6 Reasons a Restaurant Might Consider Collaborating with an Influencer

Written by Justine Nightingale
Wednesday, December 27, 2023 at 08:00am CST

It’s time to think about collaborating with an influencer.

As a business owner in today’s digital world, you know how important social media is to your overall marketing strategy. According to one study, nearly 75% of people use Facebook comments and images to decide what restaurant they’re going to visit.

So, like most restaurants, you want to grow your social media presence. In this article, we uncover six reasons a restaurant might consider collaborating with an influencer. First, though, let’s look at just what influencer marketing is.

Discovering Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is part of your overall digital advertising campaign. It means using the influence of people with a sizeable social media following so your restaurant can reach a larger audience. (tweet this)

Influencer marketing gives you the opportunity to target either a new or larger audience in a different way. By choosing the right influencer, your restaurant is backed by someone with leverage who can promote your restaurant and your delicious menu.

With influencer marketing, you choose a popular person to appeal to a broader audience for your restaurant. They can promote your restaurant in ways no other marketing can. They use their “power” to promote your business.

The benefits for your restaurant include increasing brand awareness and engagement levels, getting more diners in your door, and improving brand trust and loyalty. After all, when someone who is trusted in the social sphere promotes your restaurant, others will immediately trust you, too, because the influencer told them they should.

Now, let’s look at the six reasons you might want to collaborate with an influencer.

#1: It’s Cost Effective

Influencer marketing has the potential to give you a higher return on investment (ROI) than other traditional marketing strategies. According to one industry expert, influencer marketing generates as much as 11X banner ad ROI.

While many think influencer marketing is expensive, it doesn’t have to be. When you partner with a local influencer for your restaurant, the cost can often be much less than you think.

Restaurants who use influencers know that if the influencer shares a story or a reel about one of your menu items with a link to your website and online ordering system, their business will increase over time. The more followers the influencer has, the more clicks to your website.

You can pay an influencer one of two ways: you can pay them in food, or you can pay them with money. The pay structure is generally based on three things: influencer reach, engagement rates, and the quality of their content.

This is something you negotiate with the influencer, so the pay rate is up to you.

#2: It Builds Credibility

Credibility is vital when it comes to restaurants. Before people decide to eat at your restaurant, they often want to know how others feel about your food and your service.

Word-of-mouth advertising is key to creating credibility and loyalty. Your potential diners will innately trust what your influencer says more than if you said it yourself. (tweet this) So, choose your influencers wisely, as they will become another “face” of your business.

By getting the endorsement from an influencer, this person is telling the digital world that your food is great and worthy of eating. The influencer says, “Go there, you’ll love it because I do.”

#3: It Gets You More Traffic

An influencer helps you grow your social media presence, but this person also helps get traffic to your restaurant and to your website.

No one wants to miss out on the next best thing, and this works to your advantage. As the influencer shares about your restaurant on social media, people see the posts, and they don’t want to miss out on your food.

For example, your influencer shares photos and videos of a time they were eating in your restaurant. They talk about how delicious your food is, how impeccable the service is, and what a trendy, fun spot you have. People see these posts, and they will either order online or visit your restaurant in person.

Ultimately, the increase in both website traffic and foot traffic means great things for your profit margin.

#4: It Increases Brand Awareness

One of the biggest benefits of influencer marketing is the potential to increase brand awareness. With the influencer’s endorsement of your restaurant comes the potential of introducing your restaurant to a new audience.

If you have chosen wisely, your influencer should have a wide and varied reach on social media. This provides you with immediate brand awareness.

The goal here is to choose an influencer whose followers are part of your target audience. For example, if your restaurant is a sports bar, you don’t want to choose an influencer who has a mostly child-oriented following.

An influencer can help put your restaurant in front of people who might not otherwise have known about your restaurant.

#5: It Increases Engagement

When you collaborate with carefully chosen influencers, you increase the traffic to your own social media accounts, your website, and ultimately, your restaurant.

For example, your influencer posts about your restaurant. In that instant, the influencer’s entire online follower community sees the post. Then, customers visit your restaurant and fall in love with the food.

They then go back to social media and share about their experience, and tag your restaurant.

Your influencer has the potential to create buzz and excitement around your restaurant, thus increasing online engagement.

#6: It Produces Fast Results

Influencer marketing works quickly. Why? This is because an influencer is constantly creating content people want to see. And when you have a partnership with them, that means they’re posting about your food.

Just imagine if the influencer told their followers they were dining at your restaurant tonight and invited people to join them. Your restaurant would be full all night long! That’s the power of influencer marketing to provide you with instantaneous results.

Final Thoughts on Influencer Collaboration

According to a survey, nearly 63% of respondents have a standalone budget for content marketing, and that includes influencer marketing. This statistic shows just how much businesses are putting their money into this type of digital strategy.

Will it work for your restaurant? There are many success stories out there, and the only way you’ll find out if it is beneficial for you is to give it a try!

At Restaurant Engine, we can create a restaurant website for you that provides the perfect spot for sending people after an influencer has introduced them to your amazing menu. Once an influencer starts promoting your restaurant, you can bet your website gets more hits, so you want a fast, well-performing website. You can count on us to create an amazing website that presents a unified brand and works across all digital platforms. Let us help you make the perfect site that draws customers in, improves customer engagement and your conversion rate, and enables you to grow your business! 

Are you ready to take your restaurant to the next level with a new website?

Get your free website consultation today!

Maddi Bazzocco and ABDALLA M on Unsplash