When the holiday season approaches, your customers get into a vibrant and recreational mood, allowing you to use it to your advantage. It’s when you can offer them a quality dining experience full of festive spirits.
Here, social media plays a vital role with popular platforms to help you promote and attract existing and new customers. Today, we’re sharing the top five ways to use social media to showcase your holiday specials.
You’ll further learn how effectively showcasing your holiday specials on social media can draw the attention of judges of the top food industry awards.
Social Media and the Restaurant Industry
Social media is no longer the same as it was at inception. It has now transformed into a marketing powerhouse that you can leverage to lure your target customers.
Popular social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc., are now open canvases to share your business stories, activities, skills, and achievements.
It remains true when you’re planning to showcase your culinary specialities in a festive season. As today’s diners prefer online research before reservations, your restaurant’s social media profiles, posts, and website can influence them to make positive decisions.
What a proper social media strategy can gain for your restaurant business are:
- Optimisation of your restaurant’s social media profiles
- Increased traffic, reservations, and orders
- Enhanced online visibility through exclusive festive offers
- Brand loyalty through positive customer interactions
- Reliable platforms to share your achievements, such as authentic customer reviews, revenue growth, restaurant awards, etc.
5 Ways to Use Social Media for Success with Holiday Specials
Let’s share with you the top five ways to use social media to showcase your holiday specials and thrive:
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Leverage Available Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms can help your restaurant establish its presence and positive reputation among netizens, leading to increased traffic and sales growth. Below are a few popular social media platforms which you can use for this purpose:
Instagram is now the visual bioscope of the modern digital age, which is truly effective in promoting your restaurant, culinary skills, and holiday specials. Hire professional food photographers to showcase iconic festive dishes your chef specialises in making.
Create Reels, Stories, and hashtags to share kitchen scenarios, special holiday recipes, or inspirational stories.
Facebook is effective in community and trust-building. Facebook Ads can demographically target audiences and attract new customers to your holiday specials. Your strategies may include hosting live streams, promoting holiday menus, displaying cooking techniques, etc.
Besides, create online events for festive breakfasts, lunches, or dinners. You can utilise positive customer reviews on your restaurant’s page and group to build trust among new customers. Also, encourage your customers to share their dining experience through photos.
- TikTok
If your holiday special plan is to grab the attention of your target customers quickly, TikTok is a proven platform for that purpose. This is where you can post engaging and trendy content related to your exclusive festive offers.
Use TikTok to showcase unique recipes, food plating tutorials, a holiday inside look at your restaurant, etc. Be sure to use humour and storytelling for attention-grabbing content.
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Learn About Emerging Social Media Tools & Trends
Consider investing in emerging social media tools to keep your existing and new customers engaged in your holiday specials throughout the festive season. You may use the following tools to do so:
- WhatsApp Business
WhatsApp Business offers a catalogue feature that you can use to feature your restaurant’s holiday menus, including dishes, prices, and quantities, while taking reservations through the app itself.
- Google My Business Posts
One of the emerging trendy tools, Google My Business can help you directly share your restaurant or cafe’s festive menus and events. This will grab customers through ‘search results’ when they look for holiday specials and offers.
- AI Chatbots
Update your social media page’s AI-powered Chatbot with the latest holiday offers to streamline customer interactions. Help your customers seamlessly make bookings and orders during the rush hours of this festive season.
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Create Data-Driven and Helpful Content
It’s essential to craft data-driven and helpful content on social media platforms to guide your customers to the holiday specials you’re offering. Make sure your social media content converts your prospects into customers.
Create content to—
- Showcase Seasonal Dishes with Enticing Offers
Share your restaurant’s festive vibe and decoration through captivating photos and video clips on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Make sure to hire a professional photography service to get high-resolution and meaningful photos and videos. Couple these content with lucrative offers to capture customer attention when sharing on social media.
- Emotionally Connect with the Audience
In today’s marketing strategy, emotionally connecting with your customer is most important for success. So, share intriguing stories behind iconic dishes you want to promote as a holiday special. Besides, apply storytelling to create 90-second Reels depicting the festive vibe and spirit.
- Add Call-to-Action (CTAs)
It’s important to make sure that your every social media content includes a Call-to-Action, such as ‘Book Your Table Today,’ ‘Taste Our New Year Special Pudding,’ ‘Grab Your Gift Card,’ etc. Make sure these CTAs are linked back to your restaurant’s website or booking window.
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Partner with Influencers and Local Communities
Collaborating with social media influencers can be a real deal during a festive season. Partnering with popular food vloggers, YouTube sensations, TikTok figures, etc., can help promote holiday specials in breakfasts, lunches, or brunches. Besides, make deals with local enterprises like gift shops or event planners to create and promote exclusive dinner packages or combo offers.
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Leverage Restaurant Awards for Trust and Growth
Accolades can play a big role in putting your restaurant ahead of the competition during the festive seasons. So, if your establishment is awarded with any prestigious food industry award, leverage it to gain the trust of your customers.
Backing your holiday specials with an award-winning image can help attract more customers and increase sales throughout the festive months. Renowned restaurant awards, or curry Oscars like ARTA (Asian Restaurant and Takeaway Awards) and others, hold substantial value for a greater restaurant brand image.
Wrapping Up
In the UK, holiday seasons come with a challenging note for restaurant owners in terms of meeting the customers’ high expectations. Our five proven social media tactics can help you navigate that challenge and successfully showcase your holiday specials to your customers.
Remember, only applying these social media strategies won’t work if you don’t timely measure and optimise them. Use social media analytics, user-generated content, and innovative approaches to stay ahead of the competition.
