How To Market Your Restaurant On Twitter

As Twitter rapidly grows at an astounding rate, reaching a wider audience, it’s no wonder that small business owners are taking quite an interest in tapping into this massive social community. Marketing on Twitter is not a new concept by any stretch, but promoting Mom & Pop pizza joints and deli’s is a very new concept for many of those “Mom & Pop’s” who are trying to drive people into their restaurants.

Think about it though – in today’s marketplace, the generation with tons (well okay… not tons) of disposable income are nearly all online, and a good portion of them are moving nearly exclusively to Twitter every single day. We already showed you how to launch a Facebook page for your business, and that’s all peaches and creme, but if you want to reach your target demographic quick, fast and in a hurry, make sure you read below, as I’ll be showing you step-by-step how to get started with marketing your restaurant or bar on Twitter TODAY. It’s really easy, and you’ll be mad you didn’t start earlier.

Let’s do this!

Step-By-Step Guide To Marketing Your Restaurant Or Bar On Twitter

Step 1 – Signing Up For Twitter

This is a quick and easy step to starting this journey. Obviously, if you don’t have a Twitter account, you can’t do any of this – so register for Twitter here. Keep in mind that since people might be actively searching for your specific restaurant Twitter page, that you want your Twitter username (if at all possible) to be your restaurant name. Even if you have to use an underscore (example: Tonys_Pizza). Get as close as you can to where it still makes sense.

Okay, are you all signed up now? Good, let’s move on to the fun stuff.

Step 2 – Establishing Your Brand

In case you haven’t used Twitter much, you should know that Twitter allows you a certain level of customization for your Twitter page. For an individual, you can usually get away with using one of the default Twitter background that they let you pick from, but as a restaurant establishing an official presence on Twitter, your best bet would be to customize your Twitter page to align with your branding image. This will help people recognize you, and it’s obviously a best practice as far as branding goes.

To access the custom design area of your Twitter account, it’s easy. Just do the following:

1. Click on “Settings” at the top of the page
2. Click on “Design”

From here, you have two options - you can click “change background image” to upload your custom background and/or you can “change design colors”. You’ll probably be using both of these options at some point.

But what if I can’t design my stuff or upload my design? This may be a common issue, but don’t let this be a roadblock. If you don’t know how to replicate your brand and how you want your Twitter page to look, there are many people that can do it for you for a very fair price. Even if you have to shell out $50-$100, if you follow through and actually actively market your restaurant on Twitter, it’s a very, very insignificant investment in what will be a very bright Twitter marketing future

For any inquiries about a custom Twitter page or any design help, contact me right now and I’ll put you in touch with an awesome designer that will HOOK YOU UP!

Also, you’ll want to finish up this “branding” step by uploading a custom avatar. This will be what people see the most (as your avatar is what appears in their “timeline” or list of updates. The avatar you use for your business should typically reflect your business – something where your target customers will recognize you. I know it may be difficult to put your entire logo in a square, but if that’s the case, just have your designer (whether that’s you or someone else) think of something that will represent your brand in an attractive, catchy, and (somewhat) professional manner.

To upload a custom avatar (and please, take the time to do this – again, it’s probably going to be seen 100 times more than your actual Twitter page), you’ll need to again click on “Settings” at the top of the page, but this time you’ll want to click on the “Picture” tab, as seen below:

You can upload any image up to 700k in size, and Twitter will automatically size it down to fit all of the different avatar sizes they use. So try to upload a smaller image so that it won’t be compressed too much and show much distortion. Again, if you need any help uploading or designing an avatar, use the link a few paragraphs above to get in touch with me and I’ll help you as much as I can.

Step 3 – Finding Your Target Audience

Now that you hopefully have your custom background and avatar uploaded, we get to move on to the more interesting and tedious task of finding your customers. They’re out there, but you’ll need a little help finding them at first (eventually, if everything falls into place, they’ll be looking for YOU!).

So the first thing you’ll need to get familiar with is the “Find People” function. You’ll see the “Find People” button at the top of your page. Go ahead and click on it.

Now obviously, you’ll want to target people in your general area at first, because they’re the ones that will be most likely to come into your establishment. So in the “Who are you looking for?” box (assuming you’re still on the “Find People” page), type in the name of your city or town. For example, if you live in Atlanta, type in “Atlanta”, and press the “search” button. This will pull up anyone with the word Atlanta in their profile or name – which is a likely indicator that they live or work in the Atlanta area.

You’ll immediately see a list of people populate below, and thankfully, Twitter puts a little “Follow” box by each one – so you can go through and start following everyone that talks about Atlanta. The goal is that by following them, you not only make connections with people, but hopefully they’ll follow you back. See, you’re already building up a customer list! Most of the profiles we find using this method will be other businesses and organizations in the area you’re searching, which is okay. We’ll get more personal in a second with another method.

One rule of caution - new Twitter accounts can only follow somewhere around 500 other people in the first day or two, and then eventually it will let you follow up to 2000 total. It won’t increase until the number of people following you back starts to equal the number of people you’re following. I know this sounds a bit confusing, but these rules are set in place by Twitter to cut down on spamming. Trust me, you’ll appreciate it later on down the road.

Now that we’ve used the “Find People” shortcut, we’re going to move on to a more personal level of finding relevant people in your area. The next method takes a bit longer, and will be something you’ll work on over the coming weeks and months, but it will be one of the better investments you’ve made in online marketing in quite some time. What exactly am I referring to?

Again, lucky for us, Twitter has a powerful real-time search engine that allows you to search for anything that’s being said on Twitter. This is HUGE, and will prove worthy in just a second.

First, head over to the Twitter Search page.

Once you’re there, I bet you can guess the next part, but if not, here is what we’re going to do. Simply type in the name of your city or town, and click “Search”. This will start the process of real-time updates of everyone that is mentioning the word Atlanta. Sure, some of them will be nonsense or sports related, but a good portion of these people will give away small hints that they are in Atlanta, or planning on going there soon (you’ll often find people who are flying into Atlanta or whatever city you are searching for, and these are awesome prospects, as you can hit them with special “Just Flew In” deals – a free appetizer perhaps?).

Check out the list of search results below, and you’ll see why I circled 4 possible people that I would follow if I marketing to the Atlanta area. Keep in mind, these are just 4 people out of tens of thousands.

The 4 people I circled give away obvious clues that they are in the Atlanta area. To follow them, simply click on their picture or the blue linked name (the things I circled), and it will take you to their Twitter profile page and give you the option to follow them.

Yes, it really is this easy!

So build up your list by using the methods above, and you’ll notice that a certain percentage of the people you follow will follow you back. This is what is desired, and will lead to an exponential increase in people following you because their followers might start following the people on their following list (which you’re on), and they’ll follow you too. This happens on all levels, and over time, you could build up quite the following – ESPECIALLY if you’re already a popular restaurant or bar. And double especially if you’re generous and smart enough to give out awesome freebies to your followers.

Step 4 – Be Generous and Give Away Cool Freebies

Now that you know how to establish a following on Twitter and get the word out about your restaurant, you’ll need to implement “the hook”. I’m sure that if you’re a restaurant or bar owner, you already have some promotions in mind, but be sure to go the extra mile on Twitter, as word of mouth can (and does) spread so, so fast.

Need an example?

I just did a super quick Twitter search for “free appetizer”, and came up with a hot new Sushi Bar in Charolette, NC who is saying “Mention this Tweet and get a free appetizer” (see below)

So they’re announcing the grand opening of their establishment, and just for mentioning that you saw them on Twitter, they’re going to give out a free appetizer. That’s a cost that they can easily swallow, as messages like this (especially for larger cities) can get “Re-Tweeted” over and over again by other Twitter users that are happy about it and want to share it with their friends. Talk about easy word of mouth advertising!

So whether you want to give away a free appetizer or something else you have up your sleeve, make sure you shout it to the world. Imagine when you have several thousand local people following your Twitter stream, and you announce a hot special or really cool event – you very well may not be able to handle all of the incoming customers. Wouldn’t that be pretty sweet? I’m guessing most restaurant owners would think so!

Again, being generous with your promos is going to get that sweet “viral” marketing campaign going, where your offer quickly spreads across Twitter (and may even merge into other social networks, which is totally fine as well).

Remember, alot of these folks are going to be first time customers, and highly impressed with your savvy Twitter marketing skills. Of course a percentage of these first time customers will most likely turn into “regulars”, which is your bread and butter. Even if you catch someone who is just in town for the weekend, if they like your style, you can bet that they’ll come back every time they’re in town – what more could you ask for?

So, is it all making sense? Are you ready to get to Tweeting?

Before you go, I hope this article has tought you the fundamentals of marketing your restaurant on Twitter. Of course, there are more tools and 3rd party applications that can make you a Twitter power user, but starting at the basic level is all you’ll need for a while. There have been plenty of small businesses that have increased their bottom line by more than 10% just from taking advantage of Twitter alone (not even mentioning Facebook or other social media outlets). Twitter is a good place to start because it’s highly popular, and your target customer base is getting to the level where they almost expect you to have a presence there. So don’t let them down, and treat them right!

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, be sure to contact me. Also, I do consult for small businesses who want to establish and maintain a presence on Twitter, so if you’re more of the “hands off” type of owner and would rather have someone else do it, get in touch and I’ll be more than happy to help you out.