How Important is Social Media for Restaurants?

How Important is Social Media for Restaurants?Joy2020-05-19T09:58:53-07:00

As businesses continue to leverage modern tools to promote their brands, many restaurants are turning to social media. Courtesy of the fact that their main product is food, which is easily captured by anyone with minimum photography knowledge, creating vivid posts that attract customers is nearly effortless. Of course, the list of benefits that professional social media accounts bring is much longer. One of the downsides, however, is the time and money that needs to go towards building an online following. So, just how important is social media for someone who has a restaurant?

The New Norm

According to Forbes, catering to mobile users is slowly becoming a mandatory step for anyone who wants to build successful ventures. While this has a lot to do with the fact that there are more cellphones than toothbrushes around the world, it is also directly tied to social media. As per Statista, 2017 saw the highest portion of the U.S. population, which was 80 percent, own at least one social media account. While the number has since gone down by one percent, there are still approximately 258 million Americans who utilize Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, or similar.

The days when you could promote your restaurant with newspapers are long gone, and the days when you can rely on television marketing are facing the same destiny. Due to the growing e-commerce industry, many folks who use social media are in a perpetual “buying” mood. By taking advantage of some of the aforementioned platforms, you might be able to capitalize on their willingness to spend money on new goods and services. So, once they spot a smooth, engaging social media page for your restaurant, you could momentarily earn a new visitor.

Cost Efficiency

Since the previous paragraph makes it clear that social media is indeed important to any restaurant, it is time to quantify that level of importance. Is the internet instrumental to its existence? Will restaurants that do not have any online following fail in the digital age? The answer to both is no. Regardless of the rapidly moving market and unprecedented growth, which have characterized social media since inception, there are ways to remain operational absent digital resources.

Taking that route, however, is going to be incomparably more expensive. According to independent research conducted by a lifetime advertisement researcher, Dr. Augustine Fou, the average cost for getting exposed to 1,000 people for different platforms includes:

$57 for direct mail;
$28 for television;
$16 for magazines and newspapers;
$10 for radio shows.

Social media, on the other hand, carries an average of $2.5 for every campaign puts your brand in front of 1,000 targetted customers. That means that you could showcase your restaurant to approximately 10,000 local consumers for merely $25. Trying to do the same with mailed newsletters or television ads would cost you $570 and $280, respectively. Thus, in terms of cost-efficiency, which should be your restaurant’s priority, social media is not just important, it is imperative, critical, and irreplaceable, and it practically fits any adjective that follows that same pattern of urgency.

If you are already struggling to meet the demand, you should probably delay your digital pursuits until the market slows down or you choose to expand. Whenever you decide to reach a wide audience for some of the most affordable marketing costs, your restaurant’s social media will be the best solution.