Leading hospitality businesses use social media to communicate with target demographics. Social media can be especially beneficial for the hospitality industry. Whether your venue is a hatted restaurant or a burger joint, a large proportion of the industry is embracing social media. Social media also enables your company to have a voice and personality, which you can tailor based on your target market.
Knowing your audience
Knowing your audience is the key to success in any industry, and social media can help a business define who its key audience is. This understanding will help you design campaigns, tailor the voice and personality to suit the target audience, and ultimately improve return on investment. Posting content applicable to your target audience is essential for that content to be shared.
Finding new customers
Social media can help a business reach new and potential customers cost effectively, and provide valuable insight into the ‘customer experience.’ As a business owner, it also allows you to build stronger relationships with your current customers to increase loyalty. Increasing brand awareness through social media can be more cost effective than using traditional methods of advertising.
Instagram for business
Instagram is unlike any other platform in its singular focus on captivating imagery, giving a business an avenue for rich visual storytelling.
Impos venue Baba Sus is one café that has social media, namely Instagram, down pat. Owner Daniel Liao explains that having great photography, along with Instagram worthy food goes a long way. Currently, both Broadsheet and The Urban List are using images of the café and dishes as cover photos on their Facebook pages, plus The Urban List consistently uses images of Baba Sus’ dishes in their marketing.
When should business owners use Instagram?
Instagram will drive most impact for businesses that are primarily B2C*. Leading restaurants, cafes and bars are already using Instagram effectively to market their venue and key dishes.
Instagram stats and facts
Using Instagram for business is highly beneficial with over 5 million people using Instagram across Australia**. Of the 31 percent of small to medium sized companies across Australia using social media for business, 11 percent of small business use Instagram and 13 percent of medium-sized businesses do the same**. 20 percent of small businesses using social media for business update their social media pages on a daily basis, along with 34 percent of medium-sized business and 56 percent of large business**.
We spoke with Broadsheet who explained how important it is for a venue to have an online presence.
“I think it’s a good idea to have an active presence on Facebook and Instagram. Your venue is a live thing – it is likely to be constantly improving, or making little changes, or adding new products. Social media is your lifeline to your audience – be inclusive and keep them across what’s happening.”
For more information check out the Impos Marketing eBook here.
* B2C: Business to Consumer
* https://www.sensis.com.au/content/dam/sas/PDFdirectory/ Sensis_Social_Media_Report_2015.pdf
