Tell your Restaurant's Story on Instagram

With the increase of social media being used by all sizes of business, it’s important to find ways to market your restaurant correctly. Your customers are no longer just within the local area; due to increased accessibility to the internet, it's much easier to research and find information about dining out - this broadens the range of customers you can advertise to.

If we get down to the facts: people listen to other people, and are much more likely to visit a restaurant that is more exposed to their customer base via social media. Potential customers can see real-time reviews and comments on your social media pages, it gives an instant insight to what your restaurant might be like.

This is where you really have a chance to rise above your competitors if your social media game is on point.

Being an independent restaurant is exactly that - independent. Social media is the tool to broadcast that to the world.

Advertise WHY they should be visiting your restaurant.

In the previous post, we talked about creating an emotional connection with your customer base. Social media is a perfect place for you to tell your story and share your vision and by doing so you’re also putting a face to the name, which already creates a personal connection with your customers.

Let’s have a look at how you can create more engagement with your brand by sharing how it all started.

Take them back in time

Taking your customers back to where it all began is a fantastic marketing strategy that can provide a different perspective to your restaurant.

If you have old videos and photos from when you were starting out, then you have all of the ingredients for the perfect marketing strategy - show your audience how it started vs. how it’s going! Online communities LOVE these kinds of videos as it’s uplifting and motivational content - and by sharing this kind of content you could even be inspiring others to follow their passions.

By ‘letting your customers in’ to this kind of background story you’re also exposing yourself to be vulnerable with your customer base. Visual storytelling can help create a strong personal connection to people and increase the chances of more visits to your establishment.

As people are becoming more and more conscious about the businesses they are supporting, content within this area would be providing customers with exact reasons to come and visit - to support your vision!

This in itself can seem like a bit of an intimidating task which is all the more reason for doing it as this type of content can really stand out for an independent restaurant as it’s not the type of content you see every day.

Meet the staff

‍Another marketing strategy that could add personality to your restaurant could be to broadcast your staff. This is both a great way to provide a bit of familiarity to customers as they’ll feel more at home seeing a recognisable face. This also doubles up as a great way to showcase your team and provide them with the limelight they deserve - they’re also supporting your vision!

Another thing to note - people are less inclined to go out as much after the pandemic and studies show there have been notable increases in social anxiety within the general population. If you provide a more personal experience to a customer before they’ve even set foot in your doors, there’s a higher chance they’ll visit your restaurant in comparison to a competitor that has limited social media exposure.

Marketing is all about adapting to the times, so it’s important to be up to date with how your customers interact and engage online - There’s been a noticeable upswing in food deliveries since the pandemic, so if you offer delivery be sure to promote it.

Online communities also became a lot more popular during the pandemic and this shift in where people spend their time online is continuing in that direction - by providing content that encourages more engagement via comments and posts that reveal more about your restaurant, your customer base are more likely to feel like part of your community.

A day in the life

Another perfect opportunity to give your customers a better understanding of your little slice of paradise would be to provide some content based around the day to day life you and your staff live - this kind of content comes with numerous benefits, too.

By giving your customers an insight to what a day can look like in a restaurant, they can get more of a feel for how you run your restaurant. Including content that highlights the personality of your staff and place can also provide more of a personal connection, they get to see the human side to how an independent restaurant is run. The main thing to take away from this is that you want to be creating content that creates an emotional reaction.

An added benefit of creating content based around this is that it can provide an empathetic response for your customers as they understand that you are human, too.
Let’s say you create an Instagram reel documenting how a busy Friday night can be at your place. On one hand you’re subtly showcasing the great atmosphere you provide, but on the other hand - you’re providing customers with an insight into how busy and stressful hospitality work can be.

This can help when things don’t go to plan - as we mentioned earlier, we’re all human. Humans make mistakes and things don’t always go to plan.

Let’s use an example scenario from a busy Friday night; your staff are rushed off their feet and 2 of your workers have called in sick… so naturally, there’s a bit of a wait when it comes to orders going out on time. Customers who’ve viewed your content based around what life can be like in hospitality, are more likely to be understanding of longer wait times as they’ve literally seen how much work the staff have to do. Which can then make crowd control a lot more manageable.

Running a business is HARD. We’re living in a time where huge corporations are dominating the market and people are getting tired of it. This is one of the main reasons people are supporting locally, whether that be going to a farmers market instead of Sainsburys, or going to your restaurant instead of Wagamama’s

The content you're making is there to entice people into your restaurant, instead of the other independent places within your vicinity. By providing more of an emotional connection to your potential customers via social media, you’re already on the right track to be the 1st choice on the list.

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