5 new Instagram and Facebook features for restaurants to adopt or closely follow

social media is evolving at breakneck speed. New features, both minor and more notorious, are constantly appearing on these platforms used daily by the French. Between facilitating use of the platform and offering innovative experiences, Facebook, Instagram and all the others social media are constantly evolving. Daily monitoring is therefore essential for any player wishing to establish themselves as innovative in the eyes of their target audience.

Uses of social media are also evolving extremely rapidly. Certain functionalities are adopted instantly by users. Just look at the phenomenon of stories phenomenon: it is estimated that the format evolves 15 times faster than that of posts, and is now consumed more by users than traditional publications. On the other hand, new tools are sometimes overlooked by users. This is particularly true of the IGTV function, which failed to achieve the success expected by the platform when it was launched. Its place on Insagram therefore had to be rethought, so that this new video-creation tool could become part of users' daily routines. Adapting to new features and observing the new habits of Internet users is therefore essential if we are to position ourselves as an innovative social player. To achieve this, it's essential to keep a close watch on future tools announced by platforms. So, as 2019 begins, what new uses have taken hold on social media ? And which features announced by the platforms are worth keeping an eye on? Find out in this article.

1. Instagram makes influencer marketing easy

Influencer marketing is an essential tool for any restaurant wishing to raise its profile and establish itself among its target audience as an essential place to visit. Influencers who visit a restaurant, appreciate its cuisine, location and welcome, and promote it on their social accounts, become true ambassadors for these spaces. Aware of the growing importance of this phenomenon on its platform, Instagram is constantly is constantly developing functions to facilitate exchanges between brands and influencers. This time, it's with a new advertising format called "Branded content ads" that Instagram intends to fluidify their exchanges. Until now, the only option available to brands was to forge partnerships with influencers. This was a limited option, as they could only take advantage of their collaborator's organic audience, i.e. their active audience. With this new advertising format, brands can create a campaign - published as sponsored stories or as a sponsored post - based on the influencer's published content. This means that brands can extend the audience reached by the influencer's content and expose these publications to a much wider audience.

This format has a second, not inconsiderable advantage for brands: it enables them to verify the performance of the collaboration more accurately. In fact, it's the brand that has access to the statistics of the stories or posts it sponsors. No more problem of likes or purchased subscribersthe current scourge of marketers. While this new feature doesn't usually concern collaborations between influencers and restaurateurs - who in most cases offer their guests a meal but don't invest any additional budget - it is important and interesting for all food and beverage brands that make much more frequent use of these paid partnerships.

2. Will Instagram soon boost the visibility of local businesses?

While Instagram has established itself as an indispensable tool for restaurants, cafés, bars and other local businesses, until now the social network hadn't implemented any tools enabling these businesses to establish themselves as truly local players. At present, they can showcase their products and services and make potential customers drool with posts on their accounts. But Instagram is thinking bigger for these local businesses, and it's very likely that tomorrow they'll be able to create pages designed especially for them. They'll be able to showcase their most important information: address, phone number, opening hours, website... In short, all the information that's important to a nearby customer.

This standard profile, which can be attached to the restaurant's Facebook business account, is very similar to what Google My Business offers. While Instagram has not yet publicly confirmed the introduction of these new profiles, the social network is certainly in the testing phase for this feature.

3. Instagram and La Fourchette partner to facilitate restaurant reservations

These new potential profiles are not the only proof of Instagram's attempt at professionalization. In fact, the social network has introduced other features that demonstrate its desire to make the most of local businesses and attract them to the platform.

A few weeks ago, the social giant announced a partnership with one of the most famous reservation platforms: The Fork.

The aim? To make it easier to book a table at a restaurant on the social network.

A button specially designed for this partnership is now available on most of the profiles of local businesses present on the platform. Simply click on "reserve" and you'll be redirected to the La Fourchette platform, where you can request a table directly.

This partnership is the second of its kind for The Fork. A few weeks before Instagram's announcement, it was Google that declared the implementation of this tool to facilitate reservations. A "reserve" button had indeed appeared on many restaurants' Google My Business Sheets. While these new features help to convert many socionauts into customers for restaurateurs, it should be noted that La Fourchette takes a margin on bookings made on its platform. That's why many restaurateurs now prefer the Zenchef platform, which has also entered into a partnership with Google and offers restaurants a tool to facilitate reservation management... without commission. While you can choose between Zenchef and La Fourchette on your Google profile, this is not (yet?) the case on Instagram.

4. Facebook simplifies event communication with stories

A few weeks ago, Facebook unveiled the possibility for profiles, groups and pages to share events in stories. This gives greater visibility to one's event, and extends the target audience to which that event is shared. In addition to reaching a larger part of its own community, the event can also be shared by its subscribers in their stories.

Sharing is very simple. Simply go to the event page, click on the "share" button provided by the platform and click on "share your story". Once the news item has been integrated into the story, the user's friends can indicate directly on the publication that they are interested in or participating in the event. The creator of the story can then consult the responses from his or her community. This new feature reflects Facebook's attempt to impose this ephemeral format to its users, who until now have left it to one side. It also demonstrates the social network's determination to position itself as the ideal professional platform.

5. Facilitating the work of community managers and retailers: publishing content on two accounts in 1

Publishing the same photo or video on several accounts at the same time is now possible on Instagram! This is likely to make life easier for many community managers of retailers with multiple locations. Once again, it's easy to use: a "Publish to other accounts" tab is now visible below the caption box when creating a post.

Conclusion

Being present and active on social media is no longer enough. To stand out from the competition, you need to constantly question your social strategy. To achieve this, daily monitoring is essential, to identify new usages and anticipate the next features to be introduced on the platforms. Knowing what the best practices are in the sector, what the most effective social strategies are, and identifying the players who stand out from the crowd is essential. The key is to combine the identification of these players with a detailed analysis of their success, drawing the right conclusions and adapting the most effective practices to your own actions.