want to know that they can trust that their service and food quality will be consistent. Social media pages are a great way to establish transparency. Utilising this also establishes your online presence by showing your restaurant as a competitive and active brand within the industry.
Here's our top tips on how to grow your brand using Social Media:
1: Make your content meaningful and relatable
The best restaurants don’t just sell food—they sell experiences. For many consumers, social media is part of the appeal of dining out because it enables them to share their experiences online - giving your potential customers a platform to share their experience is key to getting them to buy into your brand and become a customer for life!
2. Ensure your content is consistent
Only share relevant content. Consumers like predictability, if your posts are inconsistent and irrelevant to your niche, you will lose followers and notice that your engagement decreases. Monitor what photos on your feed are getting the most likes and engagement - and post more of these. Social media is the modern age shop window, aesthetically pleasing content is a must!
3. Plan your posts in advance
To keep on track, you should always use a content calendar. This way you can plan both your content and copy in advance, and stay on top of key dates, and will never be in a situation where you’re panic-posting, which can easily lead to mistakes!
4. Leverage the power of strong community management
Social media allows the world to be closer together. In a world of hyper-connectivity, consumers are able to interact with restaurants using online platforms for example, if they have any questions, such as; menu options, event inquiries, or opening hours. It’s very important to respond to any queries in a timely manner, to show that you’re a trustworthy and customer-centric brand.
5. Be strategic when it comes to hashtags
If used well, hashtags can help deliver against brand KPI’s, such as reach, awareness, and engagement. They also act as a way of organising brand content, allowing you to clearly communicate what your brand stands for. Hashtags play a crucial role in developing interest in your social media accounts and are used on a number of social media platforms, most commonly, Twitter and Instagram. Including a hashtag with your posts helps to categorize content for your audience. From a business perspective, it is your chance to be noticed in such conversation and establish your company as a voice for certain topics. Knowing where, why, and how to hashtag can change your social media game and presence tremendously.
6. Keep your standards high
Food is incredibly visual, it’s no surprise that there are over 345 million #food hashtags on Instagram. Your content needs to stand out amongst competitors, and doing so takes a lot of precision and planning strong visual and written content targeted at the right audience, at the right moment. Despite the dynamic nature of social media, each and every post says something about your brand, so caution and attention to detail is imperative.
7. Monitor your success
Many business owners feel that their number of social media followers doesn’t translate into real life customers and sales. An excellent way to monitor your ROI (Return Of Investment) is to host giveaways or promotions through your social media platforms. This way, business owners can track how many customers they’re actually converting from social media.
8.. Utilise Influencer Marketing
An influencer is an individual who has a following in a particular niche, which they actively engage with and who has the power to affect purchase decisions of others because of his/her authority, knowledge, position or relationship with his/her audience. The use of influencers has become widely popular in the past few years and some of the biggest brands mainly use influencer to attract consumers. The influence that their action and attitude have on consumers behavior is called Social proof.
9: Create a positive Customer Experience
Statistics show that 71% of customers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family (Forbes, 2018).
And most importantly, have fun and enjoy all that social media has to offer!
Get in Touch: Social Awaken
www.socialawaken.com
READ MORE: The Role of AI in Social Media Analysis for Restaurants
