We hear again and again about the importance of social media for restaurants. Post regularly. Use visuals. All wonderful suggestions — but do you ever find yourself in a rut, wondering what to post? Then this post is for you! We’ve collected an extensive list of social media ideas for restaurants that will inspire your posting strategy.

But first, let’s talk briefly about how to choose the best social media networks for your restaurant.

Where to Post These Social Media Ideas

When deciding where to cast your net in the social media world, there are a lot of options. But not every network is going to be right for you. How do you choose? Here are a few things you should consider…

  • Visuals – As a restaurant, the more people see your mouthwatering cuisine, the better. And the more visual-centric a network is, the better!
  • Engagement tools – Beyond simple posting, you want to engage with your audience with tools like polls, stories, and videos.
  • Audience Reach – An effective social media platform will have a large audience, with a substantial population in your local area.

Look at each network and see what it has to offer. Familiarize yourself with the tools and ask yourself how you would use it to promote your restaurant. This will help you land on the network that is truly best for your business.

The most popular social media networks for restaurants include Facebook and Instagram, due to their unique tools, their audience reach, and the visual nature of their platform.

Now that you have a better idea of where to post on social media, let’s talk about what you should post — aka, the most popular and effective social media ideas for restaurants.

These ideas go beyond simple posts of your food and drink items because you most likely already post about your food and drink — and that’s great! But we wanted to give you even more fresh and exciting ideas that will get your creative juices flowing and brighten up your social media feed.

20 Fresh and Inspiring Social Media Ideas for Restaurants

1. Share Your Backstory

Share a little bit about yourself and how you got started as a restaurant. When you share details like this it helps your audience to feel closer to you. This can be a great post to share on the anniversary of your restaurant’s opening or on another equally significant date.

2. Promote Upcoming Events

Share events that you will be hosting in your restaurant, such as trivia, karaoke, or a fundraiser for a good cause. You can even post about a local event where people can find you, such as a big game day where your food will be featured.

3. Highlight Special Holidays

Share a special message during the holidays. This could be to wish everyone a happy holiday or even to highlight a special holiday promotion. And don’t forget the holidays that are specific to your restaurant’s culture, such as Chinese New Year’s or Cinco de Mayo.

4. Ask for Design Ideas

Engage your audience by asking for their input. A great example of this is promoting a design contest. This could be for your restaurant’s merch (t-shirts, mugs, etc.), your menu, or a new dish to put on your menu. Contests like this get people excited and engaged.

Then, once you have a few submissions, invite your social media audience to vote on their favorite!

5. Promote Other Local Businesses

Promoting another local business on your social media is a great way to showcase your community spirit — and it doesn’t take anything away from your business to do it! No doubt there are dozens of local businesses and artisans who would appreciate a shout-out. They might even return the favor!

6. Share Positive Reviews

Did you get some love recently on a review site like Yelp, Tripadvisor, or Google? Share the review and include a thank you to the person who left it.

7. Showcase Your Local Community

Your restaurant is part of your local community — and your audience should feel that in your posts. Whether it’s a local fundraiser for a cause that you’re passionate about, a local college football game, or high school graduation, highlight these in your social media posts.

8. Share Media Mentions

Did you get featured in a local newspaper? Did someone mention your restaurant in their blog? These are all perfect opportunities for you to post some of your media love to social media.

Keep on top of all your media mentions by setting up a Google Alert. This free and easy-to-use tool will send you an email anytime your restaurant gets mentioned anywhere on the internet.

9. Shine Light on Your Milestones

Milestones are special and deserve a little celebration. Have you hit a certain number of years in business, earned a local award, or reached a certain number of social media followers? Or perhaps you or someone on your team has reached a personal milestone, such as a graduation, award, or wedding. Let your audience know with a quick post to your network.

10. Answer Some FAQs

Do you notice a trend of questions among your customers? You can probably bet that others are wondering the same things. You can make posts to answer the most popular questions. For instance, you might notice questions about your signature dish or whether or not you have a gluten-free menu.

11. Promote Your Merch

Merch is a wonderful way to create another stream of income for your restaurant — and social media is the perfect space to promote it. Post pictures of you or your staff modeling the merch and let your audience know about the newest arrivals.

12. Let Them Know About Online Ordering

Want to boost your online ordering? Let your customers know where and how to do it by sharing posts on social media. Some people may not even know that you offer mobile ordering, so the more you share, the more it will keep it top of mind.

13. Talk About Pop-up Events

Let your audience know when you’re going to be serving your food at a local event, such as a festival or street fair. Let them know all of the specifics and what you’re going to be serving to get them excited to come down and support you.

14. Be Creative with Videos

Many of us are shy when it comes to videos — but it doesn’t have to be anything complicated! We promise. In fact, something as simple as a 10-second video of you adding ingredients to a pot or sliding a dessert into the oven can stir up excitement. Get your audience involved with a caption that teases them or asks them to guess what you’re making.

15. Introduce New Hires

Do you have someone new on your waitstaff or a new chef in the kitchen? Share this on social media with a small bio about the new hire and invite everyone to give them a warm welcome.

16. Take Them Behind the Scenes

People love to see what’s going on in the kitchen. Showing them behind the scenes, where the magic happens, can be a nice personal touch to your social media feed. Not only does it allows them to see that you run a clean and orderly kitchen, but it makes them feel special, like part of the family!

17. Share Funny Restaurant Posts

Include some humor in your social media feed with some restaurant-centric memes and posts that can’t help but make people chuckle. Of course, keep it clean and avoid anything controversial — but having a little fun can help you share a laugh with your audience.

18. Invite Them to “Caption This”

Everybody loves to caption photos that they see on social media. Select a photo of your restaurant, one of your dishes, or one of your servers, and ask your audience to comment with the perfect caption or what they think the person in the photo is thinking. This is a great way to get people engaged on your feed.

19. Leverage User Generated Content

When it comes to social media ideas for restaurants, sometimes your customers do a lot of the work for you. When people tag you in a post or share a picture of them eating at your restaurant, why not share that post to your feed. Just get permission first, with a short message like, “We love this post of you at our restaurant — would you mind if we shared it with our audience?”

20. Showcase Your Vendors — Especially the Local Ones

Are your ingredients locally sourced? Do you get your produce from a local farm? Highlight these vendors on your social media by talking about where they are and what they do. If possible, share photos of their location. Knowing and seeing that you use locally sourced and truly fresh ingredients will endear you even more to your audience!

Concluding Thoughts on Social Media

When it comes to social media ideas for restaurants, the sky is truly the limit. There are endless opportunities out there for you to connect with and grow your audience.

And remember to keep up with social media trends — you never know what new trend you might see that you can turn around and use for your restaurant!

We hope that this post gives you new ideas and inspires you to take to social media with renewed vigor. After all, it really is one of the best marketing tools available to your restaurant.

Want help with your social media presence? Our team is here to help! Here at Devour Now, we work with our partners to create visually appealing and engaging social media posts. We invite you to learn more about our full suite of marketing services and how we can help your restaurant.

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