Social media boosts restaurant business
by Leon Gettler
Restaurants are now starting to realise that social media really helps the business.
When anything is posted on Facebook or Instagram, it’s potentially advertising potentially worth hundreds of dollars totally free. Better still, it has a much bigger reach.
According to Three Blue Ducks at The Farm co-owner and chef Darren Robertson, desserts do particularly well in social media.
"Desserts are quite Instagram-able, people go mad for them," Robertson told The Australian Financial Review.
"Twitter audiences are dwindling but Instagram is huge," Mr Robertson said.
"While we don't have a signature dish as such we didn't put the blood sausage with scrambled egg on the Farm menu immediately and people were asking why on social media."
Three Blue Ducks at The Farm, named in this year’s Australian Financial Review Top Restaurants, has 32,000 Instagram followers.
The followers are keen - they post pictures of everything. Not just dishes but also specials, to events and staff.
Mr Robertson has his own private account boasting 11,000 followers.
Owner and chef of Orana in Adelaide Jock Zonfrillo, who has 13,500 twitter followers, said social media can be used to track results and see what food works at what time of year.
He says photos of the kohlrabi, which is a type of cabbage, dorrigo, quandong and lemon myrtle dish are the most posted and liked from the menu.
"We do the social media ourselves," he told the AFR.."A lot of people come in and ask about dishes because they've seen it online. It also helps attract international diners."
Award co-director Jill Dupleix says restaurants need to be smart using social media. It needs to be executed properly and the images have to be absolutely compelling.
"Basically, Instagram is about beauty, Facebook about keeping in touch, and Twitter is for smart-arses. I say that kindly, being one myself," Ms Dupleix told the AFR.
“I personally un-follow those restaurants who just post specials, promotions or society pics. But a great dish of food, a story about a producer, where the chefs have themselves eaten, will always get me."
21st March 2016
