Looking back at 2020 one lesson we’ve learned at Hazlnut is the importance of social media and digital branding. We are on our phones more than ever giving restaurants a unique opportunity to reach more customers and sell not only food, but a social experience through digital marketing. With the crazy year we have had coming to an end, we can start looking to the upcoming one and what we can do to prepare ourselves for it. At Hazlnut, we have a few ideas to help restaurants start 2021 off on the right foot!
Social Media
With smart phone cameras competing with DSLRs these days, we live in a time where food photography is shown off and photography has become an integral part of how we choose where to eat. Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and even LinkedIn have become channels for sharing delicious food – so that’s where our focus will be in 2021. When a restaurant’s social media is managed well, it shows off the food and reassures a customer that the restaurant is open, trustworthy, active. Going to the social media page of a restaurant and seeing the last post was months or years ago can turn away customers. We believe that when it comes to food, people shop with their eyes so posting high quality photos of a menu that can be shared and shown off can really help elevate marketing reach and bring in more hungry customers.
SEO
People need to be able to find the business when they search it, so SEO is important. We all know no one goes to the second page of Google search results, so being front and center is key to getting clicks. SEO is something that needs to be refined restaurant to restaurant, there is no blanket solution but there are tips and tricks. For example, when posting on Instagram there is an option to edit the caption in advanced settings to include Alt Text to increase the restaurant’s visibility. There are companies that specialize in SEO or with some time and research it can be dialed in by anyone. This is something that will take some time, but it will pay off in the end.
They found the restaurant…..what now?
Once someone finds a restaurant’s social media channel and decides the food looks amazing and they MUST have to have it now, the next step is finding a way to order. That’s where Hazlnut comes in with online ordering. We build a branded online ordering page and give the restaurant a link to it that they can put on all of their social media and website directly. Posting a picture of a new item that looks amazing and garners a bunch of likes? Put the OLO link in the description to convert it to a sale on the spot. The online ordering link is a tool to get all of those people that they were able to reach using SEO and social media to make the final step to fall in love with the restaurant.
