Today we will be covering another social media platform that many restaurants are not using but should: Pinterest. This social media platform, like Instagram, is all about images. And what better way is there to market a restaurant than images of food and drink? People are naturally intrigued by graphic images. The more appealing an image, the more attention it is going to generate – which is what Pinterest relies on. Whether it is an outfit, a craft or a décor idea, people are using Pinterest to share their and get new ideas. As such, this site has really become a fantastic marketing tool for businesses in a graphic-friendly niches.
One business that is really having a great deal of success using Pinterest as a marketing tactic is the restaurant industry. Restaurants post irresistible images of their menu items, which attracts the attention of their targeted audience. It really is a fantastic and highly effective marketing approach.
And that is where we come in.
We are here to give you our tips and advice to build traffic and business using Pinterest.
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Show off your dishes
The main attraction of your restaurant is the food, right? Well, what better way to attract more customers to your website than by broadcasting pictures of your menu items.
You can post images to Pinterest directly from your restaurant’s website and embed a link directly to your site into the image. Alternatively, you can take images of menu items that aren’t posted on your site and embed a link to your site into the images.
Either way, you’ll drive more traffic to your site, thanks to the power of visual imagery.
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Pin photos from customers
Invite customers to pin pictures they take at your restaurant. If customers post photos of themselves at your restaurant on Facebook, pin those pictures onto Pinterest and vice versa. But first, be sure that you have your customer’s permission.
Create different pin boards
Do you serve a wide range of foods? Do you also features specialty drinks and desserts? If so, try making a collection of different pin boards. Make a board for your appetizers, your entrees, your desserts and your drinks, for example. Or, you could make a board each of the different types of entrees you offer; pastas, poultry and seafood, for instance.
What’s the point of this? – It makes it easier for your targeted audience to browse through your menu items and the general public is all about ease.
Optimize pin boards with SEO
You’re using SEO to promote your website, right?
Well, don’t forget to use your SEO practices to promote your Pinterest page, too. Include keywords in your pin boards, in your tags and your titles.
Be engaging
Go beyond pinning and re-pinning photos of food, start a conversation with followers and engage customers. Follow them back and like and share their photos.
We hope that these tips will help your business get it’s Pinterest strategy off the ground.
If you need an example of restaurants that are using Pinterest to it’s full potential, check out Chili’s and Moe’s Original Bar B Que pages. These two accounts are sure to spark some ideas and inspire some best practice techniques.
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