This probably doesn't have to be said, but let's just make sure we are on the same page ... social media is an important part of your marketing system. And if you're a restaurant, Instagram is likely the social media channel that's most valuable.
Your guests are sharing their photos on Instagram, which helps with word of mouth. Potential new guests look at your Instagram profile to see what the food and experience looks like. Its a great advertising channel to help raise awareness.
We can all agree ... Instagram is an important part of the customer journey, right?
Well what happens when your geotag is wrong or worse, missing!?!?!
Where's 375 Chicken?!?!?
What is a geotag? When people post content to Instagram they can tag the location (different from tagging your screen name) and that corresponds to a map view. Oftentimes guests will share content tagging the location and not the account.
**Pro-Tip** check your geotag for shared photos from users the same way you check your account tag for user generated content and engage with those posts!
Geotags on Instagram are SUPER important for discovery. If people find out about your restaurant and then it's difficult to find out where you are not only is that a bad customer journey but it actually is damaging to your overall search results across the web.
YOU NEED TO FIX THIS!
All that work to create great food, incredible experience and then people can't find you online? That's like building out an entire restaurant and forgetting to put on a front door.
YOU WOULDN'T DO THAT.
How does this happen? Well it's complicated but basically there is an error somewhere between your Instagram brand page and Facebook location pages.
What's a location page?
When you create a brand page on Facebook, this is your main page. If you only have one location, then you need to check to make sure the address is correct for your store on the brand page. Then you want to make sure you don't have a duplicate or errant Facebook page as well. If so, delete it. Duplicate pages on Facebook are bad bad bad bad bad for your business.
If that doesn't solve the problem, you want to make sure your Instagram brand account is linked to the right Facebook business account. Do this in Instagram settings.
If that doesn't work, I'm sorry ... this is where it gets complicated (facebook is REALLY good at making things complicated unfortunately, right?)
If you want to go deep you can read this scary article that Instagram has shared. Basically, they want you to create a new page.
WHAT?
Yes. Instagram suggests you create a new location page (this is different from a brand page), which would then allow you to geotag on instagram. Be warned, according to my friends at Marqii, there is sometimes a discrepancy between the two systems, and a major lag.
For the most part, this will work. And here is Facebook's lengthy process for doing it.
You've got 2 choices at this point ..
1. Follow the instructions which may not work
WHO HAS THE TIME FOR THAT?!??
2. Do what we do at my restaurant, Handcraft Burgers and Brew and what thousands of other restaurants do, get Marqii. Marqii can do this all with a click of a button and make it consistent with your other listings, (as long as you have a way to connect and log into facebook.)
Marqii is the gold standard for managing the digital side of your guest experience, and that includes listings management.
Want the fastest, easiest, most scalable and affordable way to make sure not only your geotags on Instagram are correct but that all your info like name, hours of operation, address, menu and photos are up to date and in your control on Google, Yelp, Bing, Yahoo, Siri, Apple Maps, Tripadvisor, Alex, Facebook, Mapquest and more? That's Marqii.
It's also an incredible tool for managing your reviews on Yelp, Google and Tripadvisor, but more on that later.
And no, Marqii did not pay for or even ask me to write this. I'm sharing this with you because I know it works and it's my job to help you maximize your marketing efforts.
Got questions? Send me an email rev@brandedstrategic.net
If you have any questions, or need help send me an email rev@brandedstrategic.net
- Rev Ciancio
WHAT DOES REV DO?
*I help restaurants to build guest marketing programs.
*I help hospitality tech companies with lead generation and content marketing.