Social Media Posts for Restaurants: Leveling Up

People are now warming up to having dinner out after being limited in their homes for most of the past two years. But how do they decide where to go? In 2022, many looked for options through social media. If you are a restaurateur, you’d best learn how to use social media posts for restaurants to attract more customers.

Why Are Social Media Posts for Restaurants Important?

Market behavior studies show that restaurant guests are more likely to be searching for nearby diners online before deciding. A strong social media presence is a necessity for your restaurant for customers to find your place. Also, it is a way for you to polish your brand and communicate with your customers.

Having that in mind, here are the main reasons why social media posts for restaurants are important.

1. Build customer loyalty. By regularly posting on social media, restaurants gain intimacy with their customers. Engaging discussions on social media posts keep guests updated on the comings and goings of the restaurant, letting them feel like part of the family.
2. “Word of mouth.” You won’t have to pay a cent to advertise your brand through social media. User-generated content has taken over the traditional “word of mouth” advertising to bring increased foot traffic to your restaurant.
3. A variety of options on free platforms. Social media marketing is absolutely free unless you opt for paid ads. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter are the most engaging social media platforms to attract an organic following among guests.
4. Connection with customers. People want to connect more with the business they patronize. They want to be kept informed of special promos, events, and product developments.

If you are a restaurant owner, it will do you well to ask: What are the best practices on social media posts for restaurants these days? How can I level up on these practices? What social media platforms will create the most impact for my restaurant? Also, how can I build up a loyal social media following, persuade them to participate, and encourage positive feedback?

Let’s try to top up the best practices on social media posts for restaurants we found on the internet in recent months.

Best Practices for Social Media Posts for Restaurants

For most restaurateurs who weigh in on social media, success relies on leveraging their own restaurant’s strong points and getting their customers engaged in their campaign. It’s also important to choose the right social media platform. Let’s discuss these and see how you can improve on these best practices.

Sharing Some Background About Your Restaurant

Many businesses commit the crucial mistake of projecting a stoic, impersonal image. Today, customers want to know the brands they’re patronizing on a personal level, especially when it comes to restaurants.

They want an open interaction with the familiarity of long-time friends and feel a more human experience when browsing through their social media posts.

How can your restaurant attract more customers with this strategy?

Display a picture of your restaurant’s humble beginning prominently with a brief note about your history. This will create interest and offer a great spot for taking souvenir photos. Imagine those photos ending up on your customers’ own social media, even tagging your restaurant.

Level this up: You can go so far as creating a history walk, where well-chosen photos from different periods of your restaurant hang in a hallway. This gives your guests something to talk about.

Can you imagine how a similar post on your social media page brings you closer to your guests?

Remember, pictures and videos tell a thousand tales, sometimes more than words can convey. How about the design of your restaurant’s signage or logo? These are good talking points that can start a comment thread on social media posts for restaurants.

Showing Every Step From the Market to the Table

Ever notice the interest in cooking shows and reality kitchen contests? Granted, people watch these primarily to learn how to cook.

For many, seeing how their food is prepared in a kitchen interests them. It assures them of the quality of the food they eat in your restaurant. They also want to see that the food on their plate is well-thought and properly prepared. That’s why some restaurants have view windows to their kitchen.

Sharing pictures and videos of every activity in their operations also attract new customers. You can have similar social media post ideas for restaurants as your virtual view window.

Since you’re already doing the cooking anyway, why not document these and share them on your social media page?

Level this up: A great idea for social media content is an interview with satisfied customers. Have your chef visit the tables discreetly and check how they’re enjoying the meal. Don’t forget the complimentary dessert afterward!

Post well-edited videos as original content on YouTube and share the link on your social media page. Shoot videos of your kitchen staff in the market selecting the fresh catch of the day or selecting the finest ingredients on hand.

Capture them on video as they prepare one of your popular dishes without disclosing your most coveted secret ingredients.

Follow your waiter as he serves the meal to the table. Have your chef interview the customer after they finish the meal and just before bussing out the dishes.

Remember, you’re shooting short clips of every activity, not a full Masterchef episode.

Featuring Your Team on Social Media Posts for Restaurants

Of course, they’re hitting on you for your food. Your place and your history are the stuff of legends. Plus, they love your service. Any other feather in your cap that needs rustling?

Featuring your staff on your social media page will give it a more personal touch. Some best practice social media posts for restaurants include photos of team building and company training activities. While these give a glimpse of how you treat your people, they hardly make your customer feel they are part of the family.

Some restaurants regularly feature individual team members—perhaps an employee of the month or a birthday celebrant—with a picture of them as they work. Adding some more information on their professional background or most memorable guest experience in the caption has worked wonders for many.

For one, employees feel the company cares much about them and not just their contribution to the bottom line. Customers also sense it and show their appreciation with returned loyalty.

Level this up: To the extent allowed by your employees, you can also feature them in their personal activities like doing their favorite hobby or playing their favorite sport.

Regularly Posting Updates on Your Latest Offers and Events

To gain more followers each day, your social media team must be proactive in posting content on your page and maximizing interaction on social media posts for restaurants.

What can you post? You’ll never run out of social media content. New menus, promotions, or daily action in your restaurant will keep your followers entertained and engaged.

Level this up: Facebook Stories and Facebook Reels allow a daily posting of pictures and short videos. Make them feel part of the action as you share live events and excite them with shoutouts as they comment on the live footage.

Most restaurants use Instagram to showcase menu and promotion updates and drive visitors to avail of the latest treat. Just as on Facebook, you can also go live on Instagram and let your followers interact directly.

Leveraging Vendors and Suppliers With Social Media Posts for Restaurants

Are your vendors and suppliers keeping a social media page as well? How about posts that feature them and the products that you use in preparing great meals?

A simple shout-out will put your restaurant on your vendor’s followers’ radar. Plus, they stand to become your “reciprocal followers” on social media accounts as well.

Your customers and social media followers will discover how much you care about quality. They will notice the lengths you go through to source the best materials to put quality food on their plates.

Some businesses simply ask their vendors for photos to share as social media posts for restaurants and feature interesting information about their products. Tagging your supplier will most likely earn a re-share of the post and their audience may become your customers too.

Level this up: On special seasons and occasions, you can partner with your suppliers to sponsor an event. This can be a promo, a charity event, or a public relations campaign.

Feature the event together prominently on both of your social media pages. Both your followers and event participants might even share the posts on their individual accounts as well.

Getting Customers to Share Social Media Posts for Restaurants

The most important person in a business is the customer. We’ve heard this time and again–and it cannot be truer than in your social media account.

Aside from what is already discussed above, how can you get your customers and followers engaged in your social media posts? What kind of interaction will bring more returns?

Initiate engagement with customers. For effective social media posts for restaurants, restaurateurs need to learn to involve their guests to be part of the campaign even without asking them.

Posting a simple survey question can get your customers going and engage with your content. Facebook and Instagram allow you to conduct polls, like do they prefer red over white wine, strawberry or chocolate for dessert, etc. This can even help you gauge your customers’ preferences and use the posts as focus group discussions in planning your meals.

Level this up: Inviting your followers to post pictures and media content in their comments will add more to the interaction.

Paying Attention to Your Social Posts for Restaurants

Be ready to respond to your customers and followers when they post comments on your social media posts for restaurants. This assures them that you are interested in what they say and encourages them to reach out more.

So it’s okay toaccept reviews, whether on the positive or negative side.

For positive comments, a simple thank you may be enough. You may add how expressions of appreciation inspire you and your staff to continually strive for improvement. But how about criticisms and negative comments?

Restaurateurs treat negative comments as an opportunity to explain or defend their side. It may even be an opportunity to turn negatives into positives. For example, when responding to comments about pricing, underscore the importance of quality even if that means higher prices.

Level this up: Do not fall into traps to engage you in an online argument with trolls. Leave that to your most loyal followers to debunk.

You can drown out negative comments by always adding new content to your page. React to positive comments and reviews with modesty and appreciation. When trolls go low, take the high ground. Focus on positive content as you share social media posts for restaurants on your page.

Inviting Customers to Share Social Media Posts for Restaurants

User-generated content (UGC) is one of the easiest content ideas to incorporate into your restaurant’s social media marketing strategy. UGC is any content made by your guests that highlights your restaurant.

What’s exciting about user-generated content is that this gives your restaurant free publicity coming organically outside your social media account.

Encourage your customers to use specific hashtags (#) that lead to your profile.

Level this up: You can craft a catchphrase with a hashtag other than your restaurant’s name and share it in your posts for your customers to follow. It can be a slogan you use for your restaurant. Your followers will catch up and share this organically.

What Is the Best Platform To Use for Social Media Posts for Restaurants?

It depends largely on your target audience. Selecting more than one platform will give you the most amount of exposure for your restaurant without taxing you much on time.

Here are some of the most used platforms and their strengths.

Instagram Social Media Posts for Restaurants

This is probably the most popular choice for many restaurants. It makes use of a lot of visuals from pictures to videos.

Instagram is also a great platform for a community centered on your restaurant. Best social media posts for restaurants on Instagram include pictures and videos that your followers will enjoy viewing and interacting with one another.

If you target people who appreciate aesthetics as an audience, Instagram will positively guide them to you.

Facebook Social Media Posts for Restaurants

Facebook is probably the social media that started it all. Facebook offers a flexible platform for stories, photo albums, live events, shoutouts, announcements, and many more.

Facebook has designed various functionalities for businesses such as Marketplace and Facebook Ads. Facebook Live also allows social media posts for restaurants to interact with followers in real time.

You can build a large community of followers through Facebook. All you need is to post updates to keep your visibility regularly.

Just like Instagram, Facebook also has Stories that can be used in the same way

Snapchat Social Media Posts for Restaurants

Snapchat is designed for a more intimate online community experience. It also has Snapchat Stories with similar features as those on Facebook and Instagram. You can share pictures and videos daily as social media posts for restaurants exclusively for your followers via Snapchat.

Pinterest and Twitter Social Media Posts for Restaurants

Pinterest is also heavy on visuals. It can be likened to a corkboard where you can pin pictures and announcements in a virtual environment. Social media experts suggest that to gain traction on Pinterest, you must keep your page open and pin a handful of content every day.

If Pinterest is a corkboard, Twitter is a whiteboard where you can post short expressions of 280 characters or less. Twitter’s strength is in the number of its patronizers. When you tweet announcements on your page, your followers will immediately be notified. They can also retweet your post as soon as they read it.

You can tweet about the latest developments in your restaurant or announce an upcoming event to reach the most number of people quickly. Use hashtags for a greater reach.

You can also retweet posts from chefs and other restaurants, putting your business on equal footing with more popular brands.

Best Time to Share Social Media Posts for Restaurants

Your audience’s gastronomic cravings may be awakened at any time. But with today’s hustle and bustle, most diners prefer to indulge on the weekends when they are not in a hurry to enjoy a hearty meal. Sharing your social media posts close to or during weekends will bring more results than the rest of the week, between 10 am-1 pm when most online engagement occurs.

Getting the Most Out of Social Media Posts for Restaurants Now

We’ve seen that a strong online presence is crucial for restaurants. Also, the kind of social media posts on your restaurant’s page will spell success in building your online presence. By improving on the best practices, you can make the most out of social media. Be familiar with what social media platforms have to offer and keep yourself updated with their new features.

Inviting customers to participate in your social media campaign is doable. Loyal customers won’t mind posting positive reviews for your restaurant at any time.

You can provide guests access to Wifi as they enjoy their time in your restaurant. Beambox offers a password-less login and even remembers them on their next visit to your place.

Installation of Beambox is a breeze and gives you many benefits in return. For example, you can collect data on the frequency and timing of guests who use your WiFi. This helps you better understand how to run your restaurant. Learn more and start growing your business.

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