You Don’t Need More Likes, You Need Sales
Why social media success means nothing if it’s not driving real-world results.
Let me give you a little insight into how I choose a spot to dine at. I open the restaurant's Instagram, scroll through their pictures to get a feel for the vibe, then I put my phone down. I don’t like their posts or follow their account; I go to the restaurant and pay for the food. And guess what? 74% of people are doing the same thing. Three-quarters of people use social media as their decision-making tool, yet 97-98% of us don’t interact at all.
On average, a restaurant with 5k followers gets around 150 likes per post. Converting that 1.5% engagement rate to a restaurant with 500 followers, you’re looking at around 8 likes on your posts. (Look Mom, I did math!) That being said, engagement is not a linear scale, so if you’re measuring success on likes, that strategy is only based on a fraction of your audience.
It’s O.K. to want big numbers–no judgement here.
It’s trendy to be viral in this day and age, but most of the time, people are more immersed in platform activity than in product sales. If you’re too focused on the traction you get online, you might not be paying attention to the physical traction you get in your restaurant or bar. Social media is valuable, as it influences real-world behavior, but profit in your business comes from taking action: making reservations, handling walk-ins, or having a table full of people expertly keeping the drink menu within reach.
If you were thinking about deleting your socials, I’m afraid you’ve lost the plot. 🫠
The best approach is to operate your digital media presence as a brand awareness tool. We’ll break it down for you. Here are the deepest, darkest desires of every restaurant business: repeat customers, average ticket size, reservations, and multiple walk-ins. What used to make these outcomes possible was word of mouth; in 2026, 88% of consumers read your reviews and trust them like they’d trust a friend. So far this year, Instagram ad campaigns have increased reservations by almost 30%.
Furthermore, we live in an era of visual learning. 40% of people take the next step and visit in person after seeing your stuff on socials. And, if you create content intended to be shared, those posts start bouncing around group chats, DMs, people tagging friends in the comments saying, “let’s go.” This is what we like to call a diagram of interaction, but it’s not something you can see. All the while, you can’t get a single like, but a reservation just popped up for eight people on Sunday evening. This invisible diagram of interaction just drove sales to your business. Bottom line: likes are incomplete, but you still need media and digital presence to drive people to your company.
If your content isn’t driving outcomes, then that’s all it is: content. Our goal at Ethos is to change content into marketing. Our job is to take care of this for our clients, so you can focus on what actually matters: the quality of your product and the service you provide.