Social Media For Restaurants: Using Facebook To Get More Customers
by Will Williamson on 07-Nov-2016 15:10:00
Social media platforms such as Facebook are fantastic sources of leads for small businesses. Companies from independent bookshops, to electrical contractors, to hairdressers successfully use Facebook and other social media outlets as effective marketing tools to bring new customers through the door. So why can’t the same be true for restaurants?
Most restaurants have a Facebook page, but a surprising number of restaurateurs we have spoken to find it difficult to leverage it as a meaningful source of new customers. This can be for a number of reasons, the most common being:
- “It is hard to promote our Facebook page to a new audience, rather than existing customers.”
- “We sometimes get reviews on Facebook, but more often people will just use it as a place to post complaints, which gives a negative impression of our business.”
- “We have too many competitors. It is difficult to make our restaurant stand out on Facebook.”
- “We don’t have much time to invest in social media marketing.”
If any of these problems sound familiar, we would like to suggest five easy tips you can use to start turning Facebook into a powerful marketing tool for your restaurant, and start bringing in new customers through social media.
1) Use Your Cover Image To Your Full Advantage
Dining at a great restaurant is as much a visual experience as it is one of taste. A picture of a delicious meal will automatically give people taste associations and will evoke smells, good memories and happy experiences. Therefore, the best tool Facebook offers restaurants is your company page cover image. You can post a large, high-definition image of up to 351 x 851 pixels, at no cost.
Don’t use this to feature an image of your team or your shopfront. Pick the most mouth-watering item from your menu and get some really good quality pictures of it, then upload that as your cover image. Choose a signature dish that makes you stand out from your competitors, or that is really popular with your customers. Make sure your image includes descriptive text that says what the meal is. As many potential customers will be hungry when searching out new restaurants on Facebook, this is bound to get their attention.
2) Create Shareable Images
The posts that get the most social media shares on Facebook are images. Again, as a restaurant you are in an incredibly strong position to create lots of attractive food images. Post as many as you can. Upload catchy pictures whenever you create a new menu item. Feature a meal of the week, perhaps linked to an exclusive Facebook discount code (see below). Your options are almost endless.
3) Discounts And Promotions
Your stream of new images will soon result in increased reach for your social media posts through shares. You can encourage more people onto your Facebook page through weekly or even daily promotions and discounts, with special offer codes that stand apart from your other marketing efforts. This will encourage existing and potential customers to keep coming back to your Facebook page, knowing that they will find deals there that may not be posted on your website or email list.
You can generate further urgency by setting up time limited contests and sweepstakes on your Facebook page, which you can link to geo-targeted adverts.
4) Targeted Adverts
Facebook is a great place to advertise, not only because of its affordable rates, but because you can closely target Ads to the type of customer you want to attract. For a restaurant, it makes sense to target customers by geographical area. As suggested above, your advert could feature a time-limited special offer or contest. You can also target your adverts even further to attract a certain type of diner, such as lunchtime office workers or Christmas parties, by specifying different interests, job titles and sectors.
5) Embedded Videos
Videos are now a major part of Facebook marketing, whether hosted directly through Facebook, or linked to a YouTube account. You can gain a lot of hits, and a lot of social currency through using Facebook to promote video interviews with your head chef, video clips from your children’s Halloween party, or testimonials from happy customers.
Find Out More About Social Media Marketing For Restaurants
There are so many things you can do with social media to promote your restaurant and get new customers at your tables. At JDR, our team of marketing experts can help you explore all these exciting opportunities and focus on the tactics that get you the best return for investment. Simply give us a call at our Derby office to find out more, and we look forward to speaking to you.
- Inbound Marketing (SEO, PPC, Social Media, Video) (810)
- Strategy (350)
- Marketing Automation & Email Marketing (183)
- Sales & CRM (179)
- Website Design (157)
- Business Growth (148)
- Hubspot (129)
- Lead Generation (110)
- Google Adwords (97)
- Content Marketing (93)
- News (46)
- Case Studies (44)
- Conversion (43)
- Ecommerce (36)
- Webinars (31)
- SEO (23)
- Events (19)
- Video (17)
- LinkedIn Advertising (15)
- Video Selling (15)
- AI (14)
- Software training (13)
- Niche business marketing (11)
- The Digital Prosperity Podcast (10)
- Facebook Advertising (6)
- HubSpot Case Studies (2)
- September 2025 (9)
- August 2025 (14)
- July 2025 (14)
- June 2025 (5)
- May 2025 (19)
- April 2025 (15)
- March 2025 (13)
- February 2025 (13)
- January 2025 (8)
- December 2024 (2)
- November 2024 (4)
- October 2024 (21)
- September 2024 (4)
- August 2024 (8)
- July 2024 (14)
- June 2024 (16)
- May 2024 (25)
- April 2024 (15)
- March 2024 (18)
- February 2024 (5)
- January 2024 (10)
- December 2023 (6)
- November 2023 (10)
- October 2023 (13)
- September 2023 (12)
- August 2023 (14)
- July 2023 (13)
- June 2023 (14)
- May 2023 (15)
- April 2023 (13)
- March 2023 (14)
- February 2023 (13)
- January 2023 (15)
- December 2022 (13)
- November 2022 (6)
- October 2022 (8)
- September 2022 (22)
- August 2022 (15)
- July 2022 (13)
- June 2022 (16)
- May 2022 (14)
- April 2022 (16)
- March 2022 (17)
- February 2022 (11)
- January 2022 (8)
- December 2021 (6)
- November 2021 (7)
- October 2021 (11)
- September 2021 (10)
- August 2021 (7)
- July 2021 (7)
- June 2021 (4)
- May 2021 (4)
- April 2021 (1)
- March 2021 (3)
- February 2021 (5)
- January 2021 (4)
- December 2020 (7)
- November 2020 (6)
- October 2020 (5)
- September 2020 (9)
- August 2020 (18)
- July 2020 (17)
- June 2020 (17)
- May 2020 (10)
- April 2020 (21)
- March 2020 (24)
- February 2020 (21)
- January 2020 (12)
- December 2019 (23)
- November 2019 (12)
- October 2019 (14)
- September 2019 (16)
- August 2019 (15)
- July 2019 (13)
- June 2019 (6)
- May 2019 (8)
- April 2019 (4)
- March 2019 (2)
- February 2019 (2)
- January 2019 (2)
- December 2018 (3)
- November 2018 (24)
- September 2018 (11)
- August 2018 (9)
- June 2018 (3)
- May 2018 (6)
- April 2018 (14)
- March 2018 (12)
- February 2018 (16)
- January 2018 (15)
- December 2017 (15)
- November 2017 (18)
- October 2017 (23)
- September 2017 (19)
- August 2017 (28)
- July 2017 (27)
- June 2017 (25)
- May 2017 (18)
- April 2017 (17)
- March 2017 (16)
- February 2017 (17)
- January 2017 (14)
- December 2016 (21)
- November 2016 (27)
- October 2016 (25)
- September 2016 (16)
- August 2016 (20)
- July 2016 (19)
- June 2016 (14)
- May 2016 (20)
- April 2016 (24)
- March 2016 (22)
- February 2016 (28)
- January 2016 (27)
- December 2015 (28)
- November 2015 (19)
- October 2015 (9)
- September 2015 (12)
- August 2015 (5)
- July 2015 (1)
- June 2015 (10)
- May 2015 (3)
- April 2015 (11)
- March 2015 (14)
- February 2015 (15)
- January 2015 (12)
- December 2014 (2)
- November 2014 (23)
- October 2014 (2)
- September 2014 (2)
- August 2014 (2)
- July 2014 (2)
- June 2014 (7)
- May 2014 (14)
- April 2014 (14)
- March 2014 (7)
- February 2014 (2)
- January 2014 (7)
- December 2013 (9)
- November 2013 (14)
- October 2013 (17)
- September 2013 (3)
- August 2013 (6)
- July 2013 (8)
- June 2013 (4)
- May 2013 (3)
- April 2013 (6)
- March 2013 (6)
- February 2013 (7)
- January 2013 (5)
- December 2012 (3)
- November 2012 (2)
- September 2012 (1)
Subscribe by email
You May Also Like
These Related Blogs

How Facebook Ads Work
Most businesses that take out paid digital adverts do so through Google AdWords. However, all the main social media platforms also provide paid advert …

Top Tips For Estate Agents Using Social Media Marketing
Social media can be a valuable part of your marketing strategy. If you're thinking, "but we've tried Facebook before and it didn't work for us", you'r …

Facebook Marketing For B2B Lead Generation
I have put together some tips that will help you to use Facebook marketing to increase your leads. Let me start by saying there are usually 3 camps of …