You’ve defined your addressable market on Facebook and developed a rock-solid content strategy that will connect with your audience. At the conclusion of the “Promote” step your restaurant will have a deep understanding of the opportunities to maximize distribution across the network.

On Facebook, the methods of connecting with your ideal audience fall neatly into two categories, paid advertising and earned media. However, how the two approaches interact is not quite as defined.

Paid Advertising

Facebook Ads:
Facebook’s own advertising system can be an inexpensive means of connecting with your customers. While online advertising continues to grow in popularity, the costs are rising. Its becoming increasingly important to target the most relevant audiences possible.

Given the network’s in-depth user profile and behavioral information, Facebook knows a great deal about its users. It makes that data available to its advertisers through a series of filters. Target your ad spend by geography, age, gender, orientation and various other trait data. Further match your audience by segmenting on their likes and interests, the applications that they use, or the pages they like. Even target the friends of your existing Facebook connections. Including the “Like” button in your Facebook ads to further improve performance, by lowering the barriers to connect.

Multi-Channel (Bringing Offline to Online):
Finding inventive ways to bring Facebook into offline life is one of the fastest growing trends among advertisers. Much like pushing a loyalty card or email opt-in, driving a Facebook like gives your restaurant another way to communicate with your guests. Consider incorporating your restaurant’s Facebook page into your other marketing channels. For instance, promote a Facebook contest through television, print and banner advertising. Add QR codes to your point-of-purchase displays, so that your guests have a reason to connect from their mobile phones while in the restaurant. Drive those already on your email list to find you on Facebook with a dedicated email campaign.

More than 2 million websites have taken advantage of Facebook’s Open Graph, including features such as the “Like” button and Recommendations plugin on their own site. Facebook users that utilize these functions while outside of the network are a highly desireable group. They have 2.4 times the average number of friends and generate 4x the pageviews of a typical online visitor. [26]

BE CONSISTENT:
Much like email marketing, campaigns that succeed on Facebook let their audience know what to expect from your brand. Add a few anchor activities that are a weekly staple of your program. This does not mean post the same schedule of content over and over again. Between these dependable pillars, you have the freedom to vary content, without disrupting the necessary level of familiarity with your "likers."

Earned Media

Offline public relations can broadcast your restaurant’s message far and wide, while adding the increased credibility of a third-party endorsement. That same ideology exists within Facebook. Identify and connect with the industry’s influencers, including reporters, critics, and bloggers. Traditional news journalists are spending more time in social media searching for story ideas, trends and sources. Bloggers spend almost 10 hours a week on social networks, twice as long as the average user.