When speaking of social media, we are simply focusing on two aspects, which are the distribution platforms (social webs) and the content (articles, media, etc.) to be posted on your chosen platform(s) as a restaurant manager. So, having the basic knowledge about this is not enough to be registered on the social networks but to effectively use it for your advantage. Many people are missing out on the opportunities that are available on the internet.
According to the internetlivestat and Global Web Index, 2016, there more than 4.3 billion internet users worldwide. If you planned to create your brand awareness, build audience loyalty, increase sales, and build a personal relationship with people that matter to what you do, being active on social platforms is a necessary.
This is why growing and building your social media channel is highly essential. As a restaurant owner, your presence on social media websites is not to be taken for granted. Moreover, it can reduce the cost of advertising to an unnecessary audience that wouldn't convert.
One of the few things you should take note from this article: many potential prospects and customers are now active on these social platforms. And you can easily connect with them using these very platforms.
Though at the initial stage of building and growing your social media network can be frustrating, slow, and takes time to achieve your desired goal. The good news is, if you are yet to explore these platforms, it is not too late to get started and be focused.
Here Are Seven (7) Ways to Start Growing Your Social Media Presence:
1. Know who you are by identifying your objectives and goals
The first and crucial step to growing your social media presence is to know what you are and what you are not. Also, pen down your objectives and goals to be able to measure if these are achieved per time. If you don't know what you want before starting, anything goes, since there is no direction. Setting goals for you may defer per time. For instance, at an early stage, you want to create awareness, and as time passes, objectives and goals can take different forms. Make sure you have proper knowledge of the platform that will be appropriate to synchronize with these goals.
2. Identify and go with the right channels
These days, you can choose from the different social media platforms, e.g., Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, and a host of others. If you are not careful and focus, you may think that all social media webs are for you or your business. This still boils down to knowing the platforms that will best place you in front of your audience. The different social network has its uniqueness and purpose. For instance, if what you do have to do with the restaurant, you know that you'll need more of your recipes place on Instagram. You won't want to do this on LinkedIn. You know there is nothing as annoying as looking up a restaurant business on a social network and find out it has been inactive for a long time. This is as a result of not picking the right channel that fits you.
By doing proper research to bridge the link between your target audience and goals, you can first build your online presence with two to three social networks. In the beginning, choose one or two platforms and start there. Facebook has multipurpose usage with the most prominent and most-used platform that lots of brands build their presence there.
3. Always come up with valuable content
As a restaurant owner, you are to produce content that your potential and current customers want to see. You need to come up with plans that will continuously make available content that meets and connect with your audience. One thing content does enhance your customers’ decision to do what you intended them to do.
The ways you structured and sent out your content would determine how the audience will view you. You don't create content for your organization but customers. When you produce content that is SEO optimized, captivating, and valuable, people can’t help but share and quote you for more engagements.
4. Benchmarking on your competitors
Whatever it takes to build your social media networks probably has been done by some similar companies. You can check by leveraging what they are doing. What you will do first is to identify your competitors and source out their profiles on social media. There are many free and paid tools to help you extract these profiles out like SEMrush, Buzzsumo, ahref, buzzstream, and others. You can also check on your competitors’ profiles by visiting one by one. Many usually begin with some Google searching. The profiles gathered can narrow down to the top 5 to 7 to benchmark
5. Understand the pain point of your customers
One of the easiest ways to build and grow an audience on social media is by getting engagement from the right and targeted audience. To achieve this, restaurant managers would need to find out what the customers are looking for and searching for. What makes them tick and their pain point by doing keyword research. The keywords and phrases are used to develop engaging content. You can use marketing tools to create campaigns that attract visitors to your content quickly.
6. Be active and consistent
It saddens me when I see restaurants not being active on these social webs. Your social footprint over time is what cumulates to convince and ultimately convert potential customers to patronize you. You need to enlighten your potential customers on different recipes, information on eating right, health benefits of various food items and ingredients. These activities are what build customer loyalty. Always respond to questions and reactions from people engaging with your posts and contents. Your consistency in posting depends on the niche nature of your activities.
7. You need to pay to promote what you do
It can be time-consuming trying to start from scratch on the social network. What will significantly save your energy and reduce time is to pay for sponsored ads. Many social networks out there also want to make a profit. So, they only make your content visible to fewer people compared to the numerous populations that can be reached. To increase the process of building and growing social media, you need to go for ads that can put you in front of the right audience. The exciting part of this is that if it is done correctly, the return on investment (ROI) will be high.
Conclusion
Building and growing your social media channels from scratch takes consistency, strategizing, patience, time, and money. One of the vital benefits of building your social media presence is access to the global market without restrictions.
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