Marketing

How to Use TikTok for Restaurant Marketing

At first, TikTok may seem too young, fast and confusing for restaurant marketers. But it's worth overcoming those hesitations.

More than one billion monthly active users. Nearly 50% annual growth. The average U.S. user spending roughly two weeks of their year inside the app.

No, TikTok is not just a fad. And it’s not just used by one demographic.

Less than half of TikTok’s users are between the ages of 10 and 29, and as the app grows, that number continues to shrink. There’s about a 60-40 split of female and male users, and more than a third of users are from households earning $100,000 or more per year. TikTok is growing fast among users of all interests and backgrounds, becoming an inescapable part of the online media ecosystem— and it’s time that restaurants took notice.

Fortunately for restaurants, dining is a visual experience. Eye-catching videos of food and how it’s cooked are what made Tasty videos go viral on Facebook a few years ago. TikTok has the same potential, along with the opportunity for restaurants to showcase staff, share promotions, work with influencers and — yes — have a bit of goofy fun.

From downloading the app to partnering with influencers, here’s everything restaurants need to know to go from TikTok newbies to effective TikTok marketers.

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TikTok 101

Setting Up a Restaurant’s TikTok

First things first: New users need to download the TikTok app on the Apple App Store or Google Play. Upon downloading, there’s a prompt to make a new account, and restaurants should make a business account.

The account’s username should mirror the restaurant’s name. However, if that option isn’t available, adding the restaurant’s city, state or an underscore could work. For example, if @bobspizza is already taken, @bobspizzaNYC or @bobspizza_NY might be available.

The rest of the profile should be filled out in the following sections:

Photo: A clear, high-res picture of the restaurant’s logo.
Name: The restaurant’s name.
Bio: An overview of the restaurant’s cuisine type and location(s). Note that there is an 80 character limit.
Email: The restaurant’s email address (this will be important for influencer opportunities!).
Category: Choose “Food & Beverage” or “Restaurants & Bars.”
Instagram and YouTube: Links to these profiles if the restaurant has them.

Once the business account has 1,000 followers, restaurants will have a dedicated section to add their websites. Until then, they can add a link to the restaurant’s website or online ordering page to their bio.

What Makes TikTok Unique?

TikTok is unique because it prioritizes discovery of new content and accounts each user will like. TikTok uses a custom algorithm to note what a user is watching and liking, then recommends similar content on that user's For You Page (FYP). Because of this, TikTok users are far more likely to see and engage with accounts they don't follow.

“TikTok is a platform for discovery, and that's exactly what the For You Page is," explains BentoBox Sr. Brand Manager Emily Schultz. "While platforms like Instagram and Twitter do have this discovery feature, TikTok prioritizes this feature. TikTok uses context clues from videos, whether it's a hashtag attached to the video, voiceover from the video or text overlaid on the video to figure out what the video is about.”

In an age of declining organic reach, this makes TikTok a unique social media marketing channel. With the right piece of content, businesses like restaurants can reach thousands and thousands of people — even if their following is a fraction of that. Attracting followers is still extremely valuable, but TikTok's For You Page has restored the "viral lottery" to social media, rewarding great content no matter where it comes from.

Of course, creating great content is easier said than done. But on TikTok, more than than other modern social channels, smaller accounts are rewarded for doing so.

Making a TikTok

TikTok’s own website has a great eight-step framework for making a TikTok, but here are some more detailed instructions.

[1] Go to the “Home” tab on the bottom right of the app.
[2] Press the “+” button.
[3] Choose the video type.
- Quick is a 15-second continuous shot.
- Camera is up to three minutes and can be broken up. Simply click the record button to pause the recording, then press it again to resume it.
- Template is for a photo gallery.
[4] Press the red checkmark when the recording is complete.
[5] Click “Add sound” and search for an audio file to add to the video.
[6] Add on-screen elements like special effects, text, captions or sticker elements like a poll or a question to viewers.
[7] When satisfied with the video, press “Next.”
[8] Enter the video’s description, using relevant keywords and hashtags for the restaurant’s name, area, cuisine and any of the trends being referenced in the video.
[9] Press “Post.”

That’s all it takes! Making a TikTok can be done in just a couple of minutes and doesn’t require any skills aside from knowing how to use a smartphone and a camera.

How Restaurants Are Using TikTok

From capitalizing on viral trends to showing how food in the restaurant is made, there’s no shortage of opportunities for restaurants to make welcomed content on TikTok. Here are several examples from restaurants active on the network.

1. Showcasing How Food is Made

TikTok is a great place for restaurants to pull back the curtain and show what goes into meal prep. In this example, Mediterranean fast-casual chain Cava shows the entire process for how its meatballs are made — the seasoning, the mixing, the hand-rolling, the grilling and ultimately the serving.

This approach isn’t just a branding play for a peak behind-the-curtains of how food is made; it’s a visual marketing masterplay. Better yet, it's flexible, as restaurants can feature fan favorite menu items or drum up excitement for new dishes. Either way, this visual plays more effectively than an image of the bowl and text saying, “Try our new meatballs.” It’s quick but thorough — and it looks delicious.

2. Highlighting Staff

A chance to break down the barriers between your staff and your guests, it’s worth handing the account password over to employees for staff takeovers and employee spotlights. In the example above, Levain Bakery had one of its bakers use a popular TikTok video format, walking the audience through a day in her life as an employee.

For customers, this shows the process of running the business and allows them to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for those making their food. However, this idea is also helpful for staff recognition, retention and hiring. When a restaurant dedicates space on its social media feed to highlighting staff, it shows that it values them — an important part of building a restaurant's employer brand.

3. Engaging With Comments

If a restaurant’s TikTok presence picks up, its videos will likely bring plenty of comments from customers and followers. One of TikTok's unique features is that a comment on one video can be used as a prompt for another video. In the example above, a customer’s wish for the return of Chipotle’s carne asada was granted — and announced to Chipotle’s massive TikTok following.

Restaurants can also make these kinds of videos to announce new menu items, hours for upcoming holidays and even address negative comments with some honest words (or a little bit of humor).

4. Hopping on Memes & Trends

As important as it is for restaurants to have their own presence on TikTok, an alternate — and potentially higher-visibility — move is to partner with TikTok influencers. These are individuals who have amassed an enormous audience of TikTok, followers, often within a specific demographic or niche. More than 40% of companies using TikTok use it alongside influencer marketing campaigns, and 49% of TikTok users say the app helps them in their purchasing decisions.

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Restaurants and TikTok Influencers

There are many ways restaurants can use TikTok influencers in marketing. Here are a few examples.

1. Announce Events and Promotions

Influencers can have tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers that fit a restaurant’s ideal customer profile. Recruiting them to spread the word about an event or a promotion shares news on something these followers actually care about.

In the example above, NYC-area influencer account Sistersnacking, which has nearly 1500,000 TikTok followers, partnered up with Made in New York Pizza to promote the restaurant’s new Pepsi-infused pizza. This approach works because it generates immediate buzz for the upcoming event from a crowd of New York restaurant fanatics.

2. Make a Custom Menu

3. Gush Over the Menu

While influencer marketing can be costly, there’s nothing wrong with a simple approach towards getting more eyes on a restaurant. Partnering with influencers by inviting them to review the restaurant or asking them to highlight a meal is so effective that some influencers make an entire career out of it.

In the example above, DEVOURPOWER, an account sporting more than 1.5 million TikTok followers, recounts its experience eating Magnolia Bakery's banana pudding. This is an effective way to show trusted food influencers enjoying the restaurant’s best items and can help pique the curiosity of someone scrolling through their feed.

Hopping on the TikTok Train

Whether it’s a quick cooking video or a massive influencer partnership, TikTok marketing is a massive opportunity for restaurants. It may take some time to learn how the platform works, but it's one of the few true sources of viral reach left on social media — and the internet. If diners under 40 years old are part of your target audience, TikTok should be a core part of your restaurant marketing plan.