Social media, nowadays, is the secret ingredient for cooking up the perfect online presence for your restaurant. Hashtags prove to be the only way to increase your reach, enhancing audience engagement, and boosting sales. Yet another well-planned hashtag strategy can work wonders in expanding your restaurant’s reach!
With a good hashtag strategy, your restaurant will stand apart from the clutter in the culinary segment, acquire new customers, and build a loyal community around itself.
In this guide, we will help you create the perfect hashtag strategy for restaurants, so you can understand how, when, and why to use hashtags, things to do and things to avoid to make a mark in the niche and the industry!
Talking About Hashtag Types
Before getting into nitty gritty details, you need to know the various types of hashtags and where to use them.
1- Niche Hashtags
- These hashtags pertain to your restaurant’s food, concept, or story.
- Examples: #thaicuisine, #italianfood, #bestindianrestaurants
- It is always best to use 3-4 niche hashtags with each post, as they can impact your organic reach significantly.
2- Location-Specific Hashtags
- By using location-specific hashtags, you can make sure your content is being seen by people actively searching for the relevant services in your area.
- Examples: #californiaeats, #californiarestaurants
- You can use 1-2 location-specific hashtags to receive a more targeted response.
3- Trending Hashtags
- These are the generic hashtags that are usually trending on every social media platform. Using trending hashtags shows that your restaurant is relevant, timely, and aware of the current trends.
- Examples: #SummerVibes, #TacoTuesday, #FYP, #BrunchGoals
- Don’t use too many of these; use them sparingly, 1-2 for each post
4- Descriptive Hashtags
- These hashtags accurately describe the content of your social media post, providing context to your audience.
- Examples: #GrilledChicken, #Japaneseteppanyaki, #OutdoorSeating
- Use 1-2 descriptive hashtags, combining them with other types of hashtags as well.
Crafting a Winning Hashtag Strategy
If you are still confused about how you can boost reach through hashtags, take a look at the essential steps in creating a winning hashtag strategy:
1- Defining Your Objectives
Before creating a hashtag strategy, it’s essential to define your objectives. What do you want to achieve through your hashtag campaign? Do you want to:
- Increase brand awareness by 20% in the next quarter?
- Drive website traffic and generate 50 new leads per month?
- Boost sales by 15% during the holiday season?
- Encourage user-generated content and increase engagement by 50%?
You need to clearly define your goals before you come up with a hashtag strategy.
2- Know Your Audience
Understanding your target audience is vital to creating a successful hashtag strategy. You must be able to understand the needs and interests of your audience. Identify their demographics; address their pain points. What problems do they need to solve? What social media platforms do they use the most, and what type of content are they looking for?
Answering all these questions will help you create a hashtag strategy that resonates with your target audience.
3- Conduct a Thorough Hashtag Research
Hashtag research is crucial to identifying relevant and popular hashtags in your niche. You can always utilize tools like:
- Keyhole: A tool that tracks hashtag performance, provides analytics, and offers suggestions for improvement.
- Hootsuite Insights: A tool that provides hashtag suggestions, tracks performance, and offers analytics.
Research hashtags related to your brand, industry, and target audience. Look for hashtags with high engagement rates, such as likes, comments, and shares. Ensure the content associated with the hashtag is relevant to your brand and target audience. Lastly, avoid hashtags with too few uses, as they may not be effective. Also, avoid hashtags that have been used too often, as they may be too competitive.
4- Create a Branded Hashtag
A branded hashtag is a unique hashtag that specifically represents your brand. It should be memorable, relevant to your content, and easy to spell so that your audience can remember it easily. Then you can use your branded hashtag consistently across all social media platforms to create brand awareness and recognition.
5- Optimize Hashtag Usage for Each Platform
Hashtags are a powerful tool for increasing the visibility of your social media content, but each platform has its own unique characteristics and best practices for hashtag usage. Ensure your hashtags are optimized for each platform to achieve the best results.
Confused about which hashtags to use for restaurants? Let us show you how to optimize them for each platform!
- Use 3-5 relevant hashtags and always use a mix of niche and broad hashtags (eg: #koreannoodles, #instafood)
- Encourage users to share their content using your branded content.
- Use hashtags on your stories and reels.
- Facebook doesn’t rely much on hashtags, but using 1-2 relevant hashtags can improve your brand’s visibility.
- Use hashtags in Facebook groups to increase engagement and build credibility.
- Utilize hashtags during Facebook Live Sessions.
TikTok
- TikTok usually encourages to use more hashtags. You can use 3-5 hashtags per post.
- Make sure they are relevant to the content. Alternatively, you can use TikTok trending hashtags to gain more visibility.
- Participate in TikTok challenges and use hashtags to boost your organic reach.
- LinkedIn is a professional platform, so don’t overdo the hashtags. 1-2 relevant hashtags should be enough.
- Always use your branded hashtag to build credibility and authority of your brand.
- Try incorporating hashtags in LinkedIn articles as well to increase visibility.
- Pinterest is a great platform for using long-tail hashtags, which are more specific and less competitive.
- Use Pinterest’s built-in hashtag suggestions to find relevant and popular hashtags.
- Use hashtags related to specific products or services to attract users who are searching for those specific things.
6- Monitor and Adjust Hashtag Performance
Tracking your hashtag performance is crucial to understanding what works and what doesn’t. You can use analytical tools like Hashtagify, RiteTag, and Keyhole to track hashtag engagement, reach, and clicks.
You can then adjust your hashtag strategy based on your performance data to optimize results. Again, you can use tools like:
- Hashtagify: It provides analytics and insights on your hashtag performance.
- RiteTag: Focuses on engagement rates and competitor analysis.
- Keyhole: It also provides analytics and insights on hashtag performance, including engagement rates, reach, and clicks.
Important Tips to Remember When Using Hashtags
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Use Fewer Hashtags but the Right Ones
You must have heard this already, using too many hashtags can look spammy and may not be effective. Instead, focus on using a smaller number of highly relevant and targeted hashtags. This will help you attract the right audience and increase engagement. Research has shown that using 3-5 hashtags per post is the sweet spot for most social media platforms.
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Use Relevant Hashtags
Using relevant hashtags is crucial to attracting the right audience and increasing engagement. Make sure to use hashtags that are directly related to the content of your post. For example, if you’re posting a photo of a delicious meal, use hashtags like #foodie, #restaurants2025, or #chinesecuisine. Avoid using hashtags that are too broad or unrelated to your content.
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Create a Consistent Hashtag Schedule
Consistency is the key when it comes to growing your online presence. You can create a schedule that outlines which hashtags you’ll use and when. This will help you maintain a consistent brand voice and aesthetic across all your social media platforms. You can utilize tools like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule your posts and hashtags in advance.
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Focus on Local Relevance
If you’re a local business, it’s essential to focus on local relevance when using hashtags. Use hashtags that are specific to your city, state, or region. This will help you attract local customers and increase engagement. For example, if you’re a restaurant in California, use hashtags like #CaliforniaFood or #CaliforniaRestaurants.
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Encourage User-Generated Content
Encouraging user-generated content is a great way to increase engagement and attract new followers. Use hashtags to encourage customers to share their photos or experiences with your brand. This helps build trust and credibility among your customers. For example, you can create a branded hashtag and ask customers to use it when sharing photos of their meals or experiences at your restaurant. This will help create a sense of community and social proof around your brand.
Whipping Up the Perfect Hashtag Strategy
And there you have it – the secret recipe for an effective hashtag strategy for restaurants!
In a nutshell, a well-planned hashtag strategy can elevate your restaurant’s online presence, attract new customers, and drive sales. We know it can be challenging trying to navigate through the social media trends, seeing what brings real results, and what works for your brand, but once you get the hang of it and follow all our instructions, you will see how it drastically boosts your organic reach.
If you are still unsure and don’t know how to craft the right hashtag strategy for your restaurant business, reach out to us at CJ Digital! Our social media experts can guide you step-by-step and help you utilize hashtags to rise above the din!
FAQs
1- Why are hashtags important for restaurants?
Hashtags help people reach your brand online, increase the visibility of your posts, attract new followers, and help you track conversations about your brand.
2- How many hashtags should I use per post?
Use 5-8 relevant hashtags per post. Using too many hashtags can look spammy. Also, look out for hashtags that have been blocked or those that have been used too often!
3- What types of hashtags should I use for my restaurant?
Use a mix of niche hashtags (e.g, #foodie, #restaurantlife, #bestbeefburger), location-based hashtags (e.g, #californiafood, #LAeats), and generic trending hashtags (e.g, #trending, #fyp, #foodlover)
4- How do I create a branded hashtag?
Choose a unique and memorable hashtag that reflects your brand’s identity. Encourage customers to use it when sharing photos or experiences at your restaurant.
5- Can I use hashtags on all social media platforms?
Yes, but optimize your hashtags for each platform. Instagram and Twitter are hashtag-friendly, while Facebook and LinkedIn are less so. Also, there are different trends on each of these platforms, so utilize the hashtags accordingly.
6- Can I use hashtags to promote special offers or events?
Yes, you can create limited-time hashtags for promotions, events, or seasonal menu items to generate buzz and encourage sharing.