Twitter in the Lime Light

We can all appreciate Twitter as a place to stalk our favourite celebrities. But we know that it can also be a brilliant way for restaurants and cafes to reach their customers, and share their business - by doing some of the following steps!

1. Tweet and share plenty of photos
Although Instagram's the main place for sharing photos, Twitter's also a great place to do it because you can share information, and, unlike Instagram, links to websites.

2. Hashtags

I've talked about this in previous posts - but to sum it up, hashtags can create a wider reach, and allow people to see all the different things people have thought about the business in one place.

3. Links

Post links to other social media forms (such as Facebook and Instagram), websites, and online menus that people can see. That last one is particularly good for restaurants that offer take away/delivery, so then people only have to check the Twitter account for a menu, instead of searching around online

4. Use the 4-1-1 Theory
If people are following a Twitter account, chances are, they'll be interested in more than just photos and a menu. Posting about a range of things related to the restaurant, like four relevant posts about the business, one retweet, and one self-serving post, will generally increase how people that like the post will engage with the account. 

Know Where Your Food is Cumin From

Even if you're like me, and haven't posted a Facebook status in about 4 years, everyone still checks their Facebook account pretty much every day, if not more. It makes sense then, that Facebook is still the biggest social media platform in the world, which means, you guessed it, that it's a great place for advertising. Obviously, because so many people are on Facebook, any sort of advertisement is going to reach a lot of viewers, which can also mean it's good value for money.

The good thing about Facebook likes, is that with website cookies, when you like a page, or visit a website, a lot of advertisements will be related to those pages. For example, if you visit the page of Cafe Montagna, other resaurants and food ads could pop up on your home page. Because there are so many cafes, restaurants, and general food products being advertised, this is actually a really effective way for any business involved in food to advertise.

For example, the other day, I went on a website talking about food in Australia, and then I started seeing ads for the Country of Origin Labelling for Food. Basically, they're spreading the fact that new stickers will be put on foods so that we'll be able to tell where it comes from more easily.

Given everyone's recent obsession with organic and healthy food, it's pretty logical to assume that people care about where their food is from, and if it's an Australian product or not. So, making sure people know new labels are coming, and what they mean is a pretty smart idea, and advertising it on Facebook ensures people will be in the know.

Hashtags are a Great Way To Crack Onto New Customers

If you're with a group of people at dinner, and you all get a fancy looking meal at a restaurant or cafe, odds are, someone's going to take photos of it and post it on social media. Everyone makes fun of us Gen Y people for doing this, but let's get real, we all do it. Hashtags are a brilliant way for businesses to get marketing coverage, and take advantage of this trend. A hashtag specifically for a business, for example, #caffepaparazzi means people can search for that restaurant and see what food they have on offer. It's  not uncommon for people to search a hashtag of a cafe or restaurant when they're making up their mind where to eat to check out the food that other people have been getting, so hashtags can be a great way to bring in new customers.

However, generally when people post a photo of food they will also use more generic hashtags such as #food, #brekkie, or #healthy, which means that people who search those hashtags will also get photos of food from a specific restaurant. This means the business will reach a wider audience, and could make them want to visit the restaurant even though they might not have heard of it before.
The good thing is, while Hashtags started on Twitter and Instagram, they're now used on Facebook too, so a hashtag can get a business marketed across more social media platforms, and reach more potential customers.