When it comes to running a successful coffee shop, it’s important for your business to stand out not only on the street but also online. Before everyone spent all their time scrolling through their phones and spending hours on social media, marketing was different in the service and restaurant industry. These days, however, you need to have a strong social media presence if you want customers to both discover your business and consider it legitimate. That’s why it’s so important to post constantly on platforms like Facebook and Instagram and have a website that represents your brand’s identity.

But if you want to do well, and have as successful a coffee shop as possible, you need special social media tools to up your engagement as much as possible. So if you want to learn about the best social media tools out there, read on.

1 Buffer app

However good you are at social media, how great your pictures are on Instagram, and how often you post on Facebook about deals you have available, it can get exhausting to post constantly. Running social media effectively requires not only constant posting, but also posting at the right time on the right platforms. That’s where the Buffer App comes in. This app will help you come up with a social media calendar, and allow you to create content ahead of time that then gets posted automatically. Especially if you can’t afford a social media manager to handle your online presence, this is the next best thing.

Considering that this app has a 4.5 out of 5 stars rating from TrustRadius, it’s a smart move to use it.

2 SocialSteeze

These days, one of the most important social media platforms is Instagram. There’s a reason why, in 2018, 69 percent of marketers planned to increase their investment on the platform, and it’s because it works. Especially if you have a lot of younger customers you want to attract, like millennials and Gen Zers, you need to engage on Instagram constantly. But even if you’ve got great pictures, captions, and hashtags, that isn’t always enough. That’s why SocialSteeze is such a great tool. They help you gain real Instagram followers—not fake ones—based on location, hashtag use, and who’s following your competitors. Especially if you’re running a new business, this can be a great way to build up a following when it’s most challenging.

3 Canva

When you’re running a business in the service industry, customers are going to pay a lot of attention to your aesthetic branding. Not only in terms of how your website is designed, but also when it comes to the food and drinks you’re selling. For example, if you have pictures of sandwiches on Facebook or Instagram, they need to look so good that a customer sees them and thinks, “That looks delicious.” So unless you’re a professional photographer, a tool like Canva makes a huge difference.

Canva is free and rated 5 out of 5 stars by Capterra, so go ahead and use it!

4 Local SEO

Local SEO isn’t a tool, exactly but it is a tactic that any brick-and-mortar store should be using. When you’re doing Local SEO, you include the physical address of your business in as many places as you can online. That means including it in social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. As a shop that serves coffee and food, you can include your business on websites and apps like Foursquare, Yelp, and GoogleMaps. That way, whenever anyone’s searching for a cup of coffee or a place where they can slowly sip a smoothie while studying for their next exam, your coffee shop will come up right away.

Considering that 86 percent of consumers look up the location of a business on Google Maps, Local SEO is hugely beneficial.

5 Fastory

Finally, if you aren’t already, you need to be posting great Instagram Stories. This feature, which was originally created so that Instagram could compete with Snapchat, has taken off and is used by many successful businesses. And one of the best tools out there to make your Stories as effective as possible is Fastory. This tool simplifies the entire process so that all you have to do is choose an animation, upload a video or photo, and add your logo. After that, the story is ready, and you can easily share it with your followers.

Instagram video views increased by 80 percent in 2017, so mastering your Stories will make a huge difference.

These are some of the best tools out there if you want your coffee shop to be successful in today’s social media world. What other strategies do you use to get your business noticed by customers?

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