Social media is the new best way of promoting anything: no matter if it’s a product, service, or in this case, a restaurant event. It is a great way of spreading the word and getting people familiar with your restaurant, all while preparing them for an upcoming event.
However, there are some bad practices when it comes to promoting events on Instagram that you should avoid when promoting your own. Today, we bring you mistakes that people often make so you can avoid making them, so let’s start.
We’ve all seen those people who use dozens and dozens of hashtags whenever they post anything. In case this puts you off hashtags, you need to go back to using them.
Having a custom hashtag for your restaurant is of huge significance because whenever people post an image from your restaurant, they can tag you, letting people know exactly where they went to get this amazing experience.
Regarding event promotion, you should use event-related hashtags, such as #winetasting or #livemusic, and location hashtags, because trust me, people are clicking those all the time to find events near them. A lot of people make the mistake of avoiding hashtags, but as you can see, they are actually quite useful.
Many people think: ‘Well, I already put a lot of effort into organizing this event, the event image doesn’t really matter, people will come anyway’. Wrong.
You should absolutely make an event image for your event. It’s not so much about the very background image as it is about the information on it. Instead of posting a picture of a dish you will serve during the event and writing a long disorganized description of the event, make a simple graphic.
Instead, use the image of the meal, add a color layer, edit the opacity a little, and then add all the information about the event on it. Use nice fonts and colors and let people know about the time and date of the event, your location, any special discounts, actions or meals that are going to be served, tell them about the theme of the event is there is one, or if there is a band or artists performing, let them know who they are, as well.
You can post this story on both the Instagram feed and in the Stories, to make sure that everyone sees it. Don’t post it multiple times a day and spam your followers, though.
This might seem like an obvious one, but many people either overshare news about their events, while some don’t do it at all.
Make sure that you post about it weeks, and maybe even months in advance. This way, you are notifying people on time and giving them plenty of time to make plans with their friends and family. We all know how tight schedules are sometimes, and knowing that an event is happening weeks prior can help a lot.
Also, don’t spam your followers about the event. I’ve seen plenty of places do it and it’s such an easy way to clutter someone’s feed and make sure they unfollow you.
Even though this feature was added back in 2016, restaurants still forget to use it sometimes, which is a shame, because most users look at Stories and don’t have the time to scroll their feeds for hours and hours every day.
Avoid making the same mistake and utilize this feature. The best way would be to use the event graphic that you previously made and post it in the Story.
Having Instagram is great because you have the chance to post both on feed and in the Stories. This way, you are making sure that everyone sees it: both people who scroll their feeds and don’t look at Stories and people who check the Stories every day, but never scroll their feeds because they don’t have the time.
It is a great additional chance of promotion.
It’s 2019 and Instagram is still going strong. It is still one of the most used social media platforms and what’s more, promoting over it is easy and in most cases, free.
You can promote your restaurant event by making an event image and posting it on the Instagram feed and in the Story, letting people know about your event without spending the money on making flyers. Don’t avoid using hashtags and don’t forget to post about it weeks in advance, people often make these mistakes and then wonder why their restaurant isn’t full on the day of the event.
Hopefully reading about these mistakes helps your next event be even more successful than the previous one!
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