Beginner's Guide To Facebook For Restaurants

If you’re in the food delivery business, then you know by now that success is not only based on the premium quality of your products and services, but also on knowing your customers well and developing a close relationship with them. While creating a page for your restaurant is easy, creating engagement and advertising your business requires some more sustained effort. This short guide to Facebook for restaurants aims to shed some light on what you need to do.

Get started with your restaurant
Facebook page

Complete the About page

It is good to mention that a Facebook business page for a restaurant is a different type of page than your personal profile. To publish our ordering button you need to have administration rights on the Facebook page of that restaurant.

If you don’t even have a page, start by creating one. While logged in to your account, click on Create Page and start filling in your restaurant profile.

The about page is indexed by google, so take the time to fill in your profile completely. Be very descriptive and keyword-rich (example: Indian restaurant downtown, pizza place with fast delivery etc). Also, don’t forget to link your website.

Other good things to check out on the Facebook page

In order to have a Check-in button and related features on the Restaurant page make sure that:
When you create a restaurant page you choose "Local Business or Place" mode.

Also, go to Page Info -> Edit Location and make sure your location is recognized by Facebook by moving the pin of your location on the map. Also make sure "Show Map and check-ins" check-box is ticked.

Setting up a Facebook Restaurant Page can be a bit tricky. If you go to edit some things you may implicitly reset other things (e.g. Changing your Subcategory listing will reset opening time) so you have to always check all at the end to make sure things are still set the way you want to be.

Add a cover photo

A great Cover Photo can persuade your customers to spend more time on your Facebook page and want to know more about your business. It is also the first thing that catches the eye when opening your restaurant’s Facebook page.

Just note that the image you choose to use should have no more than 20% of space covered with text. If you are unsure whether your image will work, use the Facebook grid to check. The grid tells you exactly how much text is in your image.

You have the freedom to change this image as you like, so don’t shy away from branding yourself through your cover photo! For example: You’ve just introduced a new type of pizza in your menu and want people to try it out. Take a delicious picture of it and post it as your cover photo. This is great marketing, and it’s free.

Add the TripAdvisor App

Install the TripAdvisor app to bring your reviews to Facebook. Just go to www.tripadvisor.com/Widgets and search for your restaurant. Once you’ve found it, click on the Install Now button and select your restaurant page.

Add the online ordering app

Once you get to online ordering, don’t forget to add the ordering app. All you need to know about how to add and customize the ordering app is written here.

To publish the online ordering button you need to have administration rights on the Facebook page of that restaurant. if you do not have administration rights ask someone that is already administrator to grant you such rights.

If you are not administrator of the Facebook business page, here is how the current admnistrator can give you rights: https://m.facebook.com/help/www/187316341316631.

Once you’ve done this you can come to the online ordering admin area and publish ordering on Facebook instantly.

All you need to know about how to add and customize the ordering app is written here.

Create engagement on your restaurant facebook page

Create contests

It has been proven that this is one of the best ways to engage users/customers on Facebook. It can be anything: have your customers post funny pictures of themselves with their favorite food; post a food-related animated pic and have your customers imagine funny captions etc. And don’t forget to throw in a good incentive, a contest isn’t worth much without a prize: a discount on a future order or a small, yet tasty and thoughtful gift certificate for the picture with most likes would be a good example.

Post pictures and stories

Yes, customers do love a good story, and all the more when it’s about some food they enjoy. Maybe you are known for serving really good pizza, then let them read a bit about the history of pizza. Or maybe there is some secret recipe to one of your meals, and the customers could guess its origin or unexpected combination of ingredients.

Make it personal

Let your customers take a peek in the backstage of your business, let them have a taste of the running of your kitchen (you could do that by posting pics or short clips from the making of a meal). Or let them know more about one of your chefs, who each day pours their soul into preparing delicious food. There’s nothing a customer will love more than being able to connect with your brand at a personal, human level.

Announce your promotions/new menus

Let your customers know that they’re in for a really good deal. Write a short and concise post about the new offers in your restaurant or about the upcoming items on the menu.

Announce daily specials

If you have that offer, then make sure to update your Facebook page daily. Add a good looking picture while you’re at it, it catches the eye faster.

Remember the end goal: generate sales

Don’t forget that all this effort is for generating sales. Once you have online ordering enabled, you need to make sure that your posts link to your online menu.

Basically, all you need to do is copy the link to the menu and paste it in your post. Facebook will choose an image for you, but you can change it however you like.

The online ordering link becomes available in the admin area of our online ordering once you complete the setup (under Facebook Sharing).

What’s special about this link? It works on any device (desktop, tablet or mobile) and it also works on the Facebook mobile app. For those who don’t know, Facebook hides all apps while in their mobile app. For whatever reason, it’s their policy. Having the smart link in the posts ensures that your customers are able to order no matter what.