Though I know a thing or two about sales and marketing, I have always been a later adopter of social media.
I definitely was not Tom’s first friend on Myspace or Zuck’s first Facebook friend.
Though late to the party is still better than not joining the party.
Years ago I wrote an article and/or mentioned in a seminar the strategy of taking pics at your full service catered events and posting them to your company’s Facebook page. Tag your client and ask them to promote the post(s) to their guests and/or employees.
For the cost of a couple of hours of a fourteen-year-old’s time, you can have a ton of great event pics and videos to post and share.
How To Effectively Market a Catering Business on Instagram
This strategy is every bit as valuable, if not more, with Instagram.
As again, I am late to the Instagram party, I find myself getting sucked into this virtual black hole. I can guarantee your clients and prospective clients aren’t immune to the dopamine hits on their brains.
If I still owned my restaurant, I would employ a more encompassing Instagram strategy and hire a digital marketing specialist.
1. Monitor
Monitor your account regularly and reply to any likes or comments from followers/visitors.2. Post
Besides posting content of client events and tagging them, I would come up with a complete content strategy. You don’t have to be an original genius. There are plenty of influencers in the food and non-food space to emulate.
Content ideas include:
- food and catering pics
- how-to, tips, and recipe videos
- fun trendy videos
- special promotional graphics
- behind-the-scenes
- promote blog posts
- testimonials from clients
- limited-time menus
NOTE: Don’t make the mistake of making all your posts a wall of ads for specials and promotions. Use them sparingly. And of course, make sure your graphics have a unified design theme.
3. Follow, Like, Comment
Which clients would be great to have? Have your social media manager search them out on Instagram and follow them. It’ll give you a few insights into potential catering opportunities. Seeing what they posted about this year’s holiday party can be a door opener to better ideas from you and your team. Any posts that make sense, comment and/or like.4. Use Hashtags
There are mountains of articles and resources on how to use hashtags. I am far from the expert. But I have started following #corporatecatering (270k posts).
Here are some others to follow: #catering (14.1M posts), #cateringservice (1.1M posts), #weddingcatering (527k posts), #bbqcatering (50.3k posts). You get the idea. There are an unlimited number of hashtags in the catering and event space to follow.
This is an evergreen source of ideas to creatively emulate for your service offering. From menus to packaging to displays, you’ll never run out of ideas.
5. Promote
One thing I have noticed is a lot of the better influencers drive you back to their bio for a link to their business. I would use a service like Linktree to show/promote multiple web pages. From menus to opt-in pages to exchange contact info for a special gift, it’s all about name capture.Though others would disagree, I have no problem writing long copy in the caption portion of a post. A great copywriter knows how to “romance the stone” and make the reader want to engage.
If you want to see that type of copywriting at work, follow me @michael.caterzen
Check out some of my food posts from my Paris trip this summer for examples. And while there, follow and like!
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