Within the ever-changing restaurant industry and social media landscape, marketers are constantly looking for ways to reach new audiences and keep their current ones entertained. It is important to know what influences a customer’s dining decision and how social media plays a role. Ellipses recently conducted a survey pertaining to just that. The results are in!

After sharing the survey through our Ellipses’ and our team’s social channels (and offering a $25 Amazon gift card as a random prize for completing our questionnaire) we received a total of 221 responses. Potentially because Ellipses is women-owned and run, not surprisingly the demographic looked a lot like our team: women between the ages of 21 and 39 who reside in the West. Even so, the results reveal some interesting trends:

– Money and budgets are big factors that influence how often one can dine out

– Respondents prefer to dine out 1-2 times per week

– Those who dine out prefer dining at casual restaurants, are mostly likely to go out for dinner, and will typically spend anywhere from $10-$30

– Respondents are most likely to dine out with their friends, followed closely by their significant other, then their family

– The most popular cuisines were American and Mexican, followed by Asian and Italian

We had some interesting results when it came to social media preferences, as well:

– The top most frequently used social media platforms that are used daily are Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat

– People only like taking photos of their food if they feeling inspired or if the food was really amazing

– Respondents rarely if ever like to leave reviews on Yelp, although Yelp is second only to “asking friends and family” when it comes to where they go for restaurant recommendations.

With our survey results, our social media team will be able to better target our posts, based on gender and age. We also need to not only inspire people to try other types of food beyond American, Mexican, Asian and Italian, but encourage them to post photos of their food or experiences on social media, as well as their reviews on websites like Yelp or Trip Advisor. Since people go to their friends and family for advice on restaurants the most, we need to give them incentives to post their opinions, reviews, and photos across various websites and social media platforms.

Special thanks for all who took the time to respond to the survey! We hope you’ll find the responses as interesting as we did. For the complete list of results, click here.