Boost your restaurant with social media (5 essential steps)

8 times out of 10, a customer first chooses a restaurant on the Internet. There's no doubt about it: for restaurateurs, it's all about online. Right after the essential referencing platforms (La Fourchette, Yelp, TripAdvisor...), social media are the most important tools for implementing a digital communications strategy for your restaurant. So how do you make your mark on these extremely competitive platforms? Should you use Facebook or Instagram? What are their advantages? Here's an overview.

Why use social media for your restaurant?

In just a few years, social media has invaded the food service sector - and vice versa.

There are 5 reasons for this:

• Food" is one of the Internet users' favorite themes;‍

1 in 5 people share at least one photo of what they're eating with friends and family every month, and 300,000 people visit at least one restaurant page every day. Simply put: your potential customers are online ! It would be a shame not to go and find them where they are.

• The social media website is one of the first points of contact between a restaurant and its customers;

What do you do when you hear about a restaurant? You look it up online.

Just like a Google My Business listing , a restaurant's Instagram or Facebook page is the first thing a web surfer sees of you. These digital showcases have the power to convince a web surfer to come to you. On the other hand, it's not uncommon

• The social media website can boost an establishment's reputation;

All it takes is a well-written post, a collaboration or a mention from a food influencer for an establishment to sell out in a matter of days. There's nothing new about this phenomenon (reviews, articles, word-of-mouth); it's simply become digitalized. The next step is to capitalize on this reputation and win the loyalty of the new clientele.

• Visit social media to keep in touch with your customers;

Posts, stories, real... All this content animates your "community", informing it about who you are and making it want to come back. Even more impactful, the networks are an opportunity to tell the story behind your restaurant: your teams, your products, your history, your daily routine... You create value for your establishment.

Simply put: a community management strategy is essential to a restaurant's success.

💡 Community management refers to the strategic management of an establishment's social media . In the restaurant industry, the position of "community manager" is exploding. 

• Investing in networks pays off.

While implementing a digital communications strategy can be tedious and time-consuming for many restaurateurs, they are adamant that the return on investment is real.

93% of restaurateurs surveyed considered the time invested in social media to be worthwhile, and 52% reported an increase in sales.(Source)

At Malou, our Earnings feature allows you to precisely measure the revenues and time saved thanks to digital marketing.

What social media is important for a restaurant?

Restaurateurs often say it, and they're right: having a presence on Instagram and Facebook is a must for any restaurant.

• Facebook allows restaurateurs toanimate a community and publish sponsored posts (advertising).

It's also the network most used by the 40-50 age group.

• Instagram is more of an influencer network, allowing sponsorship, where to find a younger clientele.

💪 Follow the guide to optimizing your Instagram account!

👉 Already have Instagram but struggling to get your account off the ground? Maybe you're not posting at the right times with the right formats... To go further, download our free e-book "Le Petit Guide Instagram du Restaurateur"!

5 steps to success for restaurateurs social media

1) Staying alert

For your page to be highlighted by the algorithm of a social network (Facebook or Instagram), it's best to post on a regular basis (i.e. several times a week). This indicates that your restaurant is active. In this case, inspiration can sometimes be lacking.

Our advice: take a look at what the competition is producing. And above all, the best!

Like the top 20 restaurant Instagram accounts. 

On the MalouApp, we even offer a section dedicated to monitoring trends and the competition.

To be effective on Instagram and Facebook, it's essential to be inspired by what others are doing, to keep abreast of what's going on around you, and to apply these best practices to your own social strategy.

You can also take a look at what's happening in all the other sectors (arts, crafts, beauty, etc.). These new uses can stimulate your imagination and create different content (e.g. a trend on Tik Tok).

Another tip is to keep up to date with the latest algorithms.

‍For social media to put you in the spotlight, it's useful toobserve the evolution of tools on social media , which are changing at breakneck speed. Uses are changing extremely fast: new features are regularly added by the Facebook group on its two platforms (Instagram and Facebook). For example, which formats work best: carousels, videos or posts?

Just take the example of stories: this social format, originally developed by Snapchat, has made its way onto Instagram and then Facebook. The result of this borrowing by the platform: the format is now evolving 15 times faster than posts. The same applies today to Real or Threads.

🔥 Out of inspiration? Here's 35 Real ideas for your restaurant's instagram..

2) Build a unique identity

For a community management strategy to be effective, it's still important, even before launching your restaurant's Instagram account, to put into words the singular identity of your establishment.

What are its qualities? What are its weaknesses? What makes this place unique? Why would you want to walk through the door rather than another?

These are just some of the questions you need to answer before embarking on this social adventure. These are the questions you need to ask yourself before embarking on this social adventure.

There's little point in copying what's being done around you. It will keep you on the sidelines, but won't have enough impact to stand out from the sea of competitors on these platforms.

Stand out from the crowd: humor (puns, hashtags), values (ecology, terroir). Give your teams a nickname (e.g. "La Squadra" at Big Maman), highlight a star dish or unique dessert (Donald Trump cheesecake at PNY), showcase your decor or interior...

3) Observe the statistics of your actions

The application of these principles would be meaningless without regular monitoring of the results! The social media website is the perfect place to try, test and take risks. The aim is to understand what works and what is less effective.

Instagram and Facebook offer a host of tools for this purpose, and it would be a shame to do without them. The number of likes on your posts is not enough to analyze.

Which publications were most effective?

What was the reach of these publications? How many interactions were made on his account? How many people discovered his profile? How many people called the restaurant, visited its website, sent an e-mail thanks to Instagram? Who are his restaurant's subscribers (age, location, gender...)? What are the habits of its community (when do they log on to Instagram...)... So much information to which Instagram and Facebook give access and which enables you to adjust your social strategy, to reproduce successes or, on the contrary, to avoid repeating failures.

4) Apply a global communications strategy

While it's essential to build a strategy on social media, there's no point in doing so without a more global communications strategy. social media should not be seen as an end in itself. Simply being present on the site is not enough to arm yourself effectively against the competition, to reach your target audience as effectively as possible, and to fill your restaurant at every service.

‍Aswe said, 80% of French people search for their restaurant on the Internet. Several channels are available to them in this quest: Google, traditional media, referencing directories, social media, the website... Most of them no longer visit a restaurant at random. More and more of them are doing their homework before pushing open a restaurant door. And there's no better way to do this than to multiply contacts and cross-reference sources!

First and foremost: work on your local SEO. The social media are often a validation step for prospects who do a Google search, then go to Instagram or Facebook to check out the quality of the establishment.

The right reflex: think about relevant keywords and position yourself on them to appear in the first Google results. Referencing directories such as Tripadvisor, La Fourchette and Yelp are also excellent entry points for Internet users looking for establishments.

The community management strategy is the second step. But for it to be effective, it must be accompanied by an influencer marketing strategy. This means that restaurateurs have every interest in working alongside the most relevant Instagram professionals.

Collaborating with food or lifestyle influencers whose values are close to your own, allows you to reach a much wider audience and use Instagram as a customer acquisition tool rather than just a shop window. Influencers who have had a good time at the establishment share publications within their social media, particularly on Instagram (in the form of stories or posts).

Their main characteristic is to maintain a relationship of closeness and trust with their audience, making them excellent ambassadors for the brands or companies with which they collaborate. Obtaining content on the Instagram accounts of several Instagrammers with communities close to your own, enables you to extend your visibility to millions of potential prospects. We saw this with Pizzou, a 100% French pizzeria we worked with when it opened: we organized a special influencer evening one month after its opening, and the result was unbeatable. The day after the event, the restaurant recorded its best ever sales figures, thanks to the content dedicated to the restaurant published by influencers.

5. A presence in traditional media

Last but not least, the traditional media remain particularly relevant relays for restaurants. Establishing a press relations strategy with culinary journalists can help your establishment gain notoriety and credibility.

Soliciting journalists to visit the restaurant complements an influencer marketing strategy. If they've been won over by the restaurant's universe, they'll write an article about it for their media outlet. This promises particularly high visibility for the restaurant, as well as strong brand awareness.

What's next?

"Many restaurateurs think it's essential to have a presence on social media... And they're right ! What's more, it's essential to stay constantly alert on these social platforms. Facebook and Instagram are constantly evolving Facebook and Instagram are constantly evolving: habits change very quickly, trends change just as quickly, and competition is fierce. Keeping abreast of new features and adopting them enables you to stay up to date and stand out from the crowd. Finally, while we're talking here only about Facebook and Instagram, which have established themselves in recent years as the two giants of social media, it's also important to keep an eye out for appearances from outside these platforms. Let's not forget that Snapchat, creator of stories, has already fallen into oblivion among the over-25s, that Facebook has given way to Instagram on social to focus on more professional use, and that Tik Tok ... How will today's social media be used in 3, 5, 10 years' time? We'll only have these answers thanks to constant monitoring and attention to new uses!"

Valentine Cuzin, journalist @Malou