By Bhavik Soni, Contributor
Once out of sight, out of mind.
The adage proves especially true for restaurants during the coronavirus pandemic. The restaurant industry has seen visits and sales plummeted since lockdowns and social distance measures have been implemented, which has a rippling effect limiting opportunities for in-person promotions. This means digital marketing – especially through social media platforms – is imperative to stay in the forefront of diners’ minds.
How do you promote your food and keep people interested when they are hesitant of having any human contact outside of their homes? What do you do to keep up with this unprecedented situation without losing your business?
Here are some ideas.
Focus on Being Authentic
Create video for your social accounts where you let your followers “meet” your staff. Themes like meet the chef, ask the chef, know our staff, and behind-the-scene bloopers of those interviews. You can also share personal experiences and how you and your staff are coping with the pandemic taking over the world.
Showing the human side of your restaurant business is a great way to stay connected with your guests and online followers. With all the restrictions put on people during COVID-19, people are taking more interest in knowing each other as humans rather than brands. It builds a sense of community and camaraderie between diners and your business. We’re all in this together, so focusing on the human side of your restaurant and how guest and staff can help each other can make a strong impression.
Focus on Your Community
With your dining rooms being slower than normal, now’s a good time to put some attention outside of your business in a way get into the good books of the locals and your potential guests.
For example: band together as a community and offer special discounts to “Corona Warriors” like health workers, grocery store employees, and janitors. You can also give a shout out to other local businesses in or around your area, or donate meals to the needy with every meal purchased by your guests. Get the community involved, too, by letting them donate a few extra bucks with each order to help cover the expenses of feeding those most in need.
Not only does your money spends better this way compared to social media paid promotions, but will also be helping your community in return.
Add a Little Humor
These are stressful times and every joke counts. Occasionally dropping some ha-has will help people connect to you. You can add everyday restaurant humor to your feed or stories that are relatable for your target audience.
Memes are especially helpful as they have a higher likelihood of being shared. Below is an example:
It immediately makes the reader chuckle and want to forward to a close friend, thus spreading your brand.
Share Some Tips for Your Best Recipe
People in all corners of the world have resorted to cooking themselves their favorite dishes. From a loaf of bread to traditional world cuisines, the quarantined are indulging in all sorts of culinary adventures. How does it benefit you and your restaurant? It gives you an opportunity to attract online attention by sharing some of witty cooking tips with your followers.
You also add short reels, IGTV videos, or go live as an online cooking show. This will give them a solid reason to keep coming back and interact on your social media page.
Seek Out Influencers
One of the best ways to get in front of more eyes on social media is to partner and collaborate with social media influencers. Influencers are celebrities or local personalities with a large and interactive following who listen and appreciate the influencers reviews and thoughts on products and events. It’s essentially a sponsored post but can still have a more organic feel to it.
For your restaurant, you’ll want to seek out local influencers. Some will require payment in exchange for a sponsored post on their feed while others may be happy to just get a free meal(s) out of the deal. Either way, with coronavirus, the results driven by these promotions can be greater than before.
Engage with Your Followers
Due to COVID-19, people are spending even more time on social media platforms. This is a perfect opportunity to engage with people interacting on your page by liking and commenting on your posts. Go as far as liking some of their posts on their feeds. It’s a level of interaction most brands ignore and will make your restaurant stand out as one that cares.
Similarly, you can also share posts and stories that demand engagement from your followers such as polls or Q&As. It establishes good relations and boost your page’s reach.
Use Top-Notch Visuals
In short, tempt the audience to come and visit your restaurant (while promoting your safe, social-distance policies), or order takeout/delivery with some stunning images. You can do it by sharing high-quality visuals of your restaurant (photographs or videos), your signature dishes, and those Instagram-worthy decor of your business. If need be, hire a pro food photographer; you want your visuals to tempt your followers, not repel them.
About the Author
Bhavik Soni is a Creative Writer at Auto Monkey. We provide an original analysis of the latest happenings in the social media industry. Connect with Latest Social Media Trends and News plus tips on Twitter, Facebook and other social tools on the web.