SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING FOR RESTAURANTS: HOW SMALLER CHAINS CAN COMPETE WITH BIGGER PLAYERS

“How many of you follow the social media profiles of your favourite restaurants? Or, if you are the proud owner of a restaurant, how socially- savvy have you been to promote your food business?”

According to an analysis- based listing in 2014, Sprinklr, a social media management platform for enterprises, the top 25 restaurants present in social media came out as no big surprises, owing to the vast recognition they have earned over the years.

On the basis of the analysis carried out to create the list, certain key factors stood out which, if harnessed correctly, can give smaller restaurant chains a slight upper hand over the larger ones. Consider, for instance, the case of McDonald’s and Wingstop, a mid- size chicken wing chain in southern United States. McDonald’s apparently has a greater following as compared to Wingstop, but what is impressive about the latter is the fact that its social profile has an engagement ratio of 30%. Conversely, McDonald’s social engagement ratio amounted to a mere 2%. 

A fact dictated by these numbers is that engagement is key. It shows that how Wingstop, a food chain comparatively smaller than McDonald’s beat the latter in terms of social engagement by posting content that is share- worthy, and thoughtful regarding the sentiments of the local communities, as Inc. writer and author of “Think Like Zuck”,  Ekaterina Walter puts it:

“As a smaller business, Wingstop can activate a larger portion of its audience on social and capitalize on being locally recognized and community-oriented. For every 1000 people in their audience, Wingstop gets more value from engaging their community members than a brand like McDonalds, because they are able to focus more time on cultivating relationships. The brand knows its audience and local community--targeting sports fanatics and chicken lovers alike--and can create the memorable experiences with which fans will want to connect.”

Another guideline that smaller scale restaurant owners can include in their restaurant marketing strategies is to cultivate the interests of local communities. Such brands, that gain local recognition enjoy the ease of building powerful online communities around their specified location in ways which are quite difficult for larger brands.

On the whole, social media marketing for restaurants is a medium that offers smaller brands to level the playing field they share with larger, and more popular brands. By enhancing their engagement with their audience, and by harnessing the interests of the local communities within the content they put on the social media these small- size food chains can rise above par to compete with big players.