Nowadays, managing social media for restaurants is an essential technology in its own right. What’s the first thing you do when you’re researching somewhere to eat? You look it up, then invariably end up scrolling through one of their social media channels for clues about its character. It’s an indispensable way to make your space, your food, and your whole establishment look irresistible. But what’s the best way to go about it? Here’s a platform-by-platform breakdown.

Facebook

You’ll most likely be familiar with the reviews functionality of Facebook already, but how can you give potential diners something even more than a raft of five-star recommendations? Community, that’s how. Facebook responds beautifully if you try to create a wider community around your business – not just the business itself. When you’re posting, go big and go general. Think of what will engage potential customers who aren’t in your local area. Sure, pictures of your delicious food will help, but what about something that will speak to the whole world? And remember, you need to feed the algorithm as much as you feed your customers: any drops in engagement will make it that little bit harder to have a hit next time, so make sure each post is dynamite.

Twitter

Here’s your chance to go viral in the traditional sense, for all the right reasons. Show snippets of life behind the scenes of your business, share some authentic pictures and clever wordplay, shout out to your favourite big accounts and display the very individual character of your particular establishment. Twitter is best for interacting with those happy customers who have @-ed you in their post-prandial tweeting, and regular posting is required to keep your restaurant at the front of their minds. Pictures of empty plates, happy waiting staff and satisfied customers are all welcome here. 

Instagram

It’s the biggie: Instagram has proven to be an essential new way of representing the restaurant industry, and chances are you’re already posting pictures of your delicious labours all over the ‘gram. The nature of the platform means you can be exclusive: reserve only your most aesthetically enticing images and your most artfully crafted verbiage. You need to be beautiful, clear and palpably tasty. You may not post multiple times in any given day, but each post has to be as gorgeous as you can make it. Likes come easy on Instagram, and there’s a lot of competition: make sure you’re competing.

Don’t forget to read our top 3 tips for increasing Instagram post engagement.

And one final tip for managing social media…

Plan ahead. You can schedule so much of your social media content ahead of time that it needn’t be something you juggle when you really should be taking card payments or clearing tables. Use your downtime to plan your social media activity so that you can sit back and let the engagement graphs surge upwards.

Feel free to contact us for more information about managing social media channels for your business.