Eating Out With Social Media

It may sound somewhat clichéd that we are going through digital age, but like many cliched statements it also happens to be true.

- Jhuma Biswas

And like many other facets or verticals of digital media, social media is also playing a huge role in our lives and lifestyles. In fact, with high possibility of greater digital penetration in our society in the near future, the role of social media is also expected to be more widespread in India, in the near future.

And of course, restaurant business in India which reflects a slice of evolving lifestyles of a plethora of urban Indians of post-modern India, nowadays cannot afford to be insular from the potent forces of social media marketing.

Nowadays a restaurant can easily and powerfully market itself among its target clientele through different social media platforms by incurring minimal cost as compared to what it has to incur through advertising in conventional print and audio visual routes.

Marketing Edge

I think that as far as restaurants are concerned, social media is more suitable for events marketing and marketing of some promotions and some innovative dishes than for generating the brand image of a restaurant or of a restaurant chain in general, though the latter option can also be tried in social media. Succinctly, social media is more suitable for fostering or enhancing the brand image of the restaurant than in building it from scratch.

However, influencing its target group on social media platforms even before the restaurant is having a loyal consumer base can also be successful, if the restaurant is significantly unique from its competition. But for this endeavour, the path through social media is not likely to give quick results, as it would give in the case of marketing of promotions or events or some new dishes, etc.