Restaurant Social Media Guide for staff
How staff can support your restaurants social media performance
It’s important that staff are fully aware of your social media strategy as there could be lots of opportunities for them to capture powerful content. Your marketing agency are not on the ground so ensuring you and your staff can recognise a good photo or video opportunity will support your social media efforts. However, they are not alone. With the support of your marketing agency they can provide a brief and support with content themes when needed.
Photographers can be expensive but with thanks to advancements in hardware and, perhaps more importantly, in AI-powered image enhancement, hundreds of millions of smartphone users are now able to take professional photos.
Sound interesting? Here’s our social media guide to training staff on getting powerful content and also how they can contribute to your marketing efforts.
Taking photos and videos for social media
Photo best practices:
- Photos are best taken portrait rather than landscape to fit the size of social media graphics (square) without being cropped
- Photos of customers should not be against the light, make sure to focus the camera so their faces are not blurred. Can be taken from an angle leveled with the table and customer
Video best practices:
- Use natural lighting where possible
- Make sure the background is not cluttered, preferably with a nice backdrop or decoration (not distracting)
- Film in portrait where possible
- Videos should be less than a minute long
To learn more about the importance of professional food photography, read our latest blog!
Photography Accessories
Products that can be used (purchase via Amazon)
Reflector: used to control lighting and have neutral background.
Tripod and light set: portable and easy to use, you can also adjust lighting to suit the subject.
How staff can support your social media activity
- Think about opportunities when making food and serving customers and share with your marketing agency.
- Always get approval from customers to use the photos – ask for their social media tags to tag them and increase your following
- Encourage customers to follow your social media channels – think about how you can promote them in-house, for example, you could run a social media giveaway to those customers who leave a review and follow your pages!
- Keep your marketing agency up to date on all new activities – menu updates, new events etc. Any news regarding your restaurant gives you a reason to post on all social media platforms and engage with your customers.
To discover more marketing tips and ideas for your restaurant, read our blog here!
How staff can use LinkedIn to build corporate relationships
LinkedIn should be used to target corporate businesses and local professionals to visit your restaurant for business meetings and events.
- Create a company business page on LinkedIn
- Staff can assist with marketing by listing your restaurant as their place of employment (this will dramatically boost the number of visitors who land on your restaurant’s page)
- Posts shared on company page should be focused on what your restaurant has to offer local businesses and professionals.
How should staff be using this channel to promote your restaurant:
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- Share company news – promote any new events, updates to menus etc… taken from the other social media channels
- Images should be focused on people having business meetings, after work drinks or company celebrations
- Connect and follow local businesses around the area
- Join in conversations on anything about your community
- Send direct messages to professional companies nearby or target their marketing staff to share information about private bookings for events and meetings.
Social Media Marketing Services
At Appetite we work with restaurants to help reach new customers and build brand awareness. Get in touch with our social media experts today to discuss our social media packages and how we can support your business.
