Continuing my blogs about the best type of content to use on social media for hospitality businesses…we’ve made it to the ‘O’ part of my ‘POSTS’ acronym that stands for Optical.
Just to remind you….
POSTS
P = People
O = Optical
S = Sneak peek
T = Talk Community (can also mean testimonials and topical)
S = Stories
‘O’ is for optical or in other words visual, but that didn’t fit into my acronym, so optical it is!
This might seem obvious but we’ve all heard the saying that
‘A picture is worth a thousand words’
Well if that is the case, then on social media, a video paints a million!
We eat with our eyes. You need high-quality, drool-inducing photos. Food not only smells delicious, it looks appetizing, too. Basically, share images of food that make your audience want to…
“reach through their computer screens and gobble them up!”
Try to think a little differently and try not to use stock photos, if you can. How about a close up shot of a forkful of food instead of untouched food, for example?
This is a good example from The Botanist in Leeds, taken from a slide show they did, on Facebook:
It is not just about the food, there are plenty of other visual posts you can use, including many of the ‘people’ posts I talked about last time.
In addition how about….?
- A snapshot of your bustling bar or restaurant, instead of it empty?
- Am image showing the bartender in action, making a cocktail, instead of a static cocktail on it’s own?
This is a great idea from Jakes Bar, Leeds on Instagram and combining the people and optical elements of post types:
- Use the latest tools out there such as having fun with the Boomerang app or posting on Facebook live to encourage people to come down to an event.
- If you don’t use a designer then I highly recommend creating content on Canva, it is very easy to use and free. If I can use it, you can!
- Use Facebook slideshows and carousels to make content look slightly more interesting.
Other ideas:
- Pictures of people customers enjoying food and drink, celebrating a special occasion, customer testimonial videos of why they love your establishment.
- Video’s in the kitchen of chef making dishes, recipes and top tips.
- Video’s of any live music, DJ’s and entertainment.
- Pictures of your suppliers and ingredients
There are tonnes more ideas. Have a brainstorm about what you could use? What visual posts have you used that have worked well?
