9 Tips on How to Create the Best Restaurant Social Media Campaigns

Did you know 72% of people use social media to look for restaurants? Your audience is already on social media, you just have to employ the right tools and strategies to convince them to become your clients.

In this article, you will find out how to create the best restaurant social media campaigns to reach your goals, be it awareness, more visibility, or conversion.

What is a social media campaign for a restaurant?

You are probably already posting on social media for your restaurant, but you are focusing on individual posts. For example, you may be sharing your newest menu item, an attractive promotion, or a positive review.

A social media campaign is comprised of a series of posts and other social media measures with a single purpose. Let’s say your objective is to increase sales for your business.

For your campaign, you will have posts that entice people to order, an added button for order, contests with prizes, and constant interaction with your followers.

Read more: How to Attract More Customers to Your Restaurant Using Social Media

Types of social media campaigns for restaurants

The best restaurant social media campaigns can be categorized according to their objective. Depending on the goal, you will use different techniques to ensure you reach the result you hope for. Here are the most common ones:

• Increase visibility: use paid posts with your food and restaurant interior, organize a contest with likes and shares, participate in viral food trends;
• Increase brand awareness: post about your team, show your favorite menu items, add posts about the restaurant’s story and values;
• Sell more food online: share positive reviews where people mention online ordering, post promotions only available online, show people how easy it is to order from social media;
• Get more reservations for your restaurant: you can have a video showing people how easy the reservation process is, an influencer recommending their followers to book a table multiple posts of your delicious food, and a link to the booking system in the caption.
• Improve engagement: use questions in captions, add stories that require people to answer, organize contests with attractive prizes;
• Increase website traffic: add a link to your website in the bio, include a link to the website in captions, add posts that encourage people to visit the website for an exclusive promotion;
• Get feedback from customers: post positive reviews from other customers, use a story with a space for people to enter their opinions, add posts that directly ask for customers;
• Drive repeat business: let people know about your loyalty programs, promote promotions only available for repeat customers, retarget previous customers with paid ads.

9 Tips to create the best restaurant social media campaigns

The first step to creating a great restaurant social media campaign is to choose a goal. Get inspired by the list above and follow these tips to ensure you achieve the desired result:

1. Identify your target audience

Setting up campaigns implies a lot of effort and, sometimes, money. To achieve results, the best restaurant social media campaigns must be targeted to your audience.

For example, if you are a fine dining restaurant, don’t waste your time and money trying to attract people from a lower income bracket because they won’t be able to afford your food.

When you create a campaign, always start with a target audience, such as working individuals if you want to promote your lunchtime offers.

Read more: Restaurant Target Market: How to Identify It and Why It Is Important for Your Business

2. Research your competition

The best restaurant social media campaigns will help you outshine your competition and convince potential customers to pick your place over theirs.

Find competitors in your area that serve the same type of food as yours and check out their social media. What type of campaigns do they have? Are people interacting with their posts? Borrow the strategies that work for them and try out new ones to surpass them.

3. Post during busy hours

Your campaigns have a higher chance of succeeding if more people see your posts. Therefore, you should limit your posts, organic and paid, to the busiest hours on each platform.

To find the best hours to post, you can:

• Search for online statistics for every platform you have a profile on;
• Check the Analytics of your social media account;
• Ask your followers directly when they are most likely to be active on social media.

4. Encourage conversion with technology

As your profit depends on the number of orders you receive, you are likely to set up a restaurant social media campaign with the goal of selling more.

If you want people to buy your food, you must make it as easy as possible for your clients. You will need:

• An online ordering system: to allow people to order online, start with the free online ordering system from GloriaFood that you can set up in less than 10 minutes. It makes the ordering experience a breeze for your clients and very manageable for you, as a restaurant owner.

• A direct link to your menu in the bio: you can allow people to order directly from social media by adding the link generated with GloriaFood in your bio. With a simple click, clients are taken to your online menu where they can pick their favorite menu items;

• A sharable link in your captions: take it a step further and use the smart link from GloriaFood in a lot of your captions. Clients don’t have to go to your profile to reach your menu, they can just click on the link from the caption.

Read more: The Benefits of Using a Free Facebook Food Ordering System

5. Attract people with promotions

The best restaurant social media campaigns usually include promotions because they are a surefire way to persuade people to take action. Potential customers won’t be able to resist a 2+1 deal, a free dessert, or a 10% discount on the whole order.

Great news, you can create attractive restaurant promotions in seconds with the online ordering system from GloriaFood. They will be shown at the top of the menu, where no one will miss them.

6. Organize contests

Your social media posts reach more people if they have a big engagement. The best way to encourage people to interact with your posts is to organize a contest. Here are a few simple competition ideas you can include in your visibility and engagement campaigns:

• Like and share to win an all-expenses paid meal for two;
• Like and comment with your favorite item from our menu to win a free tasting menu experience;
• Comment with a picture of a previous order from our restaurant to win 3 free meals up to $60.

Read more: 20 Restaurant Contest Ideas That Will Delight Your Customers

7. Collaborate with influencers

Some of the best restaurant social media campaigns include influencer collaborations because they deliver fast results. Food influencers have a large following that trusts their recommendation and that will fare well for your restaurant.

If you don’t have a big budget, look for small, local, influencers to only target your local community. You must take a look over their social media to notice their previous paid posts and see if they fit your brand and values.

Read more: Restaurant Influencer Marketing Guide: How to Do It and Why

8. Share user-generated content

There are two main types of user-generated content you should include in your social media campaigns:

• Positive reviews: always ask for permission from the user before posting them on your page;
• Photos from clients: they could be of your food, interior, or atmosphere. Practically, each image where your restaurant is tagged positively.

Whenever possible, try to include this type of content in your campaigns because it builds trust with your potential customers. If they see other people had a positive experience, they will be persuaded to try you out.

Read more: User-Generated Content for Restaurant Website or Free Advertising?

9. Monitor your campaign’s performance

After your campaign is over, take time to look over the results. Did you increase your brand awareness? Did you receive more orders? What type of posts and measures worked best?

By analyzing each campaign in detail, you will be able to identify ways of improvement so your next social media campaign achieves and even surpasses your goal. Use these tools:

• The analytics feature of your social media accounts
• The Reports module from GloriaFood

Final words

Learning how to set up the best restaurant social media campaigns takes a bit of practice. But using the advice provided above, you will become a master in no time. Remember to always have your target audience in mind and rely on technology to convert followers into clients.

You might also like:

• 5 Best Social Media Platforms for Restaurants & Why You Need Them
• Social Media Restaurant Statistics to Profit from
• 100+ Restaurant Social Media Post Captions That Will Attract Customers