How Bar & Grill Owners Can Find Food Bloggers & Influencers

Written by Justine Nightingale
Wednesday, October 2, 2024 at 08:00am CDT

Working with food bloggers and influencers can help you increase the visibility of your bar and grill, drive new and repeat traffic, and improve your overall online presence. Adding this tactic to your marketing strategy may help you improve your overall bottom line.

In this article, we uncover how bar and grill owners can find food bloggers and influencers to set their marketing on fire. 

Make a List of Possible Candidates

The first thing you want to do is start with a thorough internet search. Make a list of potential bloggers and influencers you can work with. The best place to start is with people who already like your bar and grill.  

Here’s how to conduct your search: 

1. Search for Instagram and Facebook hashtags. These should be hashtags that are relevant to the type of food you serve, your city, restaurants, etc. Think about tags such as foodie, food near me, best pizza in Little Rock (change food for your restaurant type), eats, best food in X (x – your town), and more. Use hashtags to find people talking about food. Then make a list of all the social media users who have a strong following as well as a history of engaging with their audiences regularly and well.
2. Head over to YouTube and search for your city and bar and grill type. See what comes up. This may help you find YouTube influencers.
3. Do an internet search using Google to connect with food bloggers. You want to look for bloggers and influencers living in your city who write about food or even things to do in your city.
4. Don’t forget to look at your own social media accounts for potential influencers. You may already have a strong following of people who love your bar and grill.
5. Look at your competitors’ social accounts. Take a look at people who have tagged them for ideas on influencers.

Know What Questions to Ask

Once you have a list of potential people, you need a list of questions for your influencer “interview.” Here are some ideas: 

• How much do you charge? Many food bloggers and influencers will charge you. You’ll gauge this depending on how many followers they have and the quality of their content. Also, their fees need to fit into your own budget.
• How can you engage my target audience? Influencers and bloggers with many followers have engendered a lot of trust that can be extended to the businesses they promote. (tweet this) However, you want to make sure their audience is also your audience. The potential partner needs to be able to speak to your target group and engage with them in an appropriate way. For example, if your bar and grill menu is based on seafood, you don’t want to partner with a vegan influencer.
• Do you have any references? Find out about any of their current and past partnerships and ask if you can contact them. This is much like hiring a new employee. You also want to ask them if they have any metrics they can show you. This will tell you if they have the kind of engagement you are looking for and if they can help you drive business to your bar and grill.
• What kind of content do you create? You want to know if they will strictly be blogging, or if they use social media platforms, YouTube, etc.

Now that you have found food bloggers and influencers, and with all of these answers in hand, you are ready to choose at least one of them to work with. Your next step is to create an agreement to begin work. 

Create an Agreement

Work with your chosen partner to create an agreement that works for both of you. Things to include in the agreement include: 

• How long you’ll work together? Set a way to end the agreement. For example, you may say either party can terminate the agreement with 30 days’ notice.
• How often will they post?
• What kind of content will they create? Choices may include social media image posts, stories and reels, YouTube videos, and blog posts.
• How long will each piece of content last?
• What days will they post? For example, they’ll do one blog post monthly and two social media posts weekly. Do set a specific number of posts depending on the content type.
• Agree on who owns the content once it’s created.
• How will you pay them? Will this be a paycheck only, or will they get free food?

The agreement is vital so everyone knows what’s expected at all times. 

Final Thoughts on Influencer Marketing

You know the competition for bars and grills in your community is fierce. Everyone is vying for a spot, so you want to find ways to stand out in a crowded field.

Working with food bloggers and influencers can give you an edge. By choosing the right people, you may find that just one post brings diners to your door, giving your bar and grill credibility and social proof.

The food bloggers and influencers you choose are your “culinary” ambassadors. They take word-of-mouth marketing and turn it upside down for great success. (tweet this) Because these people already have large, engaged audiences, their followers trust what they have to say. So, when the food influencer says your bar and grill is worth trying, your future diners want to dine with you.

By increasing your brand awareness and touting your great food and service, working with influencers makes good business sense. Incorporate food bloggers and influencers into your marketing strategy, start collaborating, and watch your revenue grow.

Is your website ready to help you succeed with online influencers? At Restaurant Engine, we can create a website for you that has the right keywords to land you at the top of search engine results pages and bring guests to your website. Your website is the centerpiece of your online marketing, and it needs to look and perform well to increase your online orders and reservations. You can count on us to create a fantastic website that presents a unified brand for your restaurant 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!

Images: Michael Discenza and Denise Leisner on Unsplash

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