How resturant’ Business use social media marketing Through Facebook and Instagram to Create Brand Image and Customer Loyalty

In recent years, business use social media to the tool that build brand image for their business and in order to get brand loyalty. In that case, a study made by (Tuten and Solomon, 2017, p.22) showed that social media can make businesses to reach a large number of customers faster than the traditional marketing tools. In addition, social media allows customers to share their opinions and give their feedback on a particular product (DeMers, 2014). Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram have been noted to be highly popular social media platforms among customers. most of the UK’s customers use these social media applications to follow restaurants, coffees, and bars. Especially, Facebook and Instagram which customers are attracted by these businesses because of their creative brand image (Higgins et al, 2016, p.13). Therefore, this has become a powerful tool to attract customers and gain their loyalty.
However, Smith (2015, p.34) has been seen to argue a bit in this regard. According to him, the result of the use of restaurant business of social media like Facebook and Instagram on brand image and customer loyalty is dependent on the decreasing rate of customer opt-out in the hospitality industry. The researcher further argues that this is totally dependent upon the smart brand marketing strategies implemented by the restaurants in the UK, to make their services as customer-centric as possible (Refer to Appendix 1). Furthermore, this has supported by the study of Kim et al. (2016, p.44), the study illustrates that allowing customers to provide reviews on the social media portals of Facebook and Instagram regarding the services of the restaurant business to provide reviews. These if not implemented lead customers to opt-out, ultimately resulting in a decrease of customer loyalty and ranking of brand image in the food and beverage market. Kang et al. (2015, p.1662) defers in opinion in this regard which according to him that restaurants use social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to build a strong and positive relationship with their customers. The restaurants have been observed to engage in the use of web pages, which they have on Facebook, and Instagram to engage in B2C communication with the customers to keep them informed about the services of the restaurants. However. The results showed that Facebook and Instagram had improved brand image and customer loyalty for restaurant businesses. In addition, restaurants make Facebook and Instagram as a branding tool to positively influence the brand image and then customer loyalty. Moreover, only the customers of a specific restaurant can improve the image of the business in their social media pages and improving the level of customer loyalty and commitment to restaurant brand.
1.2 Dissertation Structure