There is no denying that the restaurant business is fiercely competitive today. If an owner does not promote the place, or does not have an efficient system for running it, they may not draw in the customers they hoped for — particularly in an age when the online world shapes both how we live and how we do business.
If you want your restaurant to become known and talked about online, it is worth learning a few techniques for promoting it through social media — what to do so that it appeals to your customers and reaches them effectively.
Choose the right social media channels
- First, you need to know who your customers are and which kind of social media they use — Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or something else — so you can concentrate your content on that channel in particular. If you want to build the brand more widely, Facebook suits building a customer base, and you can use it to post news, promote dishes and run activities for customers to join in with. Instagram, on the other hand, suits beautiful photographs of food, or telling the story of a dish through a short video.
- Whichever channel you set up an account on, filling in the details of the restaurant completely and clearly — the name, the address, the opening hours and a contact number — makes it far easier for interested customers to find you.
- When you post, create content that is interesting and relevant to your restaurant, and do it consistently: beautiful photographs of the food, the story behind a dish, or the care that goes into making it. That keeps the restaurant current and keeps customers interested.
- Add hashtags relevant to the post, which brings you closer to your customers and makes you easier to find in a search.
- Create content customers can take part in, such as a game with prizes, to catch their attention. It also lifts your likes and shares, which in turn widens your customer base.
- Look after the restaurant's account consistently, and be ready to reply to customers regularly and quickly, whether they are asking a question or leaving a comment.
How to advertise on Facebook and Instagram
Once you have an account and are posting content to promote the restaurant regularly, the other thing worth doing to raise awareness and reach more customers is to advertise on the social media your customers use most — Facebook and Instagram. If you want to advertise, here is what to think about.
- Choose the right objective for the advertisement.
- Set a budget and a duration, which should be in proportion to the size of the audience you are aiming at.
- Choose the audience you want, which you can select by location, age and gender.
- Choose the placement you want — that is, where you want the advertisement to appear: Facebook, Instagram, the Audience Network or Messenger.
- Complete the other settings, then choose the advertisement you want to run, which can either be a post already on your page or a new one you create.
Tricks for photographing food that wins customers over
Photographs are what draw the eye more than anything else in content. If you have beautiful pictures, whether of the atmosphere inside the restaurant or of the food itself, you can be sure people will want to come.
1. Compose the shot and find its balance
Compose the shot attractively. You might dress it with other props — cutlery, flowers, an attractively patterned glass. Then place the dish you want in focus, or want to stand out, on one of the intersections of the camera's nine-square grid, which divides the frame in the right proportions.
2. Use natural light
If you want food to look three-dimensional and appetising, avoid the flash and use natural light instead. Choose a time of day when the light is not too harsh, and your food photographs will look much more alive.
3. Shoot from above, or close up
Shooting from above emphasises the shape and colour of a dish and makes it stand out. But if you want the ingredients clearly visible and the food to look more appealing, shoot close up — using the zoom rather than bringing the camera right in.
Qashier's POS system suits every restaurant
Once you have promoted the restaurant successfully on social media, customers will start to hear about you and come in. The thing that will impress them and bring them back, beyond the food itself, is having the right restaurant management system, or the right till software — something as capable as Qashier's POS system, which brings every function together and covers the restaurant business comprehensively.
- Full table management, letting you lay out where the tables are and use colour to show which are free and which are occupied.
- Takes orders and sends them straight to the kitchen.
- Compact and easy to carry, but powerful.
- Accepts every form of payment, PayWave, credit card and QR code included.
- Cloud-based, so you can reach your data and run the business anywhere, at any time.
Qashier offers a POS for restaurants. If your restaurant business is interested in the product or would like more detail, do ask us on 02 544 0267 or Line @qashier.th