How Social Media Has Impacted the Restaurant Industry!
The instant access and wide availability of social media has transformed the way information is disseminated. People are now able to follow the daily activities of their favorite celebrities, share their fitness goals and accomplishments, and broadcast photos of the minutest details of their daily lives with the tap of a button. Like many other service-based industries, the restaurant industry has experienced a dramatic transformation due to the development of social media.
The Impact of the Smartphone
Today’s smartphone allows users to immediately capture, edit, and post photos directly to social media platforms. As a result, many everyday consumers are now able to function as amateur food critics. Restaurant patrons commonly take photos for their dishes upon arrival in addition to photographing themselves enjoying the overall ambiance. When these photos are posted to the user’s social media accounts, hundreds and even thousands of people quickly gain access to the information and are able to form an impression of the restaurant based on the comments and photos. Much simpler than photographing and posting to social media, check-ins allow the account holder to simply indicate to friends and followers that he or she is currently visiting a specific restaurant or other business.
Food Blogs
While many smartphone and social media users are happy to limit their activity to posting photos with brief comments on their restaurant outings, the number of internet blogs has proliferated. These blogs vary from vary small scale, local restaurant reviews that are posted for an audience of only a couple hundred viewers to famous blogs that are updated frequently to cater to tens of thousands of subscribers. Examples like Max Gorin’s food blog, which covers Southern California cuisine, is viewed by a national audience. The size and scope of a food blog usually depends on the blogger’s willingness to invest time and energy, and oftentimes expense, into seeking out restaurants, advertising their blog, considering potential partnerships, and actually producing high-quality, interesting blog entries.
Restaurants Take Notice
Many restaurants have responded to the dramatic shift from professional food critics to the growing audiences of food bloggers and even everyday social media users. Some establishments offer incentives to visitors to check in from their restaurant location and display their visit on a social media platform. There has been tremendous buy-in among restaurant owners and managers and implementing a social media presence as part of their marketing strategies. Some businesses welcome and even invite established food bloggers to try their cuisine and detail their visit on their blogs.
From casual social media posts to dedicated food blogs with tremendous followings, an increasingly interactive and portable internet has dramatically changed advertising in the restaurant industry. In response, businesses have learned that they must adapt and leverage the new ways in which consumer information is accessed and transmitted via smartphones, tablets, and computers. Current trends indicate that food blogs are here to stay, for now, as restaurant patrons are becoming more accustomed to checking for online reviews before deciding to visit a particular eatery.
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