How you can use YouTube as a restaurant marketing tool

You might think YouTube is just a place for watching videos of skateboarding cats, X Factor clips and attention seekers. But the fact is that YouTube can be used as a restaurant marketing tool for showing off your expertise, building a closer bond with customers and filling more seats, as described here in this guest post by Shamil Thakrar, co-founder of award winning restaurant Dishoom in London.

Posting videos is a great way of giving people an insider view of what goes on in your restaurant. Whether it’s cookery tips, interviews with the staff or an inside view of what goes on in the kitchen, creating videos can be a great way of enabling customers to engage with you and to give you an advantage when it comes to booking a table.

And it doesn’t have to be expensive. YouTube is traditionally a place for homemade videos made on a shoestring budget. You don’t need special lighting, cue cards or an action clapperboard (unless you really want to use one). A simple handcam such as the Flip will suffice, with the shaky image and unscripted dialogue adding to the video’s authenticity.

For ideas on how you can use YouTube as a restaurant marketing tool, you might like to check out these YouTube channels:

BR Guest Restaurants – This collective of bars, hotels and restaurants in theNew York area has already posted 90 videos of events, cookery classes and chef recipe demonstrations.

Staff Canteen – This is aUK based community for chefs to share their recipe ideas. Amongst the videos, you’ll find John Williams from The Ritz demonstrating how to cook lobster and Gary Jones of Raymond Blanc’s La Manoir showing off their signature dishes.

Cornish Fishmonger – They’ve been delivering fresh fish toCornwall for over 25 years, and amongst their collection of videos you’ll find tips on how to fillet a mackerel, how to prepare crab and the journey the fish takes to get to your door.

Mermaid Oyster Bar – Along with recipe ideas and a bio of one of its chefs, you’ll find a video of customers talking about the family atmosphere and great food to be found at this popular seafood restaurant. Getting customers involved is always restaurant marketing gold.

By Livebookings in Blog, Restaurant Marketing, Videos