Social media should already play a vital role in your bar or restaurant's marketing strategy. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have long been excellent platforms for creating brand awareness and building relationships with customers.
Now, creating content with the potential to go viral has never been easier, thanks to TikTok.
Using TikTok to grow your business is a smart way to connect with your audience and expand awareness of your brand. If you want to take your restaurant to the next level, consider TikTok to promote your business.
The basics of pub marketing on TikTok
TikTok is one of the fastest-growing media channels in the world and the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store. This makes it a perfect marketing channel, especially for trendy restaurants, eateries and bars that want to grab the attention of older generation and millennial customers.
There are three main methods of marketing a pub on TikTok and they are:
- Post relevant videos of the venue, menu, food preparation area and team on your channel.
- Partner with influencers in your industry to broaden your reach.
- Advertise food, drinks, specials and services through the social media platform.
Most successful pub brands have found various ways to combine these three methods. For example, your pub can upload original video content every day to stay at the centre of your customer's attention.
You could also create engaging social media experiences for your customers by designing contests and challenges that relate to their interactions with your brand. The possibilities are practically endless if you adopt a creative mindset.
How to showcase your pub on TikTok in 2024
The TikTok application allows users to post videos of 15 seconds or less. You can use filters and special effects to spice up your videos and grab the attention of customers.
Taking into account this video length limit, your pub and bar videos must communicate the atmosphere and vibes of your venue as concisely as possible. You can edit your clips to showcase your venue's highlights, the happiest customers, and the happiest staff members to attract business.
Make sure you add background music that is popular with your target audience or use one of TikTok's most popular viral soundtracks to stay current. Eminem's 'FACK', Ke $ ha's 'Praying' and Olivia Rodrigo's 'Déjà Vu' are just a few examples.
Promote the menu and specials online
TikTok provides a great platform for pubs to present new menu items and specialities, especially if you introduce them in a visually memorable way. Give a unique touch to your menu and special presentations. Bonus points if your videos match your brand identity.
Share recipes, food preparation secrets and previews
The newest social media platform is packed with creative recipe videos that use prep cuts to keep things short, sweet, and tempting. Professional chefs and former MasterChef competitors have built a large following on TikTok by posting videos showing viewers how to prepare their favourite dishes.
Do the same by showing your customers and followers how to make your kitchen or bar run smoothly, and how to make their favourite dishes, burgers, nachos or platter pizzas and drinks. In seconds they will be eager to visit your venue for dinner or drinks.
Host live events
Once you have accumulated more than 1,000 followers on TikTok, you can start hosting exciting live events on the platform. Ask your most popular chef or bartender to create an engaging series of tutorials or lessons to teach your customers how to prepare some of your best-selling dishes. Or organize a contest to name your new dish, drink or topping combination.
TikTok's speed and breadth make it the ideal platform for experiencing immersive live events and competitions.
Collaborate with influencers to share engaging content
Influencer marketing is one of the most affordable paid marketing strategies you can adopt. Your company could partner with influencers to shoot short videos of participating in a brand challenge, eating one of your new dishes, making a cocktail, or indulging in your best-selling dessert.
These influencers' followers are likely to automatically share this content, providing your restaurant or pub with valuable brand exposure.
Using TikTok Challenges to Build Brand Awareness
Remember the infamous #IceBucketChallenge? The simplest and most effective way to echo a challenge on TikTok is to create a challenge with engaging and memorable hashtags. These posts encourage your followers to perform a song, dance, or trick and then challenge others to do the same by sharing the hashtag.
Encourage your customers to post TikToks that show them eating at your restaurant or recreating one of your famous dishes or drinks. This incentivizes them to share the hashtag and make your business known.
Use TikTok's analytics to track your performance and adjust your content strategy accordingly
Using TikTok's analytics can help you track the performance of your pub's TikTok account and the content you are posting.
By monitoring your analytics, you can see which videos are performing well and which ones are not, and adjust your content strategy accordingly.
For example, you might notice that videos featuring your pub's food and drink offerings are getting more views and engagement than videos showcasing the decor. This insight can help you create more content that features your pub's food and drink offerings to keep your audience engaged.
You can also use analytics to track your follower growth, engagement rate, and other key performance indicators. This information can help you understand how your audience is responding to your content and identify areas where you can improve.
Use popular hashtags related to pubs and the UK
Using popular hashtags related to pubs and the UK can increase your pub's TikTok content visibility and attract a wider audience.
Relevant hashtags increase the likelihood of your content appearing in search results and the "For You" page of users interested in pubs and UK culture. It can help your content be discovered by other users when they search for or click on a particular hashtag, providing an opportunity for your content to be seen by a new audience.
Regularly using relevant hashtags can establish your pub's presence within the TikTok community, position your brand as an authority in the industry, and build a community of followers interested in your pub's offerings.
Try #publife #pubculture #UKpubs as a starting point.
Final Thoughts,
Today we live in a world of constant change, the life of young people is defined by social networks, with followers and “likes” as a unit of reference to define the popularity of individuals and this is what catering companies are aiming to advance. Let me be clear, it is not for everyone, it is new technologies and if you are not better able to rely on people who know how to juggle, you would risk making a bad impression with blurry images and undefined audio.