Instagram Sports Bar Marketing Trends in 2021

Andre Oentoro, Contributor

If you’re running a sports bar, having loyal customers from local fandom can be challenging. With so many bars and restaurants offering a similar menu with great ambience, it’s indeed tough work to invite more customers to visit yours.

However, as a sports bar manager, getting members of fandom to experience your place is nothing but an exciting job. Since sports events are held almost every season, the sports bar business is undoubtedly profitable.

You just need to be a little bit more creative in designing your sports bar marketing to attract sports fandom. After all, the one that offers interesting experiences (and menus) will hook more people into visiting your bar.

Use popular social media platforms like Instagram to promote your sports bar. With billions of users on Instagram, you can reach out to a broader audience within minutes. That way, you’re able to promote your business seamlessly.

So, here are the five winning Instagram marketing trends for your sports bar.

1. Use Hashtag Campaigns

Although the hashtag is originally from Twitter, this element has become even more famous through other social media platforms, including Instagram. The hashtag allows Instagram users to help users understand your post at a glance and find out similar content with the same tag on it.

With the hashtag, you can discover millions of similar or related social content as well as their Instagram accounts easily. So, if you’re new to Instagram, incorporating sports-related hashtags enables you to get found by other users in a matter of time.

You can also use your sports bar name as hashtags. This will help you curate exclusive content like explainer videos in your account. Sports bar hashtags will also help you make promotional posts much easier in the future.

2. Offer a Sports-Related Menu

It’s not a secret that events can make a huge impact on restaurants, diners, and bars. With the sporting events, you can ride up the wave by joining the bandwagon.

Since a sports event is never over, you can plan and manage your sports bar accordingly. This is one of the effective methods to attract your customers into visiting your place.

For example, you can promote a sports-related menu that’s only available during the event. You can be creative with the menu names or the ingredients that are pretty rare to hook attention. Promoting this special menu at such events will be a great approach in acquiring customers.

3. Make an Instagram Story Highlight

When Instagram users land on your profile, they can be overwhelmed with so many existing posts on your accounts. Although your feed may look aesthetically organized, not so many users want to spend time scrolling down old posts to get to know you better.

That is where the Story Highlight feature comes in handy.

Instagram Story Highlight is an excellent way for new social followers to learn about your sports bar in a short time. It’s like a restaurant menu where guests can check out what they want to order.

The highlight acts as quick navigation to learn about your sports bar. With Story Highlights, people can check your sports bar’s main points like your menu, how to reserve a table, sports events, and even promotions.

4. Run a Sports Giveaway

Another effective restaurant marketing strategy on Instagram is to run a giveaway. This occasional event is excellent to pull more engagement to your account.

With a giveaway, you can increase your engagement rate and reach out to a broader audience. As a result, it’s possible for you to see a surge of new followers in your Instagram accounts after releasing the campaign and then market to those new followers to visit your establishment.

You can urge your followers to share their photos in your sports bar and tag you. Ask them to comment with their unique experience while dining in your bar. In short, be creative about your requirements when running a giveaway program. Make them tag you in their posts and use specially branded hashtags so you can easily track who’s entered.

5. Partner with Local Sports Influencers

Having popular names work together with you will increase your brand awareness multiple times. That’s why using social influencers is one of the effective ways to broaden your reach.

There are many types of Instagram influencers you can find on the platform. Sports influencers are one of those famous niches with millions of followers.

Collaborating with sports influencers will help you get more followers from the influencer’s native audience. If the influencers have a strong fanbase, every word they say will significantly impact your brand.

Use this opportunity to promote your sports bar. When the sports influencers themselves enjoy the company at your sports bar, it’s possible that you’ll face an increase in customers visiting your place.

Takeaway

As a sports bar owner, you’ll always find an effective way to promote your business. Since a sports bar is often exclusively for sports fandom to have their time well while enjoying sports events, you can as well attract a wider audience to visit your diner.

Follow the tips above to run your sports bar marketing on Instagram. Make sure to be creative when making content on this social media platform since you’ll compete with other sports bars.

About the Author
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).