6 Types of Visual Content Your Restaurant Should Share on Social Media
Writing for social media is scary and frustrating – even for writers. It takes time to craft the right copy and you want it to be perfect because it’s going to be on the Internet. In front of everyone. And they’re going to judge you.
If you’re one of those people that tense up when you click on an empty social media composition box, you’re going to love this blog post. Writing is still important, but the text isn’t what makes social media followers stop in the middle of the news feed and click on your post.
It’s the images.
Why? Images are what people notice first. People process visual information 60,000 times faster than text.
When you promote your restaurant or venue and upcoming events on social media, you should always use images in order to grab attention of your prospective audience. To make it easy on you, here are six types of visual content that your restaurant or venue should share and some tools to make your images look great:
1. Behind-the-scenes photos
Photos of what’s going on behind the scenes of your business is the easiest type of image to capture and share. People love seeing how and your staff do what you do. It helps them put a human face to your business and it lets you show off your personality. Share photos of your event space, your staff getting ready for an event, food being prepared, and the moments at work that make you laugh. Use Instagram’s built-in filters to edit your photo, or apps like A Color Story to enhance color or Snapseed for more detailed editing.
2. Quotes
You’ve seen these everywhere and that’s because they work. Quote images share a feeling or wise advice that just about everyone can relate to their own lives. Look for inspiring quotes that are relevant to your business on sites like BrainyQuote, Quoteland, or Tripleseat’s quote board on Pinterest. Then use tools like Canva, PicMonkey, Adobe Spark, or the Word Swag app to create your own design and post it on social media.
3. Facts, stats, or tips
Creating images that share a fact, stat, or tip are popular because people love learning new things. You’ve probably shared an interesting fact or tip with your employees or peers. Make a piece of visual content of it using Canva, PicMonkey, Adobe Spark, or Word Swag. Posting facts, stats, or tips helps establish you as an expert.
4. Collages
You, your staff, your clients, and attendees are probably taking tons of photos during events. Your first instinct might be to post all of them at once. Don’t. Your followers might get annoyed seeing multiple photos of the same thing. Create a collage instead. It allows you to share several photos without taking up all of the space in social media news feeds. Make a collage by using Canva, PicMonkey, or the Pic Stitch app.
5. Infographics
An infographic is a long, vertical image that contains facts or tips based around a theme. Infographics are informative, helpful, and extremely shareable on social media. They also add to your business’ credibility and show that you’re on top of the latest information. Canva, Piktochart, and Venngage have templates that you can modify, or you can choose to start from scratch with your own design. Here’s an example of an infographic we made in Canva that includes tips from this post.
6. User-generated content
Customers and employees are taking photos at your business, so why not share them? Click on your location in Instagram to see what’s been posted at your business. If your employees travel or step out of the office for work, encourage them to send photos from the road. When you find photos you want to share, contact the Instagram user and ask if you can share the image on your social media accounts. Be sure to give credit to the person who took the photo by tagging them in the image and caption. The Repost app makes it easy to repost photos and give credit to the source on Instagram.
Add a quick description, share your work, and get noticed
Remember earlier when I said writing was still important? Don’t stress out about writing a huge block of text to go with your images. Just state the important information, use proper grammar and spelling, and include any relevant calls to action or links. With the right visuals and a short description, your restaurant or venue will get noticed on social media. Be sure to start a Tripleseat account to handle all of the new bookings that come your way.
