Chelsea Allenby is a Digital Marketer of 9 years and Managing Director of Allenby Digital Ltd, an online marketing agency she set-up in 2015, specialising in social media and content marketing. www.chelseamarketing.co.uk
A really good place to start when learning how to do successful social media marketing is to look at other socially inspiring brands. It’s not that you want to copy what other restaurants are doing, but you do want to learn what is/isn’t working for them. From this, you have a foundation to create your own strategy. Here, I’m going to introduce you to two restaurants who are using social media in an effective way; driving engagement and supporting their overarching message.
DaddyDonkey
DaddyDonkey serves fresh Mexican food in London. They use Facebook and Twitter to promote their fast delivery service, healthy fresh food, and easy-to-use online ordering service. One of the best ways they do this, is by posting content that really shows their brand personality; photos of the team, photos of the food being freshly prepared etc,
Why does this work? For regulars, it’s great to see a friendly face that you recognise. In addition to great food, the service and the people who provide that, are what makes a customer return again and again.
Rather than just tweeting about how fresh the food is, DaddyDonkey shows how fresh it is visually. Visual content is what drives social media, this is especially true for restaurants.
They also retweet customer tweets, and encourage customers to use their hashtags #donkeytime and #daddydonkey to join discussions all about their restaurant.
Their Twitter bio clearly explains who they are, where they are based and what they do. They are giving a new visitor everything they need to know, straight away. A good bio on Twitter is vital to gaining new followers.
ZingZing
ZingZing is a quirky Chinese takeaway in Kentish town, London. Their cheeky personality shines through on social media and they use clever, unique ways to get their brand noticed.
For Game of Thrones fans, this Instagram post is epic!
Even their bio stands out:
They use statement images, with bold messages that speak for themselves. Perfect for attracting attention in a busy stream of tweets!
As well as creating and using their own hashtags to build discussion. ZingZing also recognises the importance of getting involved in other popular threads. Hashtags specific to the days of the week are a great way to get your brand out there. As long as they are relevant to what you sell or provide, you can’t really go wrong.
#wingswednesday is for many, an excuse to treat themselves to some delicious chicken wings at least once a week. ZingZing serves some of the juiciest looking chicken wings and I know this because they tweeted about them on Wings Wednesday! You might be surprised just how many different food-related hashtags there are.
What else are these restaurants doing?
Both DaddyDonkey and ZingZing are actively posting and engaging on a daily basis, especially on Twitter. Being active on social media keeps your brand in front of the people that matter. People will forget about you in their busy lives, even if the food is fab! Luckily, most people spend a significant amount of time on social networks. Giving you the opportunity to get your brand seen as much as possible. This is simply known as increasing your brand awareness.
The main thing to draw from this is that personality makes social media marketing successful. Social media is supposed to be fun, light-hearted and entertaining. Although you are a business ‘doing’ social media for business purposes, you need to remember to actually ‘be’ social. Show your human side of the brand and you will start to create better connections and attract new customers too.
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