A restaurant’s Facebook page is one of the main platforms for finding customers. So much so that Facebook remains the most used social network in catering, followed by Instagram. That said, having a profile on Facebook and posting content there regularly is not enough for your Facebook page to fully fulfill its role .
In fact, we come across restaurant pages much more often than we would like to post content all over the place, and make mistakes that wipe out their best efforts. We see restaurateurs who spend hours tweaking the profiles of their establishments without being able to interact as they would like with their users.
In order not to have this problem on your restaurant page and be able to find customers more frequently through Facebook, you must avoid these common mistakes at all costs:
1 – Write long texts and in capitals
Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter are social networks characterized by immediacy and short messages that mark the trend of the moment. It is for this reason that communications on Facebook are more effective if they meet these criteria.
Some restaurants continue to write long paragraphs of text on their Facebook profiles, sometimes all in all caps, presumably to emphasize the message they want to convey, but this approach actually has the opposite effect:
- Reading long texts takes more time , and the consequence is that Internet users generally do not read them in their entirety.
- The capitals give the impression that their author is screaming or absolutely wants to impose themselves , and create an impression of virulence which, instead of attracting customers, scares them away.
Therefore, write texts that are concise, short and most importantly, that go straight to the point . Of course, you also need to use capital letters correctly, have impeccable spelling, and express yourself in a readable and pleasant style.
2 – Incorrect use of hashtags
Hashtags are tags that allow your content to be visible to Internet discussion groups, such as other public pages, influencers, and brands. They allow you to be discovered by more people . There’s no denying that a lot of restaurants make two hashtag-related mistakes:
- They never use them and miss the opportunity to market their content to new customers.
- They use them excessively and without a specific purpose, which means that their publications do not lose in the mass.
So, should you use hashtags? The answer is yes ! But how, you will ask?
In moderation and in a justified manner. Choose 1, 2 or 3 hashtags to localize the content. For example, if you are making a post about an octopus salad that you just added to your menu, because it is such a trendy product, it is very useful to use hashtags like #gastronomic trends #poulperecipes #poulpe .
Remember that hashtags are not adjectives used to highlight the qualities of your products, but words or combinations of words that allow this content to be tagged in the discussion threads.
Namely: How to create your hashtags? It is an exercise that makes sense. Think about what words yourself would use to search for these topics and place the hashtag in the search engine of the Facebook homepage to see how many results it generates and test its popularity. The more it is used, the more Internet users who interact with this content.
Personalization In Restaurant Marketing
3 – Do not put calls to action to find customers
Some publications end up floating in a vacuum and do not seek to generate any interaction. For example, it is very common to find restaurant publications where only the blackboard appears with the daily menu, and nothing more. If we put ourselves in the Internet user’s shoes, what do you want them to do with this information?
It’s a good thing to promote whatever you cook in the kitchen, but it’s important to generate a result, because at the end of the day what we’re looking for is for the customer to identify with the brand and let him come to the restaurant, not just see the post.
It is therefore important to always include a call to action: book, vote, click on a link, participate in a contest, etc. Even if what you post is very simple, it is important to encourage the user to interact.
Note: To include the URL addresses of your website, your booking page, your blog or any other content, it is always recommended to abbreviate these URLs, via online platforms like tipo bitly which allow you to do it quickly and easily.
4 – do not answer
The very foundation of any social network is interaction. You share content, you get feedback that you respond to, and so on – it’s a cycle. When a subscriber comments on a post, they are obviously waiting for a response. To manage the interaction in the best possible way, you can create a policy for responding to various types of comments:
- If the comment is positive, respond by thanking the author and inviting them to come visit your restaurant.
- If the comment expresses any doubt, respond by providing information that all Internet users can understand.
- If this is constructive criticism, respond by thanking the author and promising solutions.
- If the comment is destructive, respond diplomatically and remain neutral. In extreme cases, consider hiding the comment to prevent it continuing to hurt your business’s marketing.
In any case, it is important to respond and not let this precious interaction, which allows you to communicate in a more human and more direct way with your customers, be lost before you get them to come to your place.
5 – Self-satisfaction
Facebook is certainly an ideal platform to promote the restaurant , but be careful, this does not mean that the content must fall into permanent self-satisfaction, because Facebook is a community that feeds on the participation of all , and especially prospects.
We must therefore avoid that publications are focused only on the establishment and its qualities, and extend them to content likely to be useful to all, for example:
- Fun posts that involve interaction. Organize quizzes, contests, games where internet users not only participate, but spend time interacting with the brand and generate empathy.
- Publications in which you share photos or videos of Internet users so that they too can be the protagonists of your establishment’s marketing.
- Interesting articles on gastronomy, lifestyle, trends and content related to the tastes of your customers.
The important thing is to balance the information in order to obtain a good balance between the presence of the restaurant and that of Internet users.
To conclude, we cannot let pass another error that we sometimes encounter on certain restaurant pages and which can be crucial in finding customers. This error is not having a direct booking button included in the profile! Do you know how many tables are at risk of going unoccupied just because of this detail? When an Internet user subscribes to a restaurant’s page, it is because he likes it, and we can deduce that he probably wants to go there. It is therefore normal that he can reserve a table without having to leave Facebook.
If your restaurant profile does not yet have a reservation button, what are you waiting for? Click here to add a button immediately through TheFork and find more customers for your business.
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