What are the Emerging Social Media Trends in the Restaurant Industry?

As restaurant operators and owners, we love exploring and leveraging technology to best guide our clients.

We recently revealed our Top 5 Restaurant Apps & Platforms You Need to Bookmark Now, such as Pulse, GrubHub, and SinglePlatform.

Now, we’re checking out the latest in social media. Social_Media_Trends

Social media savvy is crucial for success in today’s marketplace. For example, looking to connect with specific target audiences? Facebook Ads is a great tool. Want concise, immediate, wide reaching promotion? Twitter is for you. Aiming to capitalize on social media’s power to network, capture new hires, and garner industry contacts? Check out Linkedin.

Here are some other Emerging Social Media Trends in the Restaurant Industry worth exploring.

Hootsuite. Schedule content in advance, monitor multiple accounts on a single screen, reply in just one click, identify influencers and leads, and more. Our staff is hooked on the ease of this social media tool. One staffer says, “Hootsuite makes managing social media so much easier.”

Instagram. Capitalize on the 100+ million #food posts on this social media app. Yes! Your foodie fans are out there, waiting for you to share your visual feasts for the eyes through photos or entice with fun videos (i.e. check out their boomerang feature). Take Insta to the next level: create your own #hashtags for your team + guests to utilize/track posts; create your own stories or cool collage layouts highlighting your team in action; cultivate marketing campaigns like inviting a follower +friend in to enjoy your fare in return for a post or invite followers to name a seasonal dish. Guests will love the personal connection.

Bitly. Our team enjoys Bitly’s timesaving, customizable structure. As one staffer said, “It condenses long links into short trackable ones, which saves you characters on Twitter and makes links cleaner for sharing. And, because it’s trackable, you can see how many clicks you’re getting via the bitly dashboard.” Bitly’s aim to shorten links, track individual link analytics, and thus optimize outreach efforts, makes this a valuable tool for any business.

Snapchat. Not just an app for savvy teens, Snapchat is a forum for quick ‘snapshot’ posts to get your message out there. Bonus: they even have a cool new artsy filter, called geofilters, allowing users to enhance their ‘chats’ with vibrant, eye-catching, one of a kind enhancements.

Whether using one (or all) of these social media sites and tools daily or in rotation, finding the focus and formula that works for you and your business is key to extending your promotional reach and guest engagement.

*photo courtesy of: prdaily.com