How to use TikTok to market your restaurant?

We live in 2022 where all businesses rely on social media to market their products or services.

Facebook and Instagram have taken all hype for social media platforms that converts leads into actual sales.

As a restaurateur, you’ve probably owned your pages and mastered your posts on these two platforms, but have you considered other new platforms to market your restaurant?

TikTok was launched in 2016 to grow in usage in 2017 after importing more than 200 million accounts from Music.ly to TikTok and became a worldwide application in 2018.

TikTok has become the most popular website in 2021 surpassing Google and Facebook.

What is TikTok and how does it work?

TikTok is a trend-driven platform for creating short video clips for independent content creators and businesses. It gained its popularity as a dance app that’s why it might not be your first choice to consider when looking into social media marketing.

The short video is your chance to showcase what you sell or offer to your customers and potential customers with sounds and special effects that attract different ages and different tastes.

TikTok is accessed by over 600 million users around the world daily and it generated $4.6 billion revenues which was 142% increase year-on-year.

In 2021, it got the highest engagement among the rest of the platforms with an increase comparing to the previous years while other platforms have a decreased engagement.

Why do need to know these numbers?

These numbers mean that you should seriously consider TikTok for your online marketing especially if you know that 36% of TikTok users have visited restaurants after viewing videos featuring those restaurants on the app.

Over 55% of surveyed users said they wanted to visit restaurants because videos of the food looked appealing, while 51% visited because of new menu items featured in videos. 38% were enticed by the cool atmosphere and so on.

Different reasons encourage viewers to try out a restaurant, but bottom line is that videos on TikTok turn viewers into leads that might be turned into loyal customers with the right service.

How to promote your restaurant on TikTok?

Team up with influencers

It’s very important to team up with an influencer especially if you’re a new restaurant that needs to grow viewers and followers.

Users are influenced by bloggers so sharing a video featuring an influencer who visited your restaurant and sharing their experience with viewers will definitely affect consumer’s choice and future dining decisions.

Try out viral recipes

You have your own signature recipes and menu but with technology and TikTok generation, it's always better to keep up with the newest trends. And guess what, even food has now its own trends that go viral, and the examples are endless starting with pasta chips, baked feta pasta, Jelly cake and so many others. Post videos of your chefs trying these recipes with their own twist to increase your viewers count. 

Teach your audience a new technique

Showcase your chef with a new kitchen hack to keep their vegetables last longer or sharing a secret ingredient with them for an exquisite chicken taste. You have endless ideas to share with your audience to keep them interested in your content. Cooking techniques, table organization, simple recipes or even saving money on grocery shopping are all ideas you can use to attract new viewers.

Announce your specials or new menu items on TikTok

A clever way to launch your creations is to share them on TikTok with short appealing videos. Whether it is daily specials, or a new dish added to your menu or a limited time flavor, you should share it on the app with an attractive content and delicious imagery to attract viewers and encourage sharing your videos with followers.

Host live events

Once you’ve secured your 1,000 followers, you can start hosting your own live events on the platform. You can invite a celebrity or an influencer or a famous chef to your restaurant and host it live. If you have a karaoke night or ladies’ night, you can start promoting for the live event on all your platforms and host it live on TikTok to engage your audience with a live contest for instance.

Showcase your dining experience

The platform is an excellent way to give your audience the chance to sneak peek at your dining experience including the dining area, the kitchen, the staff working together and how they welcome your clients. All this interests the audience and triggers them to check your menu and visit your restaurant.