Using social media websites to promote and market one’s business is the norm today. After all, it is an effective way to build strong and meaningful customer relationships, create brand awareness as well as broaden your horizon while being extremely cost effective. So, why wouldn’t businesses utilize social media and exploit the many benefits it has to offer in the form of growth and development of their business?
Facebook is one of the most popular social networking services out there. With over 1.55 billion active monthly users, Facebook boasts a population that can make it the third largest country in the world. It allows businesses to share updates with their customers. This can be done by sharing statuses and uploading pictures and videos that hold attraction for their audience.
Further, you can reply to customer queries and complaints through private inbox messaging or simply replying to their query via commenting. Thus, Facebook offers businesses a complete and thorough marketing package without you having to delve into company expense accounts.
Food Business on Facebook: What to Post?
Today, to attract more customers, you need to have a brilliant and powerful social media strategy. Facebook, being accessed by 67% of the internet users, is one of the most popular social media channels. Thus, it makes sense for businesses to establish a strong presence on Facebook as they get access to more and more potential customers.
Like many other businesses, food businesses also have an immense presence on Facebook. Having discovered the benefits of social media channels to further business growth and development, many food vendors have realized the importance of maintaining a strong and effective presence on Facebook. No longer restaurateurs and food vendors depend upon print media reviews to further their business as social media has taken over.
However, even though almost every food business has a Facebook page today, not everyone is able to build and attract audience for their page, thereby, losing out on potential customers. To ace your Facebook marketing, you need to be aware of what to post and share with your audience in order to drive maximum customer engagement.
Whatever content you share with your audience on your Facebook page, ensure that it has the following characteristics.
- It is useful and adds value for your audience
- It humanizes and personalizes your brand
- It is engaging
- It is shareable
Here are some of the ideas for food businesses regarding what to post on your Facebook page.
Share Recipes
When you are in running a food business, what better way is there to entice customers than sharing a few short food and dessert recipes. Not only would these recipes attract audience, they also add value for your customers. According to Prollie, a social media research tool, around 25% of social media users use social media to search for food recipes. Thus, making it the second most popular topic to be searched and shared on social media.
The recipes you share with your audience don’t need to be anything grand or complex. Rather, they should be short and simple, which use ingredients that are readily available in one’s kitchen. Also, when sharing recipes, make sure to integrate them with your product i.e. food in this case. For instance, if your have a pizza place, you can share a recipe of a sauce that customers can enjoy with the pizza. This will trigger customer interaction as well as shareability.
Post Your Menu
Facebook allows food businesses to upload the Menus on their page separately so that it is easily accessible by customers. This Menu option is displayed clearly on the top of the page, below the cover photo.
Even so, you should upload photos of your menu and share them every now and then in order to refresh your audience’s and potential customers memory. There is no need to post images of the whole menu though, only parts of it. However, along with the image you should include a link where customers can access the whole menu.
Show Off Your Food
Another thing that you should do is show off your food on Facebook for customers to see and salivate over. Posting appetizing and deliciously presented photos of your food entices customers to such an extent that they are bound to take action by visiting your place or placing an order instantly.
To get your audience’s taste buds working, it is important that the photographs are particularly sizzling or at least make the audience feel the flavor and taste of the food to some extent. In order to achieve such high levels of food photography, you need to invest in good camera equipment. The regular cameras of your smartphones can under no condition be suitable for this purpose.
Further, if it falls within your budget, you can outsource your food photography to professionals in the respected field. If not, there is no need to worry – snapping high quality pictures is not rocket science as long as you have a good camera and access to editing applications.
Blend Your Content With #Hashtags and Topics That Are Trending
Hashtags are the new trend in social media marketing. Not only do they make for a very attractive and enticing message, hashtags also allow you to keep abreast with the current trends. These trends then expose your message or status to the wider audience, thereby increasing your reach by making you more visible on the social platform. This is because the newsfeed algorithm on Facebook filters posts based on their relevancy to current trending topics. Thus, to ensure that your status appears on your followers newsfeeds, you should post content that is related to the trending topics.
Facebook also allows its users to use hashtags. Food businesses should use these hashtags in order to widen their audience reach and also to target their desired customer segment.
Further, while sharing food photographs and uploading status, you should add hashtags such as #FoodPorn, #Foodgasm, #Nomnom etc. to make your content even more tempting and intriguing for your potential customers.
Narrate Stories
Stories are memorable and intriguing. They keeps the audience on the edge. Especially, if you share stories in the form of series – posting every weekend or so. This keeps people guessing as to what happens next. Also, this way customers give you more than a passing thought as you are constantly on their minds.
Thus, it is a great idea to share stories. Whether they are fabricated to add the element of suspense, or are based on reality to add the element of personal touch, they keep the audience glued to your page. For instance, you could share a story of how you first got the idea to open a food place, what inspired you, what difficulties did you come across and how you overcame them. Your audience will love these stories as they get to feel more connected with you which allows you to establish strong and meaningful relations with your customers. They will no longer see you as a robot-like-faceless-brand, which means they will be likely to be more forgiving to any potential screw-ups from you in the future. Therefore, sharing personal stories makes your brand appear more humane and approachable in the eyes of the customers.
Feature Reviews and Feedback From Customers
Facebook isn’t all about self-promoting your brand. After all, too much self-promotion tends to get on customer’s nerves and leaves them annoyed. Thus, it is important that you understand the customer dynamics and share content accordingly.
One way to promote your business, while at the same time not coming out too strong on your customers is to feature customer feedback and reviews on your page. This way your customers get to tell you what they think of your food which acts as a promotional mechanism without you having to flaunt your qualities.
Share Visual Content: Images, Infographics and Videos
Visual marketing is the key to success today. Many studies have proven that audience is more likely to retain information if it is prevented visually rather than when they are forced to read large blocks of text. Images, infographics and videos are some of the ways that you can share content with your followers on a visual platform.
Based on a study carried by HubSpot, which evaluated 5500 Facebook posts of businesses, they discovered that posts that included a photo received around 53% more likes compared to a regular post devoid of any visual content. Furthermore, a study quotes that 58% of customers are more likely to trust a company if they produce video content. Also, it is estimated that over 8 billion videos are watched on Facebook on a daily basis. These statistics prove that visual content is indeed more preferable by audience and boosts more engagement.
Having accepted the importance of visual content, the next step is what should a food business showcase on videos and images? To answer this question, there are plenty of things to show. For instance, apart from posting images of your food, you can share behind-the-scene photos like the chef preparing food, employees serving to customers etc. Not only will these images boost engagement, it is also a step towards humanizing your brand. Food related memes and goofy photos of your employees with a witty status are also some ways to engage and interact with your followers.
As for the videos, again you can film behind-the-scene bloopers and share it in form of a video with your followers. You can also post short videos, sharing recipes, stories, testimonials from happy customers and even to simply say hello to your audience. Just make sure that the images and videos you post are engaging and of high quality.
Add Trivia and Short Tid-Bits of Informative Content
The content you share with your Facebook followers doesn’t have to be all fun and games. Audience likes content that is informative and adds value for them. So every now and then you should share scientific facts that is related to food or the overall theme of your business. You can even share related quotes from famous personalities.
Facebook is immensely beneficial for marketing and business growth purposes. If utilized correctly, it holds promises to utmost success and development. You should analyze Facebook pages of famous eateries like McDonald’s, KFC and Starbucks which are extremely popular on Facebook based on the most number of likes they have.
In order to ensure that all of the above tips are being effective, you can make use of the Facebook Insights which offers page owners a detailed report based on a variety of factors like how many likes your page has received as well as the number of comments and shares your posts have received in a particular time frame. All in all, Facebook has got what you need to make your restaurant or eatery successful.
However, it is easier said than done, so you need a Facebook professional like us to help you move ahead. If you’re stuck, get in touch with us today.
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