Social Media in Marketing for Restaurants: Strategies and Techniques

This article discusses the role of social media in marketing for restaurant businesses. It covers the importance of website content, directing traffic to the website, and using social media to market the restaurant. The article also provides strategies and techniques to create customer loyalty.

Running Head: SOCIAL MEDIA IN MARKETING
Social Media in Marketing
Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary……………………………………………………………………………3
2. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….4
3. The scope of the Restaurant
Business………………………………………………………………5
4. Restaurant Website Content…………………………………………………………………6- 7
5. Directing traffic to the Website……………………………………………………………… 8
6. Using Social Media in Marketing the Restaurant…………………………………………9– 10
7. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………… 11
8. Reference…………………………………………………………………………………….12

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Executive Summary
Social media has the significant role in marketing. To clearly demonstrate this, we take into
account a restaurant business. Marketing is crucial for a restaurant, is being in the service
industry. A website is created to display what the restaurant is about in terms of its location,
contact number, email address, menu, events, prices and services available. Services available
include online booking for reservations. To design a valuable website is not enough. The next
step taken is creating awareness of its presence. This is where directing traffic to the restaurant’s
website comes in. One method of doing this is indicating the website address on menus, signs
and restaurant windows.
The use of social media to direct traffic to this restaurant website is by far the most effective
method. Social media will come into play in this way: encouraging customers to post reviews on
restaurant review websites, featuring followers on our public pages, offering coupons to active
social media followers, posting questionnaires for our followers on the social pages, capitalizing
on trending topics online and having ads on YouTube. Using these methods, a larger number of
people are made aware of the restaurant's presence. The use of social media also creates
customer loyalty.

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Introduction
In the recent years, social media has had stunning growth in its role in marketing.
Businesses are able to use this tool to make themselves accessible globally not only to people
who have knowledge of their products but also those who have no idea of their existence. This
has been made possible by the fast rate at which people are joining social media sites such as
Face book, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snap chat among others. The use of social media by
businesses forms a personality for the business giving it a personal touch, which attracts
customers. Since social media is mostly interactive, its use helps businesses form relationships
with customers
The aim of any business, hotels included, is gaining profits after providing quality service
and products. To gain these profits, buyers must be present. Marketing comes in to find, attract
and maintain these buyers. Considering a hotel business, we now inspect and analyze the role of
social media in marketing for the business. Many hotel businesses have taken up the use of social
media in marketing themselves (Chang, Yu, & Lu, 2015). This has gained them a hoard of
customers even internationally. Examples of such prosperous hotels include Gold Coast Hotels,
Sydney Hotels, Brisbane Hotels and Melbourne Hotels to mention but a few. These hotels have
ripped significant profits since they began using social media as a marketing tool.

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The scope of the Restaurant Business
To start of the restaurant business, we should first consider data gained over the years on
what customers like, what they mostly buy and what they frequently avoid. This knowledge will
help the business provide quality products for their clientele and at the same time optimize their
production. The restaurant business should first consider the type of clientele they would like to
attract. For my restaurant, my team and I have put this into consideration and come up with a
conclusion. Attracting individuals from all occupations is imperative to our business in driving
up profits (Rishi & Bandyopadhyay, 2018). The restaurant will be able to accommodate
individuals from different classes by placing the hotel in sections. Now that we have a clear view
of the restaurant's structure, we can now be able to recognize and use the most effective methods
of marketing on social media. The restaurant will be able to offer a variety of food: from
individual meals to buffets to full course meals. This is done to be able to capture diverse
individuals with diverse tastes and preferences to dine in the restaurant (De Vries, Gensler, &
Leeflang, 2012).
Restaurant Website Content
The restaurant will have a website where it highlights the different cuisines and services
it offers. A link will be provided on the website that directs those that visits it to the restaurant's
menu. This way, customers are able to see different food choices that are offered and find those
that fit their taste than are able to visit the restaurant to partake in the meal.
The general information on the website will be inclusive of address, a telephone number,
and an active email address. This information will stand out on the homepage of this website and
will also be located in a separate part of the website titled About Us. This is to make it easy for

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people to find information about the restaurant (Ashley, & Tuten, 2015). A Google Map of the
restaurant's location will be included to give directions to the restaurant premises. A very good
reason for people to visit the website will be to see the menu. Due to this, the menu will be
placed in a highly notable place and will have its own page. The menu will be detailed. The
menu will also have an allowance for adjustments. Having the menu on the website is quite
beneficial, as keywords present in the menu will aid in improving our Google SEO ranking.
Aside from just wanting to see the menu, people would want to see real images of the
food we offer. As a growing brand, we would like to base our growth on being real. The first step
in this will be highlighting real images of food that we serve in the restaurant (Sharma &Verma,
2018). We will invest in quality photography but still maintain true images of foods served. In
the same way, real images of the restaurant's interior will be posted on the website. This is to
enable customers to know what to expect when they visit. The website will also be able to
accommodate mobile users. It will be able to fit on the phone's interface. The website will have
an option of making a reservation (Dessart, Veloutsou, & Morgan-Thomas, 2015). After
checking the menu, seeing images of the food served and the interior of the restaurant the
website will enable people to book a reservation. This will increase the number of customers
received by a considerable margin. The website will also be able to inform customers of the
services we offer like home deliveries and be able to place an order directly on the website.
Upcoming events in the restaurant like music evenings and treasure hunts will be available for
viewing on the website. Customers will be able to attend the events and also dine in the process.
There will also be a section for feedback from customers. The feedback given should be
responded to whether positive or negative (Smith, 2016). This will be of great help in bringing
about customer satisfaction as they get to comment on the restaurant and get a feedback. This

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will also give them a sense of how much the restaurant is dedicated to customer satisfaction thus
creating customer retention and consequently loyalty. A pricing table will be inclusive of the
website to be able to suit the needs of the clients. Food items will be separated into different
sections in columns with respective discounts allowed. This will entice and motivate people to
dine in the restaurant (Kaur, 2016).
After ensuring that the website is valuable and will definitely lead people to dine in the
restaurant, the question of how people will know of the existence of the restaurant website arises
hence the restaurant itself arises. A few people may know of the website but this is not enough.
There are ways, which we came up with that would aid in making people visit our website.
Increasing the traffic to the restaurant’s website is thus a significant part of our online marketing.
We will apply the use of directories, which is a commonly used tool. Potential customers will be
able to find our restaurant through this.
Directing traffic to the Website
There are several methods to direct people to the website. Among them is displaying the
address on menus, in business cards and on the restaurant’s windows and advertisement signs.
Another method is through customer reviews. People tend to trust those that have had firsthand
experience with the restaurant (Kotabe, & Helsen, 2014). Therefore, a restaurant review website
is crucial in marketing. Individuals will post comments whether negative or positive and get
responded to. Therefore offering quality service and food will be the backbone of the business so
that when people dine there they are able to post positive reviews. When people do this, they
encouraging others to go and visit our website to know more about the praised restaurant. To get
people to actually write these reviews the restaurant will offer a coupon to any customer who

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reviews our restaurant for their next meal. To create awareness on this offer it will be written at
the bottom of the menu. When reviews are written, we will aim at answering them to the best of
our ability whether the review is positive or negative. Customers will then feel valued by
increasing their loyalty (Tsimonis, & Dimitriadis, 2014). We will also have a mail list of our
customers and we will email them once in three months to remind them of our presence and to
invite them to dine with us. We will also invite celebrities once in a while to the restaurant to
dine with us and then post reviews. When people see, the reviews they will be interested to know
about the restaurant hence visit our website. With these methods, traffic will be generated on our
website in no time.
At the backbone of directing traffic to the website is social media. We will set up social
media profiles. This is probably the most effective and widely used method. This is because a lot
of people in spite of the age are on social media since its inception. The key point to consider is
that the profiles will be continuously active (Tuten, & Solomon, 2017).
Using Social Media in Marketing the Restaurant
To create a good following on social media, being consistent is essential (“Social Media
Marketing Strategies,” 2016). There will be a consistent message that identifies us. This phrase
will be consistently posted on our social media profiles. Images of the food served and the
restaurants interior will be posted on our social sites. Addressing critiques of the restaurant and
appreciating the positive reviews will form a friendly personality for the restaurant on social
media. When we address our weaknesses pointed out in the reviews, we will be able to provide
better services and maintain those customers who have commented negatively. We will aim to at
least address the negative comments if we will be unable to address all the reviews.

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We will also feature our social media followers on the respective social media sites with
their consent. This will essentially be making our customers ambassadors for our restaurant. This
also creates customer loyalty and allows for the creation of proof of services we offer. We also
aim at offering coupons to active social media followers. This is in the sense that they post
photos of the restaurant's food, a comment and share a link to the restaurant's website. This
means we will be rewarding our followers for talking about us because they will be increasing
the restaurant's network of people who know about it. We will also post videos of events that
take place in the restaurant like live band evenings. This will give the viewers a taste of what
they will be experiencing in our restaurant (Kaur, 2016).
Listening to our customers will be taken very seriously. Social media sites like Twitter,
Face book, Instagram, and Pinterest will be platforms for dialogue. We will post digital
questionnaires that will have an informal atmosphere to them. They will ask open-ended
questions such as what they would like to be added to the menu, what their favorite meal is and
what their favorite event in the restaurant was. The questions will be fun to capture the reader's
interest. As a business, we will also aim at using trending topics on social media to our
advantage. People following these trending stories will be able to find us in the process and our
input on the topic. A link to our website will be attached to the comment. Through this creative
input, people will be interested to know more about the restaurant and follow the link to the
website that will lead them to visit our restaurant. Another method of using social media in
marketing our restaurant is using ads on YouTube. An ad on the services offered and the
different cuisines served will pop up before the actual video plays. The ad will be short, straight
to the point, colorful and informative. This is to avoid boredom by the viewer. At the end of the
advertisement, there will be a link to lead viewers to the restaurant website

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Conclusion
In conclusion, social media is rapidly transforming marketing (Tuten& Solomon, 2017).
It plays a crucial role in digital marketing. It reaches a horde of people at the same time hence its
effectiveness. It makes spreading information about a business and its products and services
simpler. With a restaurant, social media is a key marketing strategy. It informs people of your
presence and the benefits of dining with you. It gives individuals a feel of what they are missing
without even meeting them. It is also quite cost-effective. Social media marketing optimizes all
restaurant resources making it widespread and quite sought after.

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References
Ashley, C., & Tuten, T. (2015). Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study
of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1), 15-
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Chang, Y. T., Yu, H., & Lu, H. P. (2015). Persuasive messages, popularity cohesion, and message
diffusion in social media marketing. Journal of Business Research, 68(4), 777-782.
De Vries, L., Gensler, S., & Leeflang, P. S. (2012). The popularity of brand posts on brand fan
pages: An investigation of the effects of social media marketing. Journal of interactive
marketing, 26(2), 83-91.
Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C., & Morgan-Thomas, A. (2015). Consumer engagement in online brand
communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 24(1),
28-42.
Kaur, G. (2016). Social media marketing. Asian journal of multidisciplinary studies, 4(7)
Kotabe, M., & Helsen, K. (2014). Global marketing management.
Tsimonis, G., & Dimitriadis, S. (2014). Brand strategies in social media. Marketing Intelligence &
Planning, 32(3), 328-344.
Tuten, T. L., & Solomon, M. R. (2017). Social media marketing. Sage.