Social best practices for restaurants

Here’s a handy sheet of best practices for Instagram and Facebook. Make sure you’re following BentoBox on Instagram, and join our Facebook group to talk about the industry at large. If you ever want to talk about restaurant social strategy, send a message to BentoBox’s social media manager here!  

Finding the balance of quantity and quality 

*You should post on the feed every day with a direct link to the pages that are relevant

Some themes: 

• Regramming diner’s photos that they post + tag you in

• Daily specials on your online menu or Online Ordering Store 

• Photos of the space 

• Staff highlights 

• BTS (prep, special ingredients, R&D, etc)

• New things: like Upcoming Events or your Catering Store's new addition or special 

• Highlight a discount using our Promo Code tool for your Gift Cards or Product Store 

Tools: 

Have the link to your website (specifically that goes to your menu or online ordering store) in the website section of your bio. 

 If you have the resources try and always have something on your IG story

Some themes: 

• Reposting when customers tag you

• Daily hours or specials 

• BTS prep of a dish/inspiration

• Support an affiliate or industry friend and post your experience at their restaurant 

Again, only if you have the resources should you make reels!
First of all, have fun :)

Some themes:  

• The making of a dish/drink 

• Getting the restaurant set up for service 

• BTS that diners find super interesting 

• Influencer reels reposting 

Good restaurant Instagram accounts to get inspired: 

• Bernies: good photography displaying their menu offerings, plus user-generated content 

• Cervos: does a great job of re-gramming nice photos on feed 

• Diner: Good job at showing BTS content, their staff, as well as food 

• Lost Larson: nice mix of food, product, and architectural photography 

• Burma Superstar: Good job with Instagram stories + highlighting the ecommerce products they have to offer 

• Optimize for Instagram and share to Facebook. That means whatever photo you’re sharing on feed to Instagram, share to Facebook. For Facebook your captions can be longer, providing more information. 

• Prioritize answering Facebook DMs quickly (versus Instagram!) since Facebook for Business shows how long it takes your page to respond to customer questions 

• Ask questions and get useful feedback from your community–Facebook can be very active and doesn’t have the same algorithm as Instagram. 

• Include a direct link to your website in the Bio section 

• Follow loyal taggers to build your relationship with them

• Keep guests updated on new hours, menus, press, etc. 

• Promote your website revenue drivers - Online Ordering, Catering, Products, Gift Cards, Ticket Events, etc. 

• Need image assets? Check out our complimentary promo materials here

• See here for templated graphics on Canva

• Watch product marketing manager Sara Delgado walk you through Canva

• Your Canva 101 Toolkit