How to Increase Restaurant Sales through Social Media: 7 Compelling Tips

When you are working in the competitive and always-changing food industry, you are always looking for new ways to increase sales in a restaurant. You are surely interested in methods that require little to no money but have a big payout.

In the past, people would choose a restaurant by just looking at its storefront. But now, their choice is heavily influenced by what they see on their favorite pastime: social media. The good news is having a social media presence can increase your profit if you do it right.

We’ll show you how to increase restaurant sales through social media, the easy way:

Restaurant social media statistics you must know

If you are not yet convinced that social media can be a great medium to promote your restaurant, check out these restaurant social media statistics. They will convince you that posting on social media is well worth the effort:

• 63% of consumers use social media to find new restaurants and find new menu items;
• 88% of people trust online reviews and recommendations from friends on social media when deciding on a restaurant;
• 50% of consumers rely on influencers' recommendations on social media for discovering restaurants;
• Over 60% of restaurants use social media as part of their marketing strategy;
• 71% of diners are likelier to recommend a restaurant if they have a convenient ordering system and reply quickly on social media.

How to increase restaurant sales through social media

Creating an account on social media is the first step. If you want to turn your social media profiles into money-generating machines, you must learn where to post, what to post, and how to increase conversion:

1. Choose the best social media platforms for restaurants

If you post interesting content all the time on a platform that your target audience doesn’t use, you won’t see results. You need to go where your customers are and convince them your food is worth it. Here are the platforms we recommend you create an account on:

• Instagram: a visual platform where restaurants battle to share the most eye-pleasing content. It allows you to share both photo and video content and gives you more mediums to interact with your followers, such as Stories and Reels;
• Facebook: targeted more to the older generations, but still relevant. You can use it to participate in Facebook trends and attract more customers with irresistible promotions and tempting photos of your food;
• TikTok: exclusively for video content. You can persuade followers to visit you with intriguing videos of life in a restaurant, showcase your delicious food, and maybe share a recipe. Play it right and you have a chance at going viral.

2. Allow people to order directly from your social media profile

Do you want to know how to increase restaurant sales through social media? Give your clients the gift of convenience!

Instead of telling them to search for your restaurant on Google to find your menu, how about you add a direct link to your restaurant menu? Or go a step further and link to a menu that also allows them to order in just a few steps.

To make your client's lives easier while increasing your profit, you need to install our online ordering system on your website. Afterward, just go to admin -> Setup -> Publishing -> Facebook.

Copy the link we provide and add it to your profile description on all platforms. It may say Facebook, but it works without fault on all three. Don’t forget to add some posts where you let people know they can now directly from social media, but just clicking the link on your profile.

While on Instagram you can’t add links in the captions, on Facebook you can. So go to the next step, Facebook (Sharing) to get the customized link you can add to a lot of your posts so you can encourage people to order.

3. Highlight your attractive promotions

Sometimes, people just need a little push. They may be watching your content, admiring your menu items, or even interacting with your page, but are just not convinced to take the final step yet. Until you share a restaurant promotion they cannot resist.

Who would want to miss out on free delivery, a 2+1 deal, or a free dessert? Tempting restaurant deals is the most obvious answer to how to increase restaurant sales through social media.

You just need an easy way to set them up. We got you covered. Our online ordering system has an integrated promotions module that allows you to set up countless tried-and-tested promotion templates in seconds:

After you add a promotion, it will be immediately visible at the top of your menu. Save some time and take the image for the promotion and post it on social media. Let people know they should hurry as it is a time-limited offer.

4. Promote user-generated content

It can be hard to constantly come up with social media content for restaurants that will persuade other people to order. The great news is that your clients already do that for you.

Some happy customers like to share the restaurants they enjoyed on their walls or in their stories. Share this user-generated content in your stories to both let them know you appreciate them and expect them to return and let others know you are a trustworthy business that many people buy food from.

5. Share good reviews

Continuing the idea above, your previous clients are your best promoters. If you want to know how to increase restaurant sales through social media, the answer is simple: promote your good reviews.

The first step is to have an active account on the review platforms in your area such as Google, TripAdvisor, and Yelp. Afterward, encourage customers to positively review your business. You can even use a small incentive such as a free dessert for a good review.

All that is left to do is ask permission from the reviewers and post the review on your social media to encourage followers to take the big step and become clients.

6. Consider paid ads

Sometimes, you need to spend money to make money. This is the case if you just opened your restaurant and you want to get noticed fast. It can take time to build a big following, but paid ads let you skip a step.

You can customize your ads to target people in your area and make sure to add a promotion in there to persuade people to actually click on it. For example: “Free dessert for the first 1,000 customers! Hurry up so you don’t miss out on our pistachio tiramisu!”

7. Collaborate with influencers

Collaborating with influencers works similarly to paid ads in the way that you pay them and they give you access to a broader audience. The added benefit is that people trust the influencers they follow, so they are more likely to try restaurants they recommend.

If you don’t want to spend a lot of money, start with small influencers in your area that focus their content around food.

5 social media tips for restaurants to increase conversion

Social media can be a great aid in increasing your restaurant’s sales if you do it right. Check out these tips that will help you create an outstanding social media presence that will turn followers into customers.

1. Create a recognizable brand

Branding your restaurant can help you grow a loyal community that will easily recognize your restaurant and order from your business time and time again.

If your restaurant has a unitary image on the internet, be it your website, review platforms, or social media, you increase your credibility and potential customers will see you as a trustworthy source to buy food from.

To brand your restaurant, you need to identify your mission and concept, decide on a persona and tone of voice, and create the design elements to support them.

2. Use mouth-watering food photography

How to increase restaurant sales through social media? Show them mouth-watering pictures of your food! A hungry customer won't be able to resist a dish that is photographed so well that you can practically smell and taste it through the screen.

Forget about blurry, hurried photos, you need to show your dishes in the best light. Consider hiring a professional photographer or learn more about restaurant food photography so you can do it yourself and save some money.

3. Constantly interact with your audience

To get your followers to become customers, you must build a relationship with them. With this goal in mind, make it a priority to respond to every private message or comment in less than a day. Even an emoticon reaction to a supporting comment will make a big difference.

Furthermore, you can also add posts that promote interaction. For example, end your captions with questions, such as “What is your favorite item on our menu?”, “What ingredient would you like to see featured more in our dishes?”.

4. Participate in food trends

If you want to get more clients, you have to reach more people than just the ones that are following you. You can do so by participating in food trends that merge well with your type of cuisine.

Always be on top of viral food and try it out at your restaurant. Complete the post with hashtags and encourage people to share it. Who knows, your restaurant may even go viral in the process.

5. Promote your table reservation system

People appreciate the convenience. If they have to pick up the phone to make a reservation, risking no answer or wasted time, they may look elsewhere. Give them the option to easily book a table, with just a few clicks on your website.

The good news is that our online ordering system has an integrated table reservation system, all for free. You just have to add the button to your website and let people know they can now make a reservation in seconds. Don’t forget to include the link to your website.

Final Words

You now know how to increase restaurant sales through social media, so it is time to put in the work. Start with our online ordering system to get the direct link to your menu and focus on creating conversion-inducing content.