Younger consumers may no longer think Facebook is that cool, but bars and restaurants still love it. Among the 2013 OnTrac survey, conducted by the Beverage Information Group (the research unit of Cheers’ parent company) 87.4% of participants said they used the social media site to drive traffic to their establishments, up from 75.4% in 2012.
Twitter remains popular among operators, increasing from 35.4% using it overall in 2012 to 48.5%, while use of Yelp and Foursquare more than doubled. Instagram showed the most impressive overall increase, from 2.1% in 2012 to 11.8% in 2013. The photo/video-sharing service is great for showing off pictures of cool drinks and meals.
The bars/taverns segment made the biggest leap: Just 63.9% of these were using Facebook in 2012, compared to 86.3% in 2013. And the percentage of bars/taverns using Yelp surged from 14.3% to 51.3% in 2013.
Looking at it by region, Facebook is more widely used in the Midwest (91.3%) compared to establishments in the South (82.7%). Foursquare is much more popular in the Northeast (28.0%) vs. the West (12.2%).
The annual OnTrac study surveys more than 2,000 on-premise accounts. Participants include fine dining restaurants, casual-themed eateries, hotels, bars and taverns in 31 major metropolitan markets. For more information visit www.albevresearch.com.