Last month, Facebook and Constant Contact announced that restaurants can now upload menus through SinglePlatform from Constant Contact to Facebook pages. SinglePlatform helps businesses showcase their most important information everywhere local consumers are making decisions online.
As a result, Facebook users can both find and “like” a restaurant, in addition to view its menu to help them decide if they want to check it out. Considering that 78 percent of online local-mobile searches result in offline purchases, this is a major benefit to restaurants promoting their businesses on Facebook’s 1.23 billion active users.
For restaurants already using SinglePlatform and located in the U.S. or Canada, their menus featured on SinglePlatform will automatically appear on their Facebook business page. For others, restaurants can upload their menus in PDF format to their Facebook page to take advantage of this new feature. (Here’s how)
In a blog post about the announcement, Pete Chen, VP and general manager of SinglePlatform from Constant Contact wrote, “With this update, restaurants can take advantage of the size and influence of Facebook’s audience to attract potential new customers that search for places to dine. Facebook makes it very easy to find new restaurants (if you click on the Facebook search bar you will automatically see an option to search “Nearby Restaurants”).
Now that you have added your menu to your restaurant’s Facebook page, here are some tips to further leverage this feature to your business’s marketing advantage.
1) Send out an email blast inviting fans and customers to check out your restaurant menu on Facebook.
Let your opt-in email subscribers know to check out your menu on Facebook, giving you a good reason to connect with them and increase social media engagement on your Facebook page.
2) Cross-promote your menu on Facebook to other social networks:
Promote the menu on your Facebook page with your other social networks to expand its reach to more audiences. Using a free service like bitly, you can shorten and custom-brand your URL and track response rates.
3) Share updates to your menu with customers and fans:
If you have updated your Facebook menu or added a new item, let your customers and fans know about it. Doing this gives you multiple opportunities to stay connected with your Facebook page community.
4) Spark conversations about your menu with your Facebook fans:
After your Facebook fans have had the chance to view your restaurant menu, ask them what they think about your menu. Facebook’s polling feature is a useful way to garner feedback about your menu from both potential new and existing customers.
5) Share photos of your menu items from Facebook on Pinterest and Instagram:
Posting your menu on your Facebook page gives you more reasons to sell the menu with pictures. Post new food and drink photos from your menu on your Facebook page and cross-promote them on Pinterest and Instagram, as well.
Article provided by Buzztime.
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