One of the best ways to keep customers engaged is by hosting an event. Whether it’s live music night or a happy hour, you can always attract new customers and interact with regulars. In order for the event to be successful, people must know about it and word must get out. That’s where social media comes in to do the heavy lifting for you.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss 5 strategies that will bring in more foot traffic to your restaurant’s event. By learning how to leverage social media, you can reach a wider audience than you expect.
1. Create Vibrant Event Visuals
Prioritising event visuals ensures that you stay memorable for others. Social media, in and of itself, is visual-based. That’s why you need to make sure that your marketing stands out. Here are some design-based tips you can implement:
- Using bold colours and clear fonts
- Highlight key details for the event
- Date
- Time
- Location
- Special Offers
- Include mouth-watering food photography visuals or event imagery
You can use restaurant flyer templates to save time and resize your graphic for different social platforms. If you don’t have design experience, a template makes the work quite easy for you.
Pro tip: If your design is looking overcrowded with too many elements, save detailed descriptions for the caption and keep the headline minimal.
2. Promote Your Event Early
Posting about your restaurant’s event just once isn’t enough, you need to be consistent and early. People need reminders to confirm their attendance. A common promotional timeline is:
- Event announcement post – 7-10 days before
- Reminder with deals – 3-5 days before
- Countdown ‘Tomorrow!’ post – 1 day before
- Stories, reels, live updates, and reviews – On event day
Repetition builds familiarity with your audience and that will drive attendance on event day.
3. Use Event-Specific Offers
To incentivize more people to show up, you should have something special in store for them. Social media users respond well to special discounts. Effective event-based offers include:
- Limited time discounts
- Free drink or dessert for attendees
- Group deals or early-bird specials
Make sure that these offers are scannable to the viewer at first glance. To promote your event, you should create designs with consistent branding. That way you can adjust messaging and post across different platforms without losing identity.
4. Use Instagram Stories, Reels, and Short Videos
Limiting yourself to only static posts isn’t a good marketing strategy. If you want to reach people organically, short-form videos are the go-to. Here are some ideas you can use for event-focused video content:
- Behind-the-scenes (BTS) prep
- Staff highlights and hot takes
- Teasers of food, drinks, and performers
- Countdown stories on the day of the event
You can pair short-form videos with story graphics to maintain your branding. Simple motion or animated text can bring life to visual marketing. If you’re looking to reach a wider audience on Instagram or Facebook, try a mix-and-match visuals approach to see what works for you.
5. Encourage User-Generated Content (UGC)
Promotion doesn’t stop when the event does. Encourage and incentivize guests to speak about their experience of the event online. When other users tag you or share your restaurant’s images, you can spark an influx of new followers. Here’s how to do it right:
- Create a branded hashtag which mentions the theme of the event
- Offer a small incentive to the attendees for tagging your restaurant
- Repost attendee stories, posts, and Reels
When people see real customers enjoying what you have to offer, it builds a sense of reliability and credibility.
FAQs
Here are some frequently asked questions about promoting your restaurant’s event online.
1. What are the best social media platforms to promote your restaurant’s event?
Instagram and Facebook are the go-to platforms for event marketing. In today’s social media focused era, people spend most of their time on these two social media apps. They offer small businesses excellent options for geographically targeted ads as well. Whether you’re looking to attract a local audience or something wider, these apps can be a good fit.
2. How can I make a social media post for a restaurant event?
By using a template and starting off with a clear marketing objective, you can design your own visuals without any prior experience. Design platforms like PosterMyWall offer beginner-friendly editing tools and AI-assisted design suggestions to make this process efficient and fast.
3. How often should I promote my restaurant event online?
Ideally, you should be promoting your event multiple times over the course of 7-10 days. This way, you’re able to create buzz and keep that momentum going till the event day. Make sure to ask for follow-up stories and Reels for the attendees after the event’s done.