3 Easy Ways Your Restaurant’s Facebook Page & Website Can Be Friends

Last week Facebook went public, solidifying it as one social media site that isn’t going away anytime soon.  By this time, having a Facebook Page for your restaurant should be a no-brainer.  But is your restaurant’s Facebook Page integrated with your website?  Are they working together to convert your social media traffic into customers for your restaurant?

This post will show you 3 ways your restaurant’s Facebook page and your restaurant website can be friends 🙂

Consistent Branding

The key to a well-rounded online presence is consistent branding.  Why?  Because when people go on the web, particularly when they’re on Facebook, they are inundated with hundreds of messages from friends, organizations, and companies.  If they interact with your Restaurant online once, there’s no guarantee they’ll remember you if/when you interact a second time.  But if you build a consistent brand — your logo, colors, and consistency of messaging — they’ll be more likely to recognize you and follow you more closely.

So the key idea here is to make the branding of your Facebook Page and your restaurant’s website look and feel consistent.  How do you do that?

1. Make sure your restaurant logo is shown prominently on both.  In Facebook, you can set your logo as the profile picture for your Facebook Page (it’s best to use a version of your logo in a square format here).  Display your logo near the top of your website as well, so visitors traveling between the two connect with a consistent brand.
2. Use a consistent color scheme.  The color palette of your website should reinforce your restaurant’s brand.  Think about the colors used in your physical menus, your decor, your advertisements, etc.  On Facebook, while you can’t fully escape that “Facebook blue”, you can add custom banner images to the front of your Facebook Page, which can be designed to match the colors of your logo and your website.

Add a Facebook Fan Box to Your Website Sidebar

Another great way to tie your restaurant’s Facebook page and website together into a seamless online presence is to add a Facebook Like Box to your website.  A good place for this would usually be in your website’s sidebar.

What is a Facebook Like Box?  It’s a kind of like a mini-version of your Facebook Page, embedded in your website.  So when visitors reach your restaurant website, perhaps coming from Yelp or a Google search, they’ll see a glimpse of your recent Facebook activity.

A really cool and powerful aspect of the Facebook Like box is that it can show a handful of the people (and their pics) that have liked your restaurant on Facebook.  Plus, when a visitor reaches your website, it will show that person if any of their friends have liked your restaurant on Facebook.  This is the ultimate social proof that skyrockets your restaurant’s credibility and increases the likelihood of this visitor becoming a customer.

How to add a Facebook Like Box to your website:

1. Log into Facebook and go to this page to create your Like Box.
2. Configure the settings how you want, then generate the code to embed on your website.
3. Add the code to your website, where you want the Facebook Like Box to display.  If your website is managed using WordPress (Restaurant Engine sites are on WordPress), follow these steps:
1. Log into your dashboard.
2. Go to Appearance > Widgets.
3. Add a “Text” widget to your sidebar.
4. Paste the Facebook Like Box code (all of it) into the body of this Text widget, and Save.

Add Facebook Like Buttons to Your Restaurant Menu

Here’s a fun idea:  What is it about your restaurant that your customers “like” the most?  The food!  So let those raving fans express that by giving their favorite items on your restaurant menu a Facebook Like!

You can add a Facebook Like button to just about anything on your website:  Your homepage, your blog posts, your interior pages, and more.  But for a restaurant website, what better place to add a Facebook Like button than on your menu pages?

There are number of ways you can do this:

• You can manually add a Facebook Like button to your website by generating the code from Facebook.
• There are plugins available that make it easy, like the ShareThis website widget.
• If you’re website is on Restaurant Engine, we built in the ability to add a Facebook Like button to your menu items.

Share Your Facebook Page!

Is your restaurant on Facebook?  Share your page in the comments and tell us how you’ve integrated your restaurant’s Facebook page with your website!