SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN

I will continue the planning phase to increase visibility for the same small business I started with in my previous post, which is my favorite restaurant in Helsinki. 

COMPANY INFORMATION:

Name: Taverna Zorbas

Industry: Restaurant

Products & Services: Restaurant in Helsinki with Greek specific, offering food products and high quality services for them customers.

Other information: The restaurant has Facebook page but is very poorly managed. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Taverna-Zorbas/189044748036

STRATEGY 

The restaurant industry is very competitive. Many restaurants are open and many are facing bankruptcy because the owners are experienced in making food not in promoting and marketing the products and services. The customers are much difficult to be reached if the restaurant does not have visibility online. First a proper updated website should be in place to have a good start for a successful social marketing strategy.

To create bigger outcome, Taverna Zorbas should first update the website with more appealing photos and more content related with them products and services.

The most relevant social media platforms, on which Taverna Zorbas should be present are Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, TripAdvisor and FourSquare, which will help the restaurant to increase its exposure, increase the traffic on its website, to acquire more customers and not the last to increase revenues. Tweeter may not have such a powerful impact, as the other, while in Finland is not so popular and does not provide so much value for a small, local restaurant.

The ideal client would leave or visit Helsinki, interested in international food or more specifically in Greek food, and with age between 30 and 55 because the price range for the main dishes is between 20 and 30€. The main goal of this restaurant is not to sell cheap food to everybody but to offer the best Greek experience in Helsinki.

FACEBOOK MARKETING 

The appearance of the Facebook page is very important for the future potential customers while this may be the only interaction point before deciding to visit and eat at that restaurant.

·         The people visiting them Facebook page should find a website link and contact information to know where it’s situated and where they can call if they want to make a table reservation.

·         The cover photo is very important because is the first thing the visitors will see and it must look very appealing and delicious. I suggest a collage of more pictures with the dishes the restaurant serves made with banner.fotor.com photo editor program. 

 ·         To increase traffic, Taverna Zorbas must post content on regular basis and related pictures about the most important competitive advantage they have, the food. It’s a family and kids friendly and they should promote this for families by posting content about the kids menu, activities the kids may do while the parents enjoy them meals (games, books, etc.), the possibility to organize family parties, baptism of any other event with maximum number of 50 people.

·         Starting with a budget of 5-10€ they can try a Facebook advertising campaign to create awareness among people with ideal client profile, about the restaurant’s offers.

·         Facebook advertising campaign (for example: adding two pictures of dishes and the question “Which one would you prefer as week’s special dish?”) will increase the number of likes and clicks to website, increasing the conversion to customers and will improve the engagement if the add will be as a question.

·         Using LikeAlyzer they can continue to track and improve the Facebook page.

VIDEO AND YOUTUBE MARKETING 

Taverna Zorbas Youtube channel can have the same cover image as Facebook page (and can be updated all the time by changing the image in all social media pages), should link to website and all social media pages used and the videos can be categorized by topics.

I would recommend them to make videos about a couple, a family or a bigger group of people’s authentic Greek experience, children experience at Taverna Zorbas, event organized preparation, how to cook different traditional Greek dishes, customers testimonials about them experience, enthusiasm of the people working there to make the experience unforgettable, how the people can find the restaurant, etc. The videos should be clear and simple, introducing the topic but very informative just through image and few text lines. In the end of the video a “Call to action” should be added such as you can find us and the address or call us to make a table reservation and the phone number as well as the website (as annotations or edited text on top of the video).

The videos should be HD quality to emphasize the food and nicely edited with Greek music background. Then the videos should be shared with # on all the other social media platforms the restaurant use, inviting people to share your video and motivate them to subscribe to the Youtube channel.

INSTAGRAM MARKETING 

Instagram has the fastest growth rate because it can be used on mobile only and the mobile user number is increasing fast as well. The best part is that the companies can communicate through pictures and videos and the most important content for a restaurant are the pictures and videos.

For Taverna Zorbas is important to have high quality pictures edited in different programs (Camera+ or PicPlayPost) to create new promotions to attract more people to visit the website, and HD videos on very interesting topics such as presented in Youtube section.

The restaurant presentation video, which I imagine as a compilation of videos from all four seasons presenting Helsinki city, the driveway in different seasons to the location and presenting the outside look of the restaurant in all seasons but when going inside the restaurant offer the same warm and cozy Greek atmosphere anytime you visit it.

The video can be edited with Hyperlapse to double the speed of the video to give a much interesting appearance of time running.

TWITTER MARKETING 

As I already mentioned in the strategy, in this case I wouldn’t focus too much on Twitter, in this case more relevant being TripAdvisor and FourSquare, but for the sake of exercising I will make few recommendations.

·         Taverna Zorbas could have a Twitter page with the same cover image and contact information as all the other platforms, to increase recognition and they can follow other in order to get more followers.

·         Find the influencers in Helsinki with Tweet Binder and follow them.

·         A list of influencers in food industry can be created as well as for competitors in the same field. A good idea would be to collaborate with those influencers to write content about Taverna Zorbas restaurants or to make tutorial videos about it.