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    • Just when you thought you were getting the hang of social media and content marketing, along comes another digital platform to shake things up!

    Although it may seem relatively new, TikTok began in 2016, and since then has become the fastest growing social media platform, with more than 1 billion people worldwide and an average of  3.2 million Canadians, engaging in the video platform monthly. That’s a BIG consumer audience that you can be tapping into, and similar to Instagram, food, drinks and recipe creation continue to be top trending topics.  And as any successful foodservice operator knows, it is important to stay ahead of the latest trends in restaurant marketing.

    Currently on TikTok there are more users generating restaurant content with a rise in hospitality brands beginning to utilize the platform. Let’s dive into 101 on how restaurants can utilize TikTok’s video sharing platform to generate buzz and reach more guests.

    Who’s your TikTok audience?

    Since launching, the platform has continued to attract a younger audience with more than 50% of global users being under the age of 34, 41% of them aged 16-24, and in Canada 60% of users are female. Even if this core audience doesn’t represent your average customers, it is still worth having them connect with your restaurant brand for future business, and keep in mind, the other 50% are 35 and over. These audience profiles are critical to developing effective TikTok content and messaging.  

    TikTok Basics

    TikTok videos can range between 5 and 60 seconds in length. One of the most exciting benefits for restaurant brands is that unlike other social platforms that are driven by highly professional and polished content, TikTok is popular for videos that are fun, creative, authentic, personalized, and humorous. As you get started, forgo hiring a professional videographer until you understand if this platform is right for your brand. However, invest in a phone camera adjustable tripod that allows you to set up shots from many angles, and provides some additional lighting. Prices range from $30-$200, and tripods can easily be sourced through Amazon.ca. 

    3 Steps to follow before you create your first TikTok post:

    1. Set Up a TikTok Business Account, versus a personal account, as it provides you with performance analytics that will be useful for future advertising campaigns.
    2. Use a well-branded image or logo (recommended size 200 x 200), as your profile picture, include a brief description including a custom hashtag unique to your brand, and links to either your website or takeout platform. Link your TikTok account to Instagram for automatic sharing. 
    3. Follow similar businesses to yours within your industry, and follow their followers. Then monitor the types of video content that your competitors are sharing, and make note of what is achieving engagement, likes, and comments. 

    Explore your creative side

    TikTok’s unique in-app content creation features have set the platform apart, as the creative opportunities are endless yet they do take some time to master. 

    TikTok 101 for restaurants

    TikTok content ideas for your restaurant

    Start creating simple and fun video content that showcases what your brand does best.

    Post and grow your restaurants TikTok account

    Here are additional tips to effective posting, and growing your TikTok reach:

    Stay tuned for TikTok 102 for restaurants, to learn how to leverage influencer campaigns and advertising best practices.

    Brand is the personality of your business. Your brand certainly shines through on the menu and in the food you serve, but how about your restaurant décor? The slow winter months are an ideal time to refresh your space to invigorate your brand, engage your customers and revitalize your staff. (Yes, they, too, are energized when you refresh your brand.)

    What’s your brand identity?

    First and foremost, stay true to yourself when planning a front-of-house upgrade. “It’s essential for a restaurant to know how they want to be perceived,” says Chris Rasmussen, CEO of LeoLight, a division of Pico whose mandate is to “to provide operators and distributors a full-service partnership for their ambience and food warming needs.”

    For example, wax, fuel cell and LED candles each offer a different feel. Using a wax candle on a sports bar table or an LED on a high-end steakhouse table won’t meet customer expectations or properly reflect your brand.

    LED Candles at Restaurant

    “Ambience is an important factor when deciding where to spend dining dollars. Ambience can lead to a better experience, which in turn can lead to a higher guest check.”

    Chris Rasmussen, CEO of LeoLight, a division of Pico

    “Ambience is an important factor when deciding where to spend dining dollars,” says Rasmussen. “Ambience can lead to a better experience, which in turn can lead to a higher guest check.” The goal should be to make your guests so relaxed and comfortable they stay longer…and order more.

    Remember outdoor lighting for your spring and summer planning, Rasmussen reminds foodservice operators. “Canadian patio season is short and sweet; make it impactful.”  

    Colour and dining experience

    Find YOUR colour

    Colour. Pure and simple, colour can transform your dining room (entrance and bathroom, too). Paint and a brush are really all you need to complement your brand.  Repainting the entire space may not be necessary, though your assessment should factor in whether you need a complete paint job. If you’re looking for accent, trying a new colour on a focal wall may make more of a statement than using a uniform colour scheme. Use the psychology of colour to accentuate dining experience.

    A splash of colour in unusual places can add personality to your brand. Imagine red chairs in a neutral coloured space, such as offsetting grey seat coverings. Contrast colour in the entrance.

    Greenery also lends colour and texture and suggests a more “organic,” natural feel.  

    Fabric style at restaurant

    Spruce up your fabric

    Fabric can add more than just texture to your restaurant. Use fabric to weave your brand through the space, whether it’s a logo treatment tastefully done or some other pattern that speaks to your brand.  

    Window coverings offer an opportunity to try a new colour scheme without the commitment of a big paint job. Seat cushions or backs refinished in geometric pattern smarten things up (and cut down on noise – a bonus).

    Reinforce your restaurant brand with staff uniforms through use of colour, style or subtle logo placement. Supplying staff with hats and jackets for personal use gets word on the street. 

    Engage with your community

    Engage with your customers and community outside the restaurant. Sponsor a sports team, charity event or festival that fits your image. Get inspired by checking out 10 creative restaurant marketing strategies.

    Promote game days, school colours and community events. LeoLight offers a LED remote control, colour-changing product where you can have 16 different colours to play with. 

    Colour and dining experience

    Up the fun factor

    Let there be light. Lightboxes can add “lightness” to your space. Slim LED Restaurant Lightboxes are becoming increasingly popular in restaurants where menus need to be prominently backlit for your guests to see the print. Lightboxes use energy-efficient LED lighting, which is 75% more efficient than fluorescent lighting, and can illuminate your printed graphics in ways that add more than just light to your restaurant. 

    Create an Instagram wall. This is an invitation for your customers to snap even more photos promoting your brand. How you display the shots can continue telling your story. How about creating a huge backdrop display screen with rotating Instagram images? Invite your diners to create imagines and see them instantly displayed. And don’t forget, Instagram images can liven up both the inside and outside of your restaurant…for very little money.

    Invite customers to follow your TikTok profile. TikTok is a powerful way to engage and interact with your customers, and can be used to grow your brand in youth demographics.

    Strengthen your identity by rethinking your space. A few tweaks – with minimal cost – will brighten your image – and your restaurant brand.

    If you’re not on Instagram, you don’t exist. That’s the hard truth. The social media landscape has quickly become the dominant marketing tool for restaurants to connect globally and directly with existing and potential customers. No biggie, there are just around 1 billion of them.  

    The “gram” user, combined with Instagram algorithms, continues to challenge restaurants to push creative limits, in order to achieve Follows, Likes and Comments.

    What are some social media tactics your restaurant can employ to develop impactful social campaigns?

    Start with a monthly plan

    Take the time to plan out your key messages and posts for the upcoming month by developing a social media content calendar. Your goal should be to support and highlight initiatives within your restaurant operation that set your brand apart, while reinforcing key brand messages.

    Monthly plan - Instagram for restaurants
    Like speech bubble isolated on the yellow background.

    Put your best post forward

    Instagram can be a powerful tool to stay in touch with your loyal customers, to let them know what you’re doing:

    Times to post

    Social media reporting suggests that the social guest is most engaged in the early mornings, lunch and dinner hours, and later in the evening. These moments tend to be when we are taking a “break,” which results in spikes in social media activity. Instagram for businesses also provides effective reporting on your social guests’ most engaged days and times per day. Utilize this data to identify the optimal days and times of when to post.

    #Hashtag

    Hashtags can make or break the effectiveness of your content strategy by how relevant they are to the content you are posting. Digital users can follow hashtags to collect content on their feed that is of interest to them. The goal is to use hashtags that will place your content on the feeds of your target guests. Popular hashtags are identified in the “TAGS” search bar on Instagram by the number of times they have been used in a post.

    Follow these five top tips to develop a list of hashtags relevant to your brand content:

    1. Research what competitors and the foodie community are using as popular hashtags.
    2. Identify 30-50 hashtags that align with your menu offerings and location, and are popular, and reference them selectively within your content calendar.
    3. Post hashtags that match the photography or video content you are sharing.
    4. Post the hashtags as a “comment” to your post, versus within the post.
    5. Post between 15 and 30 hashtags from your list per post.

    As you monitor the effectiveness of your social campaign, be aware of spikes in your engagement when certain hashtags are used in your posted content, to identify your top-performing hashtags.

    Utilize apps

    Developers are launching innovative useful social media content editing, organizing and publishing apps on a monthly basis to support small businesses in managing digital campaigns. We recommend downloading a few different apps to test them out and understand which will be most effective in supporting your social media goals.

    Using Instagram and Facebook to build a community of engaged brand advocates can seem intimidating, until you realize what makes them work. Implement these tactics to see what a powerful tool social media campaigns can be for your restaurant business.

    To say that Instagram’s food community is an impactful marketing channel for your restaurant business is an understatement.  

    Restaurateurs need always to be thinking about how every element and square inch of their restaurant can be used to create their unique brand and be “Instagram worthy.” The more potential photo opportunities designed within your restaurant and menu, the more diners will want to snap and share, and the bigger your following will become. It’s that simple.

    So first off, who is your customer base?

    Of the current 800+ million Instagram users, the majority are Millennials with 90% of the Instagram user base 35 years and younger. That’s not to say Instagram can’t be effective connecting with a mature restaurant clientele, you just might experience slower growth through the platform.

    Cater your Instagram content to your demographic by sharing photos and messages that will matter to them.

    • Instagram 101 for restaurants

    What should restaurants posts?

    Before it was just about food, now it’s about sharing everything about your restaurant that is consistent with your brand.

    1. TEAM
    2. MENU ITEM
    3. DÉCOR
    4. DRINK ITEM
    5. SERVICE
    6. BRAND ELEMENT

    #Food #Drink

    When designing your food and drink menus, create three to five items that will become your “Instagram stars” in addition to your other items. The “Insta Stars” should be unique to your restaurant — for example, in their presentation, the ingredients, or the way they’re prepared or consumed. Snap these items with a consistent aesthetic to your brand and add a custom hashtag so you can track how many times they’re posted.

    Your Insta Stars will be the key elements that get you the most #instalove, and are likely to be snapped and shared the most, garnering your brand the most attention. Try to create new Insta Star dishes seasonally so Instagrammers and diners continue to come back to see what’s new.

    #InstaDesign

    Your restaurant’s design and décor provide endless opportunities to incorporate Instagram-worthy elements that are consistent with your brand.

    Exterior to interior design, nothing should be over looked as Instagrammers flock to restaurants for the trendy design photo opp, but then stay for the food.

    #GoTeam

    Action shots of your chefs cooking or plating, servers sharing their favourite dishes, bartenders shaking up fancy cocktails are all great photo opportunities. It is an Instagram fact that photos featuring faces get 38% more likes than those without, according to Sproutsocial.com.

    #PicturePerfect

    A professional photographer will always take the better shot and edit it to perfection, hands down. But for restaurateurs who are managing Instagram in-house it is most effective to have one team member manage the process for consistency.

    #Hashtags

    1. Hashtags allow users who are searching that hashtag to connect with your post.
    2. Hashtags allow your posts to be part of a trending topic.
    3. Hashtags allow you to track the number of posts associated with the hashtag, for effectiveness.

    Instagram is a restaurant’s gateway to the influential food photo frenzy community…