The Dangers of Relying on Social Media to Market Your Restaurant Business

Social media has certainly taken marketing by storm but research still shows that the most effective forms of marketing don’t happen online.  In fact, while word-of-mouth referrals are still the best way to effectively market your restaurant business, tangible forms of marketing such as direct mail and postcards reveal greater response rates and more obvious ROI (return on investment) than even social media campaigns.  Social media marketing is certainly inexpensive but in today’s fast-paced world, time is money, and the time spent on creating extensive social media campaigns doesn’t always translate into paying customers at your tables to offset the time spent on maintaining the marketing campaign online.  

This might come as a surprise to restaurant owners and marketing directors who have heard that social media is the new “must” in effective marketing.  After all—everyone they know has a Facebook account or Twitter account, right?  The simple answer to this is: yes, a lot of people have social media accounts and use social media each day to interact with friends and family, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into bringing paying customers to your tables.  

Think about it like this—despite the fact that the majority of people (particularly in the 20-40 demographic) might participate in social media with Facebook, how many of those people “like” a company’s page, only to uncheck the “show in news feed” option?  If you do a quick poll of the people you know with a Facebook account, you’ll find that many will choose to limit their news feed to close friends and family, primarily because if they don’t, they’ll be overwhelmed with messages they really don’t care to read.  

This goes to the heart of what social media is for and the role it plays in people’s day-to-day lives.  Social media is primarily used as a method in which to connect socially with people, not to see advertising or respond to it.  That’s not to say that your restaurant business won’t benefit from participating in social media or having a Facebook page—but there is an inherent danger in depending too much on social media marketing and avoiding other more effective, traditional, “tried-and-true” forms of successfully marketing your business.