Restaurant social media marketing works when you post the dishes people actually order, the people who make them, and dated reasons to come in (a special, an event, a new menu), mostly as short phone video, three or four times a week on one or two platforms. Put your own ordering and booking link in every profile, and judge it by covers and orders you can trace, not by likes.
This guide covers what to post, where (Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, with features and ad rules from each platform's own business pages, read 10 November 2026), a four-week calendar you can copy, how to work with local food creators within the FTC's endorsement rules, what it costs in-house against hiring help, and how to tell whether it brings people in. Gigabit sells social posting as part of a restaurant package, so we have an interest; our price is in its own section. The wider picture of where social fits among Google, reviews and direct ordering is in our restaurant marketing guide.
What to post
Four kinds of post do nearly all the work for a restaurant. Rotate them, and let the dishes lead.
| Post type | What it looks like | How often | Best as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dishes | Your five most-ordered plates, shot close in daylight: the pour, the cut, the steam | Twice a week | Short video, 10 to 30 seconds |
| Specials | This week's special, the seasonal menu, last call on something leaving | Once a week, on the day it starts | Video or a single photo with the price and the days |
| Behind the scenes | Prep at 9 a.m., the chef tasting, a regular's order being made, staff (with their permission) | Once a week | Unpolished video; people over polish |
| Events | Trivia night, a wine dinner, a holiday menu, catering season | Two posts per event: announce, then a reminder the day before | Photo or video with the date, time and how to book |
A few rules make every post work harder:
- Say what and when in the first line. "Brisket is back, Thursday to Sunday" beats a clever caption nobody finishes.
- Show the food first. The first second of a video decides whether anyone keeps watching. Open on the plate, not the logo.
- One ask per post: order, book, or come Thursday. Not all three.
- Reuse everything. The same clip can go to Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and your Google Business Profile posts.
- Answer comments and messages the same day. A message asking about a party of twelve is a booking, not a comment.
Where to post: Instagram, TikTok and Facebook
Pick one platform you will keep up, then add a second. Three half-run accounts look worse than one good one. Here is what each platform's own business pages say, read 10 November 2026.
| TikTok | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Good for | Looking worth the trip; local discovery; Stories for today's special | Reaching people who don't follow you yet, with short video | Events, hours, and older regulars who check your Page |
| Ordering from the app | One partner ordering link on your profile and a "Food orders" Stories sticker (Meta) | Promote can aim a boosted video at website visits (TikTok) | Your Page links to your site |
| Account | A business account, listed among its tools (Instagram) | A Business Account, listed among its tools (TikTok) | "Setting up a Page is simple and free" (Meta) |
| Paid option | Boost posts or run ads through Meta (Instagram) | Promote in the app, or Ads Manager | Meta ads: "there is no minimum budget" (Meta) |
Instagram's business page lists Reels, Stories, Instagram Direct messaging, boosting posts and ads as its tools for businesses (Instagram). The restaurant-specific feature is ordering: Meta's guide says you choose an ordering partner, sign up with it, add the partner link to your profile, and can share it through a "Food orders" Stories sticker. You can only add one partner link to your profile, and not every partner is available everywhere (Meta). If your own ordering provider is on the list, use it rather than a delivery app, so the order costs you less. Our online ordering guide explains why that matters.
TikTok
TikTok is where a restaurant can reach people who have never heard of it, if the videos are good. Promote is its in-app tool for boosting a video you've already posted; its goals include more views and followers, leads such as messages and calls, and website visits. You must be 18 or older to use it, and promoting a LIVE needs at least 1,000 followers (TikTok). Ads Manager is the fuller tool, with real floors: a campaign budget must be more than $50 a day and an ad group more than $20 a day (TikTok Help), and TikTok recommends a $30 daily ad group budget in North America (TikTok). For most independents, posting well and promoting the odd video that already does well is plenty.
Facebook is less exciting and still useful: events, hours, and a Page many regulars check before they come. Meta's ads page says you set a daily or lifetime budget, that "there is no minimum budget", that ads should run at least seven days so its system can learn, that you can narrow the audience by location, and that you can stop or pause at any time (Meta). The same ads can run on Instagram. Paid social works best for something dated: an opening, a ticketed dinner, a holiday menu, catering season. Boosting everyday posts rarely pays.
A four-week posting calendar
Here is a month at four posts a week, plus Stories on the days you are open. Swap in your own dishes and events; keep the rhythm.
| Week | Monday | Wednesday | Friday | Saturday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dish: your best seller, close-up video | Behind the scenes: morning prep | Special: this weekend's dish, with days and price | Dish: the dining room at a busy hour |
| 2 | Dish: second best seller | Event announce: date, time, how to book | Special: reminder, last two days | Behind the scenes: a staff member's favorite order |
| 3 | Dish: a seasonal plate | Creator visit: repost their video (with the disclosure kept) | Event reminder: tomorrow, link to book | Event: photos or clips from the night |
| 4 | Dish: the dessert people photograph | Behind the scenes: a supplier, the bread, the smoker | Special: next month's menu preview | Catering or private dining: one dish, one link |
- One batch shoot: five or six short clips of dishes and prep
- Captions written and posts scheduled for the week
- Stories on open days: today's special, the room filling up
- Comments and messages answered the same day
- The best clip reposted to your Google Business Profile
- Bio links checked: your own ordering and booking, tagged
Batch it. One hour on a quiet afternoon shoots most of a week's clips. Write the captions in one sitting and schedule them, so a busy Friday doesn't mean a missed post.
Working with local food creators
A local creator's video can bring in more new faces than a month of your own posts, because their followers already trust them. Find them the simple way: look at who posts about restaurants near you, check that their followers are local and their comments are real, and invite two or three for a meal.
The rules matter here, and they apply to you as well as to them. This is general information from the FTC's own guidance, not legal advice:
- A free meal counts. The FTC says to disclose if the creator "got anything of value" to mention you (FTC), and that there is no dollar threshold that applies in every case (FTC).
- The disclosure must be clear and in the post. "#ad" at the start is generally effective; "Gifted" or "#ambassador" alone may be ambiguous. In a video, it goes in the video itself, ideally both said and shown, not only in the caption (FTC). Vague tags such as "sp", "spon" or "collab" aren't enough (FTC).
- A platform's paid-partnership label isn't enough on its own. The FTC says the ultimate responsibility rests with the influencer and the brand, not the platform (FTC).
- You are expected to check. Advertisers should have reasonable programs to train and monitor the people they work with: tell them how to disclose, review posts (before they go up is easiest), and act if something is wrong. Hiring an agency to run it doesn't move that responsibility (FTC).
- Only real experiences. Creators shouldn't talk up dishes they haven't tried (FTC).
- What you give: the meal, any fee, and any other perk, in writing
- How to disclose: "#ad" or "ad" at the start, and said or shown in the video
- What to feature: two or three dishes, the room, how to book or order
- What not to say: no claims about health, prices or deals you don't offer
- Your review before it posts, and the post date
- Permission to reuse the video on your own accounts, credited
Ask for the raw video as well as the post, with permission to reuse it on your own accounts. A good creator clip, credited and still disclosed, is a month of content.
What it costs: in-house or hired
Social media has three costs: people's time, any paid help, and any ad spend. Doing it in-house costs time, and someone's time is never free. Here is one example month for a restaurant posting four times a week, with a staff member paid at the BLS median for waiters and waitresses, $16.94 an hour in May 2025 (BLS).
| Posts: 4 a week × 45 minutes to shoot, edit and caption (example) | 13.0 hours |
| Replies to comments and messages: 15 minutes a day (example) | 7.6 hours |
| Staff time at $16.94 an hour (BLS median, waiters and waitresses, May 2025) | $349 |
| One creator visit: a $80 meal at 32% food cost (example) | $25.60 |
| Creator fee (example) | $150 |
| Total a month, before ad spend | $525 |
That example comes to about $525 a month, before payroll taxes and before any ad spend. Most of it is time, which is why the routine and the batching above matter more than any app.
| Way of doing it | Monthly cost | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| In-house | About $525 in the example above, plus your own oversight | Whatever your team shoots, posts and answers |
| Gigabit Growth Package | $100 a month | Profiles on 2 platforms you pick, 8 posts a month across them from the month's content, plus your website and Google profile. What's included |
| Restaurant marketing agency | From $1,800 a month at one agency that publishes prices | Its lowest tier lists posting on four platforms, comment and DM moderation, and 21 photos and 7 videos edited (Foodie Calls); ad spend not stated |
| Ad spend, on top | You choose; Meta has no minimum, TikTok Ads Manager more than $20 a day per ad group | Paid to the platform, not the person running it |
The first 300 businesses keep $100 a month for as long as they stay. The published price after that is $149 a month or $1,490 a year. The Growth Package leaves out video production, ad spend and ads management, and more than 2 social platforms, and its scope lists posts, not replies to messages, so the filming and the replies stay with your team. Full restaurant prices are on our pricing page, and what every other marketing line costs is in how much restaurant marketing costs.
How to tell if it brings covers
Likes and views show that people saw something. They don't show that anyone came in. To find out, give social its own trail:
- Tag the link in your bio. Add utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign to the ordering and booking links in each profile; Google says to always use all three, and missing ones show as "(not set)" in reports (Google Analytics). Then your analytics separates Instagram orders from Google ones.
- Use a separate booking link per platform if your reservation system shows the source of each booking.
- Name something only social knows. A dish, a word or a small extra for anyone who mentions the video. Count the mentions at the till.
- Ask at booking and on catering forms: "Where did you hear about us?" One question, four choices.
- Compare event nights. Covers on a night you promoted against the same night the month before.
- Judge at 90 days, not after one post. One video rarely changes a month; a routine can.
| Covers traced to social this month (example) | 30 |
| Kept per cover: $32 average check (example) less 32% food cost (example) | $21.76 |
| Kept from those covers, before labor and rent | $653 |
| Cost of the month (from the example above) | $525 |
| Covers needed to break even on food cost alone | 25 |
If the traced covers don't cover the cost after three months of a steady routine, change what you post before you change the budget. Most of the time it's the first second of the videos, or the ask, not the platform.
Mistakes that waste the effort
- Posting stock photos or the logo instead of food.
- A link in bio that goes to a delivery app rather than your own ordering.
- Three platforms started, none kept up.
- Paying a creator, or feeding one, without asking for a clear disclosure.
- Boosting random posts with no date or offer in them.
- Messages left unanswered over a weekend.
- Measuring followers instead of covers and orders.
What to do this week
Fix your profiles first: name, hours, address, and your own ordering and booking link, tagged. Then shoot five short clips of your best sellers in one afternoon and schedule the first week from the calendar above. If you'd like an outside view of your Google profile, reviews, site and ordering before you put more time into social, the free restaurant audit checks them against the restaurants near you. To bring the new guests back once they've come in, see restaurant email and SMS marketing.
