Hello and welcome to Bar Owner TV. Today I’m going to dive into the 7 mistakes that Bar Owners are making while promoting their bar or restaurant on Facebook. In my opinion Facebook is the best social media platform to use for attracting new customers and it’s in your best interest to make sure you are not making these mistakes because you are losing out on new customers.
So lets dive into mistake number one which is using illegal cover photo’s on your business page. Facebook doesn’t want you posting any image that displays a discount or asks someone to buy. They don’t want any kind of call to action to “like” or “share” the page. And they don’t want you placing your contact information either!
Again, this is on a business page, not the friends page, but I’m sure the same rules still apply. What you should post up is a picture of your staff, your food, the outside of the building, something that relates to your business. Just make sure you don’t go against their guidelines or you could possible lose access to your page.
Another thing you can do is change that photo once a month to keep your page new and fresh.
Mistake number two is OVER POSTING! I actually just learned this not too long ago and I always thought the more you posted, the more reach you would get. It’s just the opposite. What studies are showing now is just posting one time per day is the best way to get the broadest reach.
I’m just going to give you my opinion here but I believe Facebook is doing this on purpose and the reason for this is because they want you to spend money to promote your posts or ads which is obviously how Facebook makes their money. So if you want to post several times you must spend money to promote the post to get the outreach you want. Very smart of Facebook. They know how to get into our pockets but in all honesty, it’s still a great investment. Much better than mass media marketing.
Mistake number three is not focusing on engagement. Too many bar owners are stuck in promotion mode and that’s not what social media is about. It’s about social communication. Yes you need to post specials and promotions, don’t get me wrong. Just not every day and you should have a separate Facebook tab within your page that has all your specials and promotions so people can get that information.
You need to start getting people to engage by “liking” “commenting” and “sharing” your posts. When people do one of these three things it shows up on that persons Facebook page which is going to drive traffic from their friends to your page which is going to get you more likes but also get new prospects to see your specials and promotions.
Mistake number four is not doing your most important job which is capturing people’s contact information from Facebook.
The way you capture people’s information from Facebook is to set up what is called a lead capture website or you can even create a lead capture page within Facebook. The lead capture website is a one page site that has a valuable offer that anyone can sign up to get. In order for them to get this offer they hand over their information to you.
If they follow through, what does this tell you about this person? A few things! They have interest in going to your bar, they like to go out to eat and drink, and they must trust you or they wouldn’t be handing over that information to you right? Doesn’t this make the perfect person to market to over and over!
This strategy allows you to build a massive list of the most profitable people in the world to market to. If you’re really smart you tie in a marketing automation process that hits this new prospect with a few more offers through direct mail, email, and texts. Now you’re off to doubling your loyal regulars.
If you are interested in having a system like this set up for you with video and viral marketing features, please contact me. We can get this up and running for you in a few days for only a few hundred bucks and it’s probably one of the best marketing investments you can make. A automated system for turning new customers into loyal regulars. That’s it for today! I’ll cover the other 3 mistakes in the next episode.