Going viral: How to market your restaurant today

Forget the guides and Google, if you want your restaurant to be found by customers, you’ll need to include AI and social media in your marketing strategy.

How diners discover places to eat out has shifted dramatically since the arrival of the internet.

But in today’s marketplace simply having an online presence is not enough to make your business stand out. While Google is still used by the majority of people seeking a suitable dining spot, its crown is slipping, with AI and social media waiting to seize the throne.

There is a growing shift in how diners research and discover restaurants online according to Access Hospitality. While there are currently around 1,568,310 monthly Google searches for ‘restaurants in London’, there were 215,270 searches on social media platform TikTok and 213,440 on AI search engine Perplexity for the same term.

With the landscape changing so rapidly, how do market your restaurant so it stays visible?

While social media plays an important role in a marketing strategy, restaurants who want to maintain a strong position online should focus on optimising their presence for AI search engines, says Maria Hamilton, director at Custard, a positioning consultancy for hospitality.

She notes that a third of users are now starting their searches using AI tools like ChatGPT, rather than through traditional search engines.

“It’s impossible not to talk about restaurant marketing without talking about AI, but if we want to be more specific, the growth and importance of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) cannot be underestimated.”

Optimising for AI

Understanding GEO doesn’t have to be an insurmountable task, however.  

“The good news is that plenty of the SEO criteria restaurant marketing followed before apply to GEO, too, such as clear, easy-to-understand content and content that directly answers users’ queries,” explains Maria.

The main difference between Google and AI is that the latter searches more sources to build a picture of a restaurant’s brand and reputation than a standard Google search, making it more important to have a wide presence online.

“Reviews, editorial and social content on forums such as Reddit all play into how these new search engines build up a picture of your brand and if that overall picture isn’t great, it means less visibility when it comes to people searching," she added.

Maria advises restaurants against ‘pumping out content’ to create a positive picture online. Instead, the focus should be on publishing content that ‘has a purpose and reflects the brand and its values’.

“AI reads reputation – not ads, and this reputation cannot solely be crafted by what’s on your website, she says explaining that the new AI models - large language models - scour reviews, editorial, social content and listicles, as well as brand messaging to answer specific demands.

“Restaurants increasingly need to make sure the whole ecosystem agrees,” she says.

Social media

An important part of that ecosystem is social media. While we know that it is used as a search tool, platforms like TikTok and Instagram are also perfect places to create that all important ‘buzz’ around a business, as well as keep restaurants part of the conversation that feeds into GEO.

Because in the case of food businesses, when content – either generated by the business itself, or by customers – ‘goes viral’ it often translates to unprecedented demand.

Take Dubai style chocolate as an example. It didn’t exist until influencer Maria Vehera shared a video of her eating the Can’t Get Knafeh of It bar from Fix Dessert Chocolatier in Dubai in 2024. Just 12 months later, such was the demand for Dubai-style chocolate that UK supermarkets were limiting sales of £10 bars to customers.

Within UK hospitality, there are restaurants like Sketch and Amazonico who regularly appear on the ‘gram due to guests sharing snaps of their quirky and opulent décor while photos and videos shared of dishes like the beef cheek and Guinness suet pudding at The Devonshire, or the chicken parm at Grasso in London, have led to booking frenzies and long queues.

Going viral is often unexpected. Ben Allen, head chef at The Parakeet told The Staff Canteen how he can’t remove chocolate mousse from the menu because of its success on social media. A large number of diners visit the Kentish Town pub specifically for the dessert after seeing influencers rave about it on YouTube and TikTok.

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Going viral

Ben might be wise to keep the chocolate mousse on the menu. A survey of 2,000 Brits by insurance company Tempcover found that 34% would rather visit a viral restaurant than a Michelin-starred venue, while 39% of diners have travelled to a viral food spot, some as far as 100 miles.

So how easy is it to ‘go viral’? And should it be part of the marketing strategy?

As Ben at The Parakeet proves, chefs and restaurateurs can’t always predict what will be trending, so creating a concept that’s guaranteed to go viral is tough, says Chris Cookson, CEO and co-founder of social media marketing agency Uncovered.

Instead, he suggests tapping into existing trends and joining conversations online, illustrating his point by describing a successful social media campaign his agency created for KFC in 2024.

After noticing that a ‘small but vocal’ part of KFC’s audience on TikTok were challenging the fast food chain to ‘oil up’ – a slang term used by Gen Z and Gen Alpha – the agency created a video for TikTok showing the admin team getting oiled up in a warehouse before they were covered in KFC’s secret blend of herbs a spices.

The campaign hit the right chord, gaining 11 million views, and almost 10 million interactions, as well as winning Greatest Creative in the TikTok Ad Awards.

“It got huge amounts of media value for the brand,” he says, noting that being part of conversations can be just as valuable as starting them.

“Our strategy is culture first. People don’t want to hear brands sell or talk about their own stuff, they want to watch them be funny or drive emotion.”

Long term goal

Maria at Custard questions the value in going viral if you’re in it for the long haul. Trends can come and go so quickly.

“The thing we often see with restaurants that want to go viral is that they believe the ‘going viral’ bit is the endpoint, forgetting the restaurant still has to deliver on people’s expectations when you receive an influx of diners,” she says. “If you end up not being able to meet demand, going viral can end up doing more damage than good as a result.”

If going viral is what you want, ensure you build it into your full marketing strategy, she says, and always reference your business’s values and mission before going for it.

“Restaurants need to be selective in what they decide to get involved in, not just jumping on whatever trend just because it’s popular.

“Social media trends also come and go. They’re great for short-term visibility, but what about the long term? We’re seeing GEO rise in prominence. If done well, it provides that long-lasting visibility online that is indispensable for restaurants looking to get their name out there.”

(Written by Emma Eversham)