Digital Marketing with X for Restaurants – Part 1

Conservative estimates rank X (formerly known as Twitter) as having less than 10% the monthly active users as Facebook. Despite that, X as a digital marketing tool still has plenty of reach, with over 108 million of its user base being in the United States alone.

Having a lot of users, however, isn't enough when we're dealing with so many other giants in the social media world: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and so on. We need to consider the demographics of X to see if it would make sense to market on it.

Let's consider audience reach based on age:

The all important 18–35 age bracket is well represented on X. Close to 28% of the X user base is in the 18-24 age range, while another 20% is in the 25-34 age range . That means that in the United States alone, just those two age brackets would be like the populations of California and Texas combined. Woah!

Whether you still wish to refer to it as Twitter or use the rebranded name X, this social media platform is a major real-time tool of digital marketing for restaurants.

Key takeaway: real-time.

Foodies can check on X what a restaurant has to offer, its special deals, or when the restaurant trends on food hashtags (we will explain hashtags momentarily). In this way, a restaurant using X can stay visible in their local area.

X conversations happen quickly. Tweets (the messages that get posted on Twitter are known as tweets) can receive replies and retweets rapidly, making people aware of a restaurant in no time.

All of this is to say that digital marketing on Twitter (digital marketing on X) can be an excellent tool to drives sales since X is the ideal platform for increasing the visibility of limited-time promotions, locations of food trucks, and/or cross promotion with other social media platforms as part of a restaurant's overall marketing plan.

Ignoring X when it comes to digital marketing for restaurants is like leaving money on the table.

And no one likes to leave money on the table. No one.

Digital Marketing for Restaurants with X: How Is It Different from Other Social Media Platforms, such as Facebook?

Facebook requires that two users are friends for each of them to see conversations, photos, or comments. That isn't a bad thing nor a good thing. It's simply how Facebook is designed and obviously it hasn't held back Facebook from being the world's largest social media platform.

Let's now look at X:

Due to the open nature of X, users do not need to be another user's “friend” (contact) in order to see tweets, comments, or to even tag a user. This design of X makes it more like a conversation that is happening 24 hours per day. Your restaurant can be the source of the conversation by being the one sending out tweets or your restaurant can participate in existing conversations.

It is this level of interactivity in a much less restricted way that separates X from other social media platforms such as Facebook.

People are already discussing food trends and events, as well as their next meal, on X. Your restaurant is free to join in on those conversations. Although X allows you to post photos and videos, X isn't about perfect pictures — we have Instagram for that.

X is about being in the moment. This makes it useful for restaurant digital marketing to move quickly and stay relevant. Your goal on X as a digital marketer should be to keep your restaurant top of mind.

Digital marketing for restaurants with X is like texting everyone in your neighborhood. It doesn't matter if you know them personally or not. If they are also on X, they can see everything that you're writing about. Remember what we said: X is an open social media platform, whereas Facebook is more controlling in terms of who can see something.

With X, your restaurant can get involved in a conversation by retweeting or making use of hashtags. You can announce lunch specials, join food trends, and respond to questions.

Granted, be tasteful and be respectful, but there is nothing holding your restaurant back on X from interacting with your target audience.

To summarize:

• ✅ Facebook is great if you already know your contacts. In Facebook terminology, these contacts are “friends” where you've either sought them out with a friend request or they sought you out with a friend request. What you say between each other is private to just you two.

• ✅ X allows anyone to reach anyone else. You can use hashtags if you wish to have your tweets associated with keywords that users might be searching for. Unlike Facebook, you can write directly to an individual by tagging them. Tagging someone doesn't mean it is a private conversation. Anyone else on X can still see, participate in, and/or retweet the conversation.

Why X Isn't Just Another Social Media Platform

X marketing stands out for these reasons:

• ⏰ Real-Time Reach: Unlike other platforms that rely on scheduled content or long lead times, X lets your restaurant react right now. Bad weather? Promote delivery. Big game tonight? Push a happy hour. Instant timing, instant traction.

• 🌎 Wide Reach: X interacts with 586 million users , enabling your restaurant to draw a large audience.

• 🎙️ Quick Conversations: Use as conversations unfold. Present promotions or join chats at that very moment.

• ❤️ The timeless appeal of words: Words still matter even in today's modern world. A succinct and clever tweet may draw attention to a restaurant without requiring a graphic designer to create an image for it.

• 💻 Everyday updates rather than large campaigns: Rather than running huge marketing campaigns every month for the restaurant, X focuses on daily updates such as “What's cooking?” content that can be shared often about the restaurant.

• 👩 Appeals to human beings: X is an avenue for showcasing personality through responsive and engaging interactions with customers. Therefore, it fosters trust and elevates a restaurant's profile, especially when genuine interaction occurs, making it a memorable experience.

• 🚀 Opportunities exist for organic excitement generated even without paying for ads.

The right words at the right time go viral on this network, unlike many others, particularly those that do not readily give kudos to those who achieve this; thus, just one creative or timely tweet leads to widespread recognition without any financial cost incurred by the restaurant.

X shouldn't be the only social media platform that you rely on when it comes to digital marketing restaurants that you operate. Rather, X should be part of a bigger game plan where you have digital marketing on Facebook, digital marketing on X (digital marketing on Twitter), digital marketing on Instagram... you get the idea.

We will discuss more about a strategy for restaurant digital marketing later in this article.

Digital Marketing with X, What Does That Mean?

Digital marketing for restaurants on X is about using X for brand building and customer engagement.

Let's look first at brand building:

Because of its compact nature (a limit of 280 characters per tweet), X has, for better or worse, a built-in way to reach audiences that have their attentions split by, well, limiting how much they have to read. This means, though, that with so many tweets out there, you have to send out a tweet more often to cut through the clutter.

So, get your tweets out and get them out frequently. This how you keep your brand top of mind on X.

Don't have original content to send out? Then follow some X accounts in the same space as your business, but who aren't necessarily direct competitors to your business. Retweet their posts here and there.

Even if you didn't directly write the tweet, you benefit from remaining top of mind (seeing a pattern?) with your audience by having your restaurant's name and logo appear in your audience's newsfeed / timeline.

If other entities in your industry aren't on X or aren't posting frequently on X, but do have content in other forms such as blogs, Facebook posts, or perhaps an Instagram account, you can tweet out links back to their content. This is you providing content that would be of interest to your followers (a good thing) and remaining top of mind by having your restaurant's name show up as the person sharing the content (also a good thing!).

Tools that can help you find content from other entities in your industry include:

• 1. Feedly

• 2. Buzzsumo

• 3. Google Alerts

• 4. X Pro

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that digital marketing for restaurants on X is just about tweeting daily specials. Yes, you should do that, but X is so much more than just tweeting about a lunch hour special.

Let's now look at customer engagement:

X is an open platform, which means anything you tweet is viewable by anyone else on X. Unlike Facebook, you don't need to send out a “friend request” to see another user's tweet nor have them see yours as we've previously mentioned.

Customers who are on X and following your X account will see what you tweet and if they're willing, can retweet what you have written.

Customers can “tag” you in a tweet by using the “@” sign combined with your account username. You can also do the same to them. In this way, customers can engage with your restaurant.

Lastly, your restaurant can use hashtags to categorize a tweet. You can think of a hashtag as adding a keyword to a tweet that then makes that tweet readily findable if a user of X filters by a hashtag. Hashtags are easily recognizable by the # symbol that precedes the word.

If you wanted to use a hashtag such as #PizzaFriday, just simply include it in your tweet. That's all there is to it.

Bear in mind, though, that hashtags are available for use by anyone else on X. If your restaurant were to use the hashtag #PizzaFriday, just know that a user filtering by that hashtag will encounter the tweets from your restaurant that used that hashtag AND the tweets of anyone else – restaurant or not – that also used that hashtag for a tweet or tweets.

This openness in X allows for digital marketing that wouldn't be possible on Facebook, at least not as easily.

Conclusion

The social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) is still as relevant today as it was 10 years ago. What makes it impactful as a real-time source of information and news is what distinguishes it from other social media platforms, such as Facebook.

X is an open platform, unlike Facebook, and this openness allows your restaurant to participate in conversations on X.

Your restaurant can start the conversation by tweeting about a lunch hour promotion, the location of your food truck, and any other news that you wish to share across all of Twitter in order to drive sales at your restaurant.

Your restaurant can also use X to participate in existing conversations that concern your restaurant or dishes, which might have been categorized with hashtags.

Digital marketing restaurants on X should not be omitted as part of your overall digital marketing plan, which we will discuss in part two of our Digital Marketing with X for Restaurants series.