The Restaurateur’s Guide to Social Media and Influencing Followers

For many business owners, the decision to have a social media presence is an easy one to make. Unfortunately, many owners and marketers do not truly know how to use social media effectively. Although they may know enough to create content such as posts and videos, boost those posts and implement special features like Snapchat geofilters, it is likely they are only scratching the surface of how social media can work. Social-savvy people know that the most effective movers and shakers on the various platforms are the influencers who are able to guide legions of followers to pay attention to stimuli they see online that they would otherwise have no use for, known as influence marketing. When influence marketing is done right, it can be the most effective form of promoting your business via the internet. Keep reading to learn more about it.

What is Influence Marketing?

Influence marketing is the practice of marketing through individuals who can strongly impact purchasing decisions because they have real or perceived authority, knowledge, position or connections. In short, influencers have the ability to prompt online followers to notice or buy from an establishment. It is a way to use popular online people and their accounts to mention your establishment in an effort to make your brand known to potential customers.

How Can You Benefit From Influence Marketing?

Once you have identified the people you want to use to influence your potential customers, you have to give them a reason and a desire to help you out. Although it might seem like a daunting task, it is not as complicated as it may seem. Here’s how it works:

Influencing the Influencers.

To get influencer marketing to work for you, you have to convince the influencers to help you out by following these steps:

• Find out who your influencers are. Do some research to find out which influencers have the most sway over the demographic you want to market to. There are plenty of websites that are devoted to tracking various influencers in different fields. By figuring out the right people to target, you can determine the right people to focus your efforts on.
• Build up your own profile. Once you’re ready to get down to business, make sure your restaurant’s profile is ready to go. Your digital look needs to be on point with a well-maintained website and an interesting and entertaining social media presence.
• Engage for the quid-pro-quo. Before you can get the influencers to work for you, you need to engage with them first. You need to not only make them aware of your restaurant by communicating with them on social media. Comment on, retweet and reblog their posts. Make them notice that you are online and active. Be careful to avoid bad content. Blindly commenting on everything regardless of what it is can backfire on you. Make sure you engage your targets with witty comments and fun conversation. Offer them something real. In short, make them notice you and your restaurant, and make them interested in and intrigued by interacting with your brand. The more you engage with them the right way, and the more they see you promoting them and their online content, the more they will begin to return the favor by posting about you and your brand.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for a share. Influencers love to be seen as influencers. So, do not be afraid to talk to them directly and ask for their help. Wait until after you have built up a reputation by helping them promote their own content before you start in on this task, though. That way, they will be more inclined to listen to what you have to say. Plus, by talking to them directly and asking them for their help, they will be flattered by your recognition of their influence on the internet.

While this might seem like an unusual way to go about marketing online, influence marketing is one of the biggest trends in digital advertising today, and no online strategy is truly complete without it. If you need help setting up an influence marketing strategy, contact Orders2.me today.