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Restaurants and social media come hand in hand.
If you are running a restaurant, look around and see how often you spot your diners taking photos of their food, sending it friends and posting it on Instagram or Facebook.
Probably quite a bit? Social media is the new word of mouth advertising, and unless you have a presence, you are essentially waving goodbye to hundreds of customers who will fail to notice you amongst the noise.
But how do you ensure that your are getting it right? How do you know if your activities are actually damaging your brand rather than enhancing it?
We've worked with enough restaurants in our time to know some of the most common mistakes restaurants make on their social media pages.
Here are 5 of the most common mistakes we see time and time again.
1. Not posting often enough
One of the biggest mistakes restaurant owners make on social media is to set up a page and go weeks, months or even, worryingly, years without posting.
As a result their Facebook page looks more like a graveyard and far from anywhere anyone would like to visit.
If you are planning to go to a restaurant and you check their Facebook page and see a low volume of activity, it gives the impression of laziness and lack of attention.
But, I get it, you don’t have time to post each week, let alone every day!
How can you ensure posts are going out regularly and consistently, so you stand out against your competitors for the right reasons?
It’s actually quite simple, it’s called scheduling! Using tools like Hootsuite or Buffer allow you to organise and schedule posts across multiple social media accounts.
By scheduling your posts ahead of time you can dedicate set times to creating content that will have your pages on autopilot weeks in advance.
2. Deleting negative comments
Having your brand out in the public domain, no matter how amazing you are, will always result in some negative feedback at some point.
When you see a public comment about your restaurant that is negative it hurts, a lot!
It’s inevitable that negative comments will creep through. No one is perfect, and people love to complain. Some may be private, but they can often be public (Facebook comments for example)
As long as the majority of comments are not negative (because that presents a much bigger issue!), how you deal with it will show the world how professional your brand really is.
Deleting the comment or ignoring it, seems an easy way to avoid the issue but this will only make someone even more angry, resulting in a backlash that can often be very embarrassing.
It’s much better to publicly apologise for the issue and try to resolve it with the person directly.
If the comment is public and the resolution is not simple, then you can also private message the person to open up a new channel of dialogue out of the public eye.
However you decide to respond, just make sure you respond, above all else!
Be sure remain patient and understanding of any complaints directed at your restaurant, although if you are a quality restaurant, I guess you would know this already!
You wouldn't ignore a complaint in your restaurant so don't do it on social media, where even more people will be watching!
3. Being unresponsive
Being active on social media means people WILL contact you more often. When they contact you, you must make sure you respond.
Set up alerts on your pages so that when messages come through you receive an email or phone alert and can respond with the same urgency that you would from any other channel, such as an email or phone call.
4. Quality not quantity - Don’t need to be everywhere
A big mistake many restaurant owners make is to spread themselves too thinly and try to be everywhere.
Unless you have the capacity to manage Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and any other channel you can think of, whilst not letting your business suffer, it’s best to focus on mastering one or two channels.
Having lots of accounts all over the place can seem like a good idea at first but unless you can keep them all updated and fresh, your brand will simply look unprofessional and your competition will stand out even more.
Take time to think about what platform is best for your restaurant, and focus all your attention on that and use it to market your business as efficiently as possible.
Good Italian restaurants don’t sell Chinese food on the side, focus one one thing at a time!
5. Being Inauthentic
Don’t pretend to be something you are not. Your restaurant serves a specific niche.
This niche may not be ideal for everyone, but as long as it’s perfect for the audience your targeting, you will have no problem filling tables.
I guess it helps if you are in a good location and your food is good too, but we can’t help with that bit I’m afraid.
The point is, don’t worry if what you say might upset some people, as long as your message is serving your target audience and fitting with your vision you are on the right track.
Pizza hut makes very few claims to be healthy, and this might turn off people looking for a salad. But by sticking to their vision and core values they attract people that want big, fast greasy pizzas, and no one can deny they are pretty good at making those.
But, your social media wont fix itself just by reading this post.
Don't let this be just another one of those blog posts you read and forget about as soon as your next WhatsApp message goes off (we've all been there).
We've built a new private Facebook group that you can join for free, right now and learn tips to help you gain and retain more customers.
You'll get direct access to private content from me. I'll also be available to answer questions and help you succeed on social media.
Join us now and let us show you how you can make a success of your restaurant with social media!
Join our free private Facebook group for restaurant owners and learn how to fill tables using social media.
