How to Harness Team Creativity with Social Media Content
We often hear it from Foodie Coaches members: ‘I want my staff to create social media posts such as reels and short videos on different restaurant and cafe topics, but they need inspiration! And when I let some of them do it before, OMG the results did not impress! How do I get them to do restaurant social media content and get it right?’
First, it’s helpful to plan social posts with ‘content pillars’, key themes or topics your social media content revolves around – this ensures consistency and relevance. Each pillar represents a different aspect of life in your restaurant or cafe, and it won’t take long to have a solid calendar of posts ready to share.
Restaurant and Cafe Content Using 7 Content Pillars:
Monday: Behind the Scenes – Time-lapse of kitchen prep for the day. Tuesday: Menu Highlight – Short video of the chef presenting the dish of the day. Wednesday: Customer Engagement – Poll asking followers to vote for their favourite dessert. Thursday: Staff Spotlight – Meet the team video introducing a new staff member. Friday: Events and Promotions – Announcing the weekend brunch special. Saturday: Tips and Tutorials – Quick recipe demo for a popular dish. Sunday: What Goes Wrong – Funny clip of a minor kitchen mishap with a humorous caption.
These are examples. Once you’ve decided on your pillars, it’s easy to draw up a calendar for at least two months of content – in this case, it is eight weeks x seven content posts = 56 social posts… impressive! You might decide on four or five pillars, and it’s OK if they change over time – the idea is to keep a variety of restaurant social media content posts and help the inspiration flow.
Social Media Topics for Restaurants
1. Behind the Scenes: Show what happens in the kitchen, prep work, or how dishes are plated – focus on one item at a time. 2. Chef’s Special: Introduce the chef and ask her about a special dish or a new menu item. 3. Ingredient Highlight: Focus on a unique or seasonal ingredient and its use in a dish. 4. Customer Testimonials: Record short clips of customers sharing their dining experience. 5. Cooking Tips: Share cooking tips or quick recipes that people can try at home. 6. Event Highlights: Capture moments from events like live music nights, wine tastings, or themed dinners. 7. Staff Spotlights: Introduce team members and share fun facts or their favourite dishes. 8. Food Prep Time Lapse: Show a time-lapse of a dish being prepared from start to finish. 9. Sustainability Efforts: Highlight any eco-friendly practices or initiatives at the restaurant. 10. Holiday Specials: Promote special menus or events for holidays and festivals.
‘What Goes Wrong’ – Content Topics for Restaurants
It doesn’t all have to be disasters – sometimes, it shows how pressure and busy shifts are handled successfully. People are fascinated by the inner workings of restaurants and cafes.
1. Kitchen Disasters: Share funny or minor mishaps in the kitchen, like dropped dishes or burnt food. Ask chefs to describe something that happened in the past. 2. Customer Complaints: Discuss common complaints and how you address them. 3. Food Waste: Discuss what the restaurant is doing to minimise it, and don’t be afraid to show the bins and boxes. 4. Busy Nights and Pressure: Show the challenges of managing a fully booked restaurant during peak hours. 5. Supply Chain Issues: Talk about problems with getting ingredients and how it affects the menu – one for the head chef or bar manager. 6. Staffing Challenges: Discuss difficulties with staffing, such as finding good staff in a tight market. Keep it light, and talk about success rather than failure. 7. Unexpected Events: Share stories of unexpected events, like power outages or equipment failures. 8. Health and Safety: Talk about the importance of health and safety regulations and how they are managed – show the certificates that staff have been awarded. 9. Recipe Failures: Show or talk about attempts at new dishes that didn’t turn out as planned. 10. Customer Behaviour: Light-heartedly discuss challenging customer behaviours and how they are handled.
Production tips for restaurant content:
1. Behind the Scenes: Film snippets throughout the day and compile them into a montage showing different parts of the kitchen in action. 2. Chef’s Special: Show the chef preparing the dish, then have them narrate the steps and discuss why it’s special. This is easier (and usually better sound) than asking them to describe the steps as they cook the food. 3. Ingredient Highlight: Take a close-up of the ingredient and show it being prepped and used in a dish. 4. Customer Testimonials: Capture genuine reactions from customers enjoying their meals, and mix into short interviews. Sometimes one or two words can be enough. 5. Cooking Tips: Demonstrate a quick tip or hack in the kitchen, using close-ups and slow-motion to highlight key parts.
Social Media Topics for Cafes
1. Coffee Art: Showcase baristas creating latte art or unique coffee drinks. 2. Baking Sessions: Share clips of pastries and cakes being baked and coming out of the oven. 3. Specialty Drinks: Introduce new or seasonal drinks and how they are made. 4. Customer Stories: Feature regular customers and ask why they love visiting the cafe. 5. Recipe Demos: Show simple recipes for popular items like sandwiches or smoothies. 6. Daily Routine: Give a glimpse into the daily routine of running a café – opening up in the morning, handling the dishes when it’s busy, cooks under pressure and then cleaning up at the end. 7. Cafe Ambience: Highlight the cosy atmosphere, décor, and seating areas. 8. Music or Events: Use favourite songs from your cafe playlist as background music for posts – as available with the music licensing for the app you are using. 9. Barista Skills: Show baristas making different types of coffee and showing their techniques. 10. Seasonal Offerings: Promote seasonal menu items or themes in the café – find specific coffee events here.
‘What Goes Wrong’ – Content Topics for Cafes
1. Coffee Spills: Share clips of baristas accidentally spilling coffee or making a mess. 2. Order Mix-ups: Talk about order mix-ups and how they are corrected. 3. Baking Fails: Show baking attempts that didn’t go as planned, like a collapsed cake. 4. Crowded Mornings: Highlight the rush and chaos of a busy morning in the café. 5. Equipment Malfunctions: Discuss issues with coffee machines or other equipment breaking down. 6. Handling Noise: Talk about managing noise levels from customers or equipment. 7. Allergy Alert: Show what the cafe can offer for people with food allergies. 8. Weather Impact: Discuss how bad weather can affect the cafe’s foot traffic and outdoor seating. 9. Ingredient Shortages: Talk about times when key ingredients were unavailable and what was done. 10. Customer Expectations: Discuss how unrealistic customer expectations are managed.
Production Tips for Cafes
1. Coffee Art: Use a slow-motion effect to capture the intricate details of creating latte art. 2. Baking Sessions: Show different stages of baking in a fast-paced, time-lapse format. 3. Specialty Drinks: Use close-ups and different angles to highlight the unique steps or ingredients that make a drink special. 4. Customer Stories: Mix candid shots of customers enjoying the café with snippets of them sharing their favourite experiences. One or two words may be enough, then splice 10 of these together. 5. Daily Routine: Film short clips showing different parts of the daily routine, from opening the café to serving customers. 6. Show, Don’t Tell: Use visuals to demonstrate processes or events. For example, instead of just describing a dish, show how it’s made step by step. 7. Time-lapse videos are great for capturing activities that take a long time, like food prep or setting up for an event. 8. Multiple Angles: Use different camera angles to make the video more dynamic. For example, capture a dish being plated from above, from the side, and close-up. 9. Background Music: Add music to make the video more engaging. Choose tunes that fit the mood of the content and are licensed for the app you’re using. 10. Text Overlays: Use text or arrows to highlight key points or add context. 11. Fast Cuts and Edits: Keep the video dynamic by using quick cuts and edits to maintain viewer interest. 12. Voiceover Narration: Instead of talking directly to the camera, use a voiceover to explain what’s happening on screen.
A Brief for Staff: Create 5 Social Media Posts Per Week
Objective: Each staff member will create 5 engaging posts for Facebook, Instagram or TikTok each week to showcase our venue and connect with our audience.
1. Be Authentic: Show the real side of working at our restaurant/café. Genuine content like this is more popular with viewers. 2. Be Creative: Make each post unique and interesting. Experiment with different formats, angles, and styles – get inspiration from what other popular creators are making. 3. Keep It Short: Aim for videos under 30 seconds. The shorter, the better for TikTok. 4. Quality over Quantity: Focus on making each post enjoyable, engaging and high-quality rather than just meeting the quota. But a few mistakes are OK; we learn from them. 5. Be Kind: Funny content is great but not at the expense of customer or staff dignity. 6. Train Others: Everyone’s learning – share your techniques so we all improve. 7. Feedback: Share your posts with the team and be open to feedback. 8. Approval Process: All posts must be approved by [manager/owner] before going live. This can be done through a shared folder where staff upload their drafts for review.
Involving your staff in the creative process of social media makes it more authentic and builds pride in what they’ve created – it’s also likely to stand out in a sea of mostly identical content.
By drawing on their different approaches and experiences, you create videos, images, and restaurant social media content that truly reflect the vibrant atmosphere of your restaurant or cafe. It’s also less expensive and helps them understand digital marketing and the wide range of skills needed to run a successful business.
We often hear it from Foodie Coaches members: ‘I want my staff to create social media posts such as reels and short videos on different restaurant and cafe topics, but they need inspiration! And when I let some of them do it before, OMG the results did not impress! How do I get them to do restaurant social media content and get it right?’
First, it’s helpful to plan social posts with ‘content pillars’, key themes or topics your social media content revolves around – this ensures consistency and relevance. Each pillar represents a different aspect of life in your restaurant or cafe, and it won’t take long to have a solid calendar of posts ready to share.
Restaurant and Cafe Content Using 7 Content Pillars:
Monday: Behind the Scenes – Time-lapse of kitchen prep for the day.
Tuesday: Menu Highlight – Short video of the chef presenting the dish of the day.
Wednesday: Customer Engagement – Poll asking followers to vote for their favourite dessert.
Thursday: Staff Spotlight – Meet the team video introducing a new staff member.
Friday: Events and Promotions – Announcing the weekend brunch special.
Saturday: Tips and Tutorials – Quick recipe demo for a popular dish.
Sunday: What Goes Wrong – Funny clip of a minor kitchen mishap with a humorous caption.
These are examples. Once you’ve decided on your pillars, it’s easy to draw up a calendar for at least two months of content – in this case, it is eight weeks x seven content posts = 56 social posts… impressive! You might decide on four or five pillars, and it’s OK if they change over time – the idea is to keep a variety of restaurant social media content posts and help the inspiration flow.
Social Media Topics for Restaurants
1. Behind the Scenes: Show what happens in the kitchen, prep work, or how dishes are plated – focus on one item at a time.
2. Chef’s Special: Introduce the chef and ask her about a special dish or a new menu item.
3. Ingredient Highlight: Focus on a unique or seasonal ingredient and its use in a dish.
4. Customer Testimonials: Record short clips of customers sharing their dining experience.
5. Cooking Tips: Share cooking tips or quick recipes that people can try at home.
6. Event Highlights: Capture moments from events like live music nights, wine tastings, or themed dinners.
7. Staff Spotlights: Introduce team members and share fun facts or their favourite dishes.
8. Food Prep Time Lapse: Show a time-lapse of a dish being prepared from start to finish.
9. Sustainability Efforts: Highlight any eco-friendly practices or initiatives at the restaurant.
10. Holiday Specials: Promote special menus or events for holidays and festivals.
‘What Goes Wrong’ – Content Topics for Restaurants
It doesn’t all have to be disasters – sometimes, it shows how pressure and busy shifts are handled successfully. People are fascinated by the inner workings of restaurants and cafes.
1. Kitchen Disasters: Share funny or minor mishaps in the kitchen, like dropped dishes or burnt food. Ask chefs to describe something that happened in the past.
2. Customer Complaints: Discuss common complaints and how you address them.
3. Food Waste: Discuss what the restaurant is doing to minimise it, and don’t be afraid to show the bins and boxes.
4. Busy Nights and Pressure: Show the challenges of managing a fully booked restaurant during peak hours.
5. Supply Chain Issues: Talk about problems with getting ingredients and how it affects the menu – one for the head chef or bar manager.
6. Staffing Challenges: Discuss difficulties with staffing, such as finding good staff in a tight market. Keep it light, and talk about success rather than failure.
7. Unexpected Events: Share stories of unexpected events, like power outages or equipment failures.
8. Health and Safety: Talk about the importance of health and safety regulations and how they are managed – show the certificates that staff have been awarded.
9. Recipe Failures: Show or talk about attempts at new dishes that didn’t turn out as planned.
10. Customer Behaviour: Light-heartedly discuss challenging customer behaviours and how they are handled.
Production tips for restaurant content:
1. Behind the Scenes: Film snippets throughout the day and compile them into a montage showing different parts of the kitchen in action.
2. Chef’s Special: Show the chef preparing the dish, then have them narrate the steps and discuss why it’s special. This is easier (and usually better sound) than asking them to describe the steps as they cook the food.
3. Ingredient Highlight: Take a close-up of the ingredient and show it being prepped and used in a dish.
4. Customer Testimonials: Capture genuine reactions from customers enjoying their meals, and mix into short interviews. Sometimes one or two words can be enough.
5. Cooking Tips: Demonstrate a quick tip or hack in the kitchen, using close-ups and slow-motion to highlight key parts.
Social Media Topics for Cafes
1. Coffee Art: Showcase baristas creating latte art or unique coffee drinks.
2. Baking Sessions: Share clips of pastries and cakes being baked and coming out of the oven.
3. Specialty Drinks: Introduce new or seasonal drinks and how they are made.
4. Customer Stories: Feature regular customers and ask why they love visiting the cafe.
5. Recipe Demos: Show simple recipes for popular items like sandwiches or smoothies.
6. Daily Routine: Give a glimpse into the daily routine of running a café – opening up in the morning, handling the dishes when it’s busy, cooks under pressure and then cleaning up at the end.
7. Cafe Ambience: Highlight the cosy atmosphere, décor, and seating areas.
8. Music or Events: Use favourite songs from your cafe playlist as background music for posts – as available with the music licensing for the app you are using.
9. Barista Skills: Show baristas making different types of coffee and showing their techniques.
10. Seasonal Offerings: Promote seasonal menu items or themes in the café – find specific coffee events here.
‘What Goes Wrong’ – Content Topics for Cafes
1. Coffee Spills: Share clips of baristas accidentally spilling coffee or making a mess.
2. Order Mix-ups: Talk about order mix-ups and how they are corrected.
3. Baking Fails: Show baking attempts that didn’t go as planned, like a collapsed cake.
4. Crowded Mornings: Highlight the rush and chaos of a busy morning in the café.
5. Equipment Malfunctions: Discuss issues with coffee machines or other equipment breaking down.
6. Handling Noise: Talk about managing noise levels from customers or equipment.
7. Allergy Alert: Show what the cafe can offer for people with food allergies.
8. Weather Impact: Discuss how bad weather can affect the cafe’s foot traffic and outdoor seating.
9. Ingredient Shortages: Talk about times when key ingredients were unavailable and what was done.
10. Customer Expectations: Discuss how unrealistic customer expectations are managed.
Production Tips for Cafes
1. Coffee Art: Use a slow-motion effect to capture the intricate details of creating latte art.
2. Baking Sessions: Show different stages of baking in a fast-paced, time-lapse format.
3. Specialty Drinks: Use close-ups and different angles to highlight the unique steps or ingredients that make a drink special.
4. Customer Stories: Mix candid shots of customers enjoying the café with snippets of them sharing their favourite experiences. One or two words may be enough, then splice 10 of these together.
5. Daily Routine: Film short clips showing different parts of the daily routine, from opening the café to serving customers.
6. Show, Don’t Tell: Use visuals to demonstrate processes or events. For example, instead of just describing a dish, show how it’s made step by step.
7. Time-lapse videos are great for capturing activities that take a long time, like food prep or setting up for an event.
8. Multiple Angles: Use different camera angles to make the video more dynamic. For example, capture a dish being plated from above, from the side, and close-up.
9. Background Music: Add music to make the video more engaging. Choose tunes that fit the mood of the content and are licensed for the app you’re using.
10. Text Overlays: Use text or arrows to highlight key points or add context.
11. Fast Cuts and Edits: Keep the video dynamic by using quick cuts and edits to maintain viewer interest.
12. Voiceover Narration: Instead of talking directly to the camera, use a voiceover to explain what’s happening on screen.
A Brief for Staff: Create 5 Social Media Posts Per Week
Objective: Each staff member will create 5 engaging posts for Facebook, Instagram or TikTok each week to showcase our venue and connect with our audience.
1. Be Authentic: Show the real side of working at our restaurant/café. Genuine content like this is more popular with viewers.
2. Be Creative: Make each post unique and interesting. Experiment with different formats, angles, and styles – get inspiration from what other popular creators are making.
3. Keep It Short: Aim for videos under 30 seconds. The shorter, the better for TikTok.
4. Quality over Quantity: Focus on making each post enjoyable, engaging and high-quality rather than just meeting the quota. But a few mistakes are OK; we learn from them.
5. Be Kind: Funny content is great but not at the expense of customer or staff dignity.
6. Train Others: Everyone’s learning – share your techniques so we all improve.
7. Feedback: Share your posts with the team and be open to feedback.
8. Approval Process: All posts must be approved by [manager/owner] before going live. This can be done through a shared folder where staff upload their drafts for review.
Involving your staff in the creative process of social media makes it more authentic and builds pride in what they’ve created – it’s also likely to stand out in a sea of mostly identical content.
By drawing on their different approaches and experiences, you create videos, images, and restaurant social media content that truly reflect the vibrant atmosphere of your restaurant or cafe. It’s also less expensive and helps them understand digital marketing and the wide range of skills needed to run a successful business.
See also 12 Months of Restaurant Promotions and Special Events.
Check the other useful blog posts on the Foodie Coaches website…
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