Social Media for Food Delivery: Trends and Basic Truths

It is no secret that in today's realities, a business's presence in the online space is one of the key factors for its growth and success. When it comes to food establishments, there are various ways to promote this sector: listing on maps, working on reviews, launching ads on websites and in communities, communicating with customers, and, of course, maintaining social media pages.

Today, let's talk about one of the most significant marketing communication channels for food delivery — social media. It may seem that each of us is an active user of internet platforms. However, in the context of business promotion, knowing their basic functionality is not enough. It's important not just to post photos and videos, but to understand how to attract customers through them, increase loyalty, and brand recognition.

SMM for Food Service: What It Means

SMM (Social Media Marketing) is comprehensive work on a brand's presence in social networks:

• content publication: posts, stories, etc.;
• communication with customers: responding to comments and messages;
• attracting a new audience;
• building the brand image;
• tracking results (followers, orders, etc.).

For this to work, it's important to understand who you are doing it for.

Who You Are Creating Content For

Before publishing anything, you need to answer the questions:

• Who is your customer?
• What is important to them when choosing a place?
• Under what circumstances and at what time do they visit you?
• How much are they willing to spend?

This is the analysis of the target audience.

The target audience (TA) is the group of people for whom the product is intended. Initially, you may only assume who they are, but over time you begin to clearly understand which person most often makes purchases from you.

Usually, the focus is on parameters such as:

• age;
• gender;
• place of residence;
• marital status;
• presence of children;
• income level;
• occupation;
• interests.

This list can be supplemented depending on the specifics of your product, as there is no single recipe for all establishments. A pizzeria in a residential area will target families with children, while a café located on the ground floor of a business center will target office workers and visitors.

At the same time, it's important to consider that a single establishment can attract visitors from different, sometimes diametrically opposed groups. For example, cafés can be visited by freelancers to work in the establishment, as well as parents with children to spend time together over dessert.

Selecting Topics for Publications

When you clearly understand who you are working for, you can move on to filling your social media.

Chaotic publications rarely yield results. It's better to determine the main themes and categories in advance and at least roughly adhere to the set plan.

Food

This is the foundation. People come to you primarily for food, so it needs to be regularly showcased on social media.

Show the dishes: how you prepare them, what ingredients you use, and how you serve them to guests with care. Don't ignore the format of short vertical videos, where a large part of the audience currently spends time. Platforms with short videos occupy a significant market share at the moment.

Brand and Team

Behind any, even the most skillful sign, are ordinary people, and the audience is genuinely curious to observe them. Show the team: who works in the establishment, how their day goes, what moments remain behind the scenes. This makes the brand more relatable and reduces the distance with the customer. A touch of humor in such content is always welcome.

Humor

A good tool for engagement. Humorous sketches about the life of the establishment are your key to a loyal viewer and increasing your audience. But be careful: respect boundaries and avoid topics that could trigger a wave of negative comments and unfollows.

Holidays

Don't stay on the sidelines — congratulate readers on important and relevant memorable dates for your audience. Moreover, on such days, it is strategically advantageous to launch promotions and special offers.

Promotions and Special Offers

Social media should work for you, and mentions of current promotions should run like a red thread through all your content. Made a selection of photos with signature cakes? Great, add a catchy visual promo code — and voila! The post will not only please the viewer's eye but also motivate them to make a purchase.

Lifehack: to calculate how many customers came to you from a post, and not, for example, from a banner at the intersection, use a unique promo code in the publication and do not mention it in other sources.

Reviews

Publish real guest comments and photos of orders. This is what will easily recommend you in the eyes of potential buyers. And to encourage them to share their impressions more willingly and frequently, motivate them with discounts and gifts. For example, offer a guest to leave a review in exchange for a 15% discount on their next order.

Using Trends Wisely

In pursuit of quality content, don't forget to track and use viral topics, music, and formats while they are at the peak of popularity. 

Thanks to current topics, or simply put, trends, your pages are most likely to get into user recommendations and, accordingly, gather many likes and subscriptions. And in the future — sales.

However, content oriented towards popular topics and formats is not yet an indicator that it will "take off" with a wide audience. To achieve decent results, it's important to understand how social media news feed algorithms work. This topic is deep and multifaceted, requiring more than one article for a more detailed examination.

The main principles by which algorithms determine how interesting a publication is to the viewer:

• Visuals: objects, faces, and scenes used in the frame
• Sound: whether it's original or trending. One of the main elements for algorithms
• Text: captions, hashtags, their popularity and relevance, as well as the language of the content
• Technical aspects: video length, effects, and templates used.

The essence is simple: the more the viewer interacts with your content, the more signals the system receives that such publications need to be actively promoted and shown to the audience.

Structuring Work: Content Plan

For social media to work steadily, a content plan is needed — a publication schedule on various platforms, compiled for a certain period (month, half-year, year). It includes all the platforms used, as well as the topics and formats of posts.

Example:

• Monday: new seasonal menu items
• Tuesday: story about the chef
• Wednesday: announcement of a pizza-making master class
• Thursday: delivery information
• Friday: promo code for a discount on takeaway food
• Saturday: humorous video about the work of waiters
• Sunday: process of making signature pasta

Setting Up Effective Advertising

In the world of fierce competition in the food service industry, waiting for sales growth through "word of mouth" is a strategy of slow decline.

If a business has the opportunity to invest in promotion, paid advertising becomes one of the fastest ways to increase order flow and attract new customers. Especially effective today is targeted advertising on VK through the "VK Ads" cabinet, which allows you to show ads specifically to your target audience, taking into account users' interests, behavior, and preferences.

However, it's important to understand: advertising itself does not guarantee results. Incorrect campaign settings, mistakes in audience and creative selection can quickly "drain" your budget without significant order growth. The advertising cabinet does not forgive a chaotic approach and experiments with random settings.

This is why more and more establishments trust promotion to specialized professionals. FoodSoul provides marketing services for restaurants, food delivery, and floral businesses, helping to attract customers systematically and predictably.

We use the most effective tools:

• SEO promotion for search ranking growth
• Contextual advertising to attract hot demand
• Targeted advertising on VK and other platforms
• Analytics and optimization of advertising campaigns

Our task is not just to launch advertising, but to make your establishment the first choice for customers among hundreds of competitors.

Conclusion

No matter how delicious the food in your establishment is, it's important to know how to present it to the customer properly. Social media is literally made to tell the world about yourself and your business.

It often happens that just one "viral" video contributes to significant sales spikes and brand popularity. Yet, most often, the result is a long, systematic effort. Don't wait for the perfect moment while your competitor takes the niche — announce yourself to the world and win the hearts and stomachs of the audience. We wish you success!

Best regards,

Ekaterina, SMM Specialist at FoodSoul