Social Media Marketing For Food Trucks
These days, marketing is about much more than just placing an ad or buying a billboard. With the advent of social media came the ability to market your business directly to your target consumers. According to restaurant marketing agency MGH, over 30 percent of diners follow some type of restaurant or eatery on social media. Even more people rely on social media to decide whether to visit an establishment.
So what does this mean for you and your food truck? Simply put, it means it’s time to dust off the social media accounts and lean into promoting your eatery through social channels. Here are some tips and tricks you can use to grow your food truck’s presence on social media.
The Basics
Before all else, it is important to focus on the basic principles of social media marketing as you start working on strategies for your food truck.
- Find Your Voice: Every brand on social media has their own voice; it is how they are able to effectively interact with other users. Consider your target audience and the language/vernacular they use. Figure out how your food truck would talk if it were a person. Does the way you currently interact with customers match these? Come up with some traits you want your brand to represent, and use those to build your voice.
- Use Visual-First Content: Crisp, quality visuals are the bread and butter of all food marketing, but especially on social media. The first bite is taken with the eyes, so you want to make sure you showcase your food as best as possible. Instagram is an especially useful platform for this strategy. If you don’t have the ability to hire a professional photographer, check out these food photography tips.
- Use “Social Proof” Content: Anything that shows people how much diner’s love your food truck is considered social proof content. Reposts, reviews, shares- all are great ways to show prospective customers how much you have to offer. According to a survey from TripAdvisor, over 90 percent of diners in the US choose where to eat based on online reviews.
- Engage: Truly the greatest aspect of social media marketing is the ability to engage with your customer base, something other marketing strategies simply cannot provide. Like and respond to comments on posts, reply to messages; responding quickly is a great way to grow your business. But remember, most consumers expect businesses to respond in less than a day on social media. And often, diners expect a quicker response due to the time-sensitive nature of many of their questions (business hours, reservations, etc.).
The most likely demographic to order from a food truck are people aged 18 to 34, followed by those aged 35 to 44 at 54%.
Best Practices for Social Media Marketing
Preplan Your Posts
Taking the time to map out your marketing strategy, and therefore your posts, comes with a multitude of benefits. First of all, it gives you the opportunity to visualize your social feed, both in content and aesthetics. For services like Instagram, you can create an entire visual story within the grid system, helping to sell not just your food, but the culture of your food truck. Just remember to balance it out with multiple types of visuals to keep from stagnating.
Second, preplanning saves you time. Rather than spending all day trying to curate the best post, you can drop one you’ve already created and focus on engaging with followers. There’s also no worry about missing holiday posts or well-wishes, because you’ve already had it set up. Forget to let your followers know about an upcoming promotion? Not if you’ve had the post ready for a week!
Create Engaging Content
Posting engaging content means more than just posting photos or videos you know your followers will like. It means creating content that actively makes them want to engage with your food truck, both online and in person. So what drives customers to interact with your posts?
- Captions and posts that ask questions
- Giveaways
- Incentive-based posts (tag people to enter, share to win, etc.)
The above are just some examples, really anything that makes your target audience interact with your brand is engaging content. Many businesses use memes to interact with their followers, as they are a quick way to relate to people at large and inject some humor into your feed. The same can be said for jumping on relevant (to your audience) trends, such as trending hashtags, to keep up with your followers.
Showcase Your Food Truck’s Unique Personality
Right out the gate, there is a certain charm that comes with a food truck. From the type of food to the truck itself, every single one is a little bit different. Social media gives you the opportunity to use that brand voice we talked about above to show the world who you are, and create a fun, engaging experience for diners. Remember to use this voice while interacting with your followers as well as on your posts.
Diversify Content
This was mentioned briefly above, but now it’s time for a little more detail. A trap many fall into with social media marketing (especially when preplanning) is stagnant content. You want a well-rounded pool to post from; the goal is to create conversations and stop people, at least for a moment, from scrolling further.
Consider the way coffee shops build up hype around the return of seasonal flavors. It is often done a variety of ways:
- Infographics to inform of new or returning menu items
- Reposting from customers excited about the new items
- Short videos or GIFs announcing new items
The same can be said of using holidays to draw in diners. Let people know if you have a special dish for Mother’s Day or a fun drink for the 4th of July. You don’t want your feed to be only promotional posts, but mixing in promos is part of the game. When you diversify content, you keep consumers engaged in your food truck, and entice new ones intrigued by your brand.
Capture Your Food Truck
You might be thinking that all of the above steps are capturing your food truck in some way, and you’d be right. But there is a difference between presenting yourself to an audience and showing them who you are.
When deciding on pictures for your social media accounts, throw in some behind the scenes content. Get action shots of cooking and plating, maybe a few of the employees interacting with customers. You want your presence to feel familiar, a part of the social neighborhood.
Post pictures of your food with the cooks in the background, or of someone holding it in front of your truck. Yes, you want food photography to be simple and neat, but that doesn’t mean you can’t show off the aesthetic of your food truck in the background. The most important part of social media marketing is integrating yourself into the lives of your customers, so don’t be afraid to invite them in and show them what makes your food truck tick.
Conclusion
By following the advice above, you can greatly improve both your social media reach and your marketing appeal, both of which lead to more business for your food truck. Don’t be afraid to engage with people and try something new! As long as you showcase the personality of your truck and what you have to offer, there is no limit to the potential of social media marketing.