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Why Social Media Is Important In 2022
COVID restrictions may be behind us but unfortunately case rates are continuing to rise and people are tending towards the cautious end of optimism when it comes to eating out or visiting new places in 2022.
This means that maintaining your social media presence is more important now than ever before. You can communicate with your customers, provide real-time updates on venue capacity and special offers, update your opening hours and respond to customer feedback and queries from your smartphone, meaning that you don’t need to take time out of your busy day to sit at the computer and check emails.
This means that you can be much more efficient and communicate more effectively – which will result in greater profits and a more content customer base.
Using Social Media To Its Best Advantage
Of course, you can’t just fire and forget when it comes to social media – people want real-time, live event information and regular updates so if you are going to use social media to promote your hospitality business, you must be prepared to put in the effort to maintain it and provide engaging and compelling information. Reels are particularly popular at the moment so it is worth considering what live feeds or videos you can create to publish to raise your visibility and increase your reach.
If you are situated in a mall or other retail district with high foot traffic, you may already have a digital sign to display your menu, prices or opening hours, but have you considered using digital signage to show social media feeds? This is a really exciting way of promoting your business and once customers realize that you are on social media, you will gain more likes and shares and therefore attract new customers.
Just as your business has a business plan, and you plan your daily activities such as ordering stock, updating the accounts, organising payroll, and so on, you would be wise to create a social media plan.
A social media plan will allow you to plan what you wish to present on social media, the purpose for it and the best time to launch it. You could plan a day, a week or even a month ahead – what is important is that each post will have a purpose. While regular updates to your social media accounts are important to generate consumer interest, those without purpose will fall short and if this happens too many times, you run the risk of consumers losing interest and muting your posts.
As the old saying goes – fail to plan, plan to fail!
The Risks Of Social Media
Maintaining an active social media profile can deliver enormous business benefits, but it does come with risks too and it is worth bearing these in mind when registering with different platforms.
Any mistake you make that results in negative feedback online will be there forever. You will need to be proactive in seeking out customer reviews and responding where necessary. Whether you choose to respond publicly or privately is at your discretion but again remember, whatever you respond will also be online for the rest of time and if you damage your credibility or reputation, it will be hard to restore consumer trust in you and your brand.
Every social media platform works slightly differently. Some interact with each other and allow posts on one platform to be automatically shared to others. If you choose to, for example, upload a reel to Instagram, ensure you are happy with the dimensions and quality before allowing it to be shared to Facebook as it may not look exactly the same on another platform and putting poor-quality footage online (even if unintentionally) can look quite unprofessional.
In Summary
There are risks associated with using social media to advertise and promote your hospitality business but in 2022, this is where customers will look first when researching your brand and a professional, up-to-date social media presence is essential if you are to remain competitive. Embracing technology and dedicating the time to doing it right will pay dividends in terms of increased profits, customer visibility and reach and reputation.
