Commentary

4 ways to find new customers via social media

February 2, 2018

By Erik Swain, president of Respondology

Restaurant companies of all sizes are debating the most effective way to find new customers using social media. With so many tools, apps and strategies available, it can be daunting to figure out which ones are the best fit. And with the influence of online restaurant reviews on business, social media is fertile ground for acquisition.  

Here's a summary of four popular ways to go about finding new customers through social media:

Utilizing an Instagrambot
The opportunity: There's a bot for everything on Instagram these days. Companies use the bots for a host of reasons: some allow restaurant companies to automatically add comments to relevant posts, others will follow potential customers and then unfollow them several days later. The most basic bots “like” photos with certain hashtags in the captions. 

The challenge: While these solutions can gain followers for smaller and independent restaurants focused on growing their followers, bots don't always find relevant followers.  And, even if they do, followers don't always translate to sales.   

Manual searches on Twitter
The opportunity: Brands are able to run manual searches for keywords on Twitter and then reach out to potential customers who are talking about things that are relevant. Tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social allow brands to manually monitor when people are tweeting brand specific and brand relevant terms to determine if they should reach out.

The challenge: These correspondents could lead to sales, but the process is typically too time-consuming for regional or national chains.  

Facebook Ad groups
The opportunity: The Facebook Ad manager allows brands to specifically target groups of people based on things like demographic, likes and location and then serves ads based on those specifications.T

The challenge: While the targeting can be extremely specific, it also relies on users listing that information in their Facebook profile. Facebook ads also only proved an 0.90 percent CTR for 2017. 

Referrals
The opportunity: Word of mouth is among the most effective marketing tools for the restaurant industry.  When it comes to social, referrals may be considered “old school,” but are the most effective and reliable way to find new customers. Asking current customers to share what they like about your restaurant, hosting a repost campaign, or by simply providing followers and fans with interesting, share-worthy content, restaurants of all sizes should work referrals into their social strategy.  

The challenge: While this method does offer benefits, the referral method doesn't scale without utilizing some automatic tools.  

The good news
New technologies are cutting out the manual steps necessary to find new customers on social media, making it faster to find even more specific groups of potential customers. Utilizing these tools saves time and helps restaurants, of all sizes, reach a more targeted, relevant audience. 

Reply-based advertising makes use of brand-specific keywords to find and target potential customers on Twitter. Restaurants can seamlessly insert themselves into relevant conversations taking place. For example, if someone tweets expressing hunger, Papa John's can reply and offer pizza with a coupon. This method proved a 13 percent CTR for all brands in 2017. 

No matter the size of your restaurant, look for options that will yield the best results with a reasonable amount of effort.  

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