A social posting schedule a kitchen can keep

In January, the new manager announces a plan: a post every day, two stories a day and a video every week. For ten days it works. Then a chef calls in sick, the weekend is busy, nobody has taken any photos and the account goes quiet for three weeks. When it comes back, it is with a hurried photo of a dish under the pass lights. Most restaurant posting plans fail this way. A social posting schedule a kitchen can keep is smaller, simpler and built around service rather than against it.

The trick is to separate the work that can be done in advance from the moments that have to be caught live. Most posts can be shot, written and scheduled in a single hour early in the week, when the kitchen is calm. Only a couple of moments a week, the ones that depend on what is happening right now, need someone to pick up a phone during service.

This guide covers why posting schedules collapse, how to batch a week of posts in an hour, the two slots worth posting live, a realistic weekly schedule and how to keep it going through busy seasons and bad weeks. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

Posting schedules collapse for the same reasons, in almost every venue. They are too ambitious for the time available. They depend on someone finding a moment during service, which rarely comes. Nobody plans the content, so each post starts from nothing. And when one person is off, the whole thing stops.

A daily posting plan with no batching is the most fragile of all. It needs a fresh idea, a fresh photo and a fresh caption every day, usually from someone who is also running a restaurant. Within a fortnight, a busy day breaks the chain, and once broken, it rarely restarts.

A schedule a kitchen can keep starts from the time the venue really has. For most small restaurants, that is an hour a week for preparation and a few minutes a day for replies and the occasional live moment. Three posts a week, prepared in advance, and two live moments are realistic for almost anyone.

It also fits around service. The preparation happens when the kitchen is quiet, such as a Monday morning or the hour before lunch prep. The live moments happen at points in service when someone can step away for a minute. Nothing depends on finding time during the rush.

The core of the schedule is a weekly batch: one hour, usually early in the week, when the week's posts are shot, written and scheduled. Choose a time when the kitchen is calm and the light is good, such as late morning before service.

In that hour, take the photos for three posts, write the captions and schedule them to go out at the right times through the week. Most platforms let you schedule posts in advance, so once the hour is done, the posts go out on their own, whatever kind of week follows.

Plan the shots before the hour starts, so no time is wasted. A useful mix for a week might be one dish, ideally something new or seasonal; one scene of the room, set for service; and one shot of the team or the kitchen at work, such as prep for the day or a chef plating a dish.

Shoot more than you need. A few extra photos from each set-up give you spares for weeks when the batch goes wrong. Our guide to food photography on a phone, in a dark room covers how to get good pictures quickly.

Write all the week's captions in one sitting, straight after the photos. Keep them short: a sentence or two about what the picture shows, why it matters and, where it fits, a gentle prompt to book. "The first asparagus of the year, with brown butter and a crisp egg. On the menu from Tuesday. Book through the link in our bio."

Writing them together keeps the voice consistent and the week coherent. It also saves time: one session of writing is faster than three separate ones squeezed between other jobs.

Schedule each post for a time your guests are likely to see it and act on it: late morning or early evening often work for restaurants, because guests are thinking about lunch or dinner plans. Spread the three posts across the week, rather than bunching them.

Check the schedule once at the start of the week, then leave it. If something changes, such as a dish selling out or an unexpected closure, adjust the scheduled post rather than letting it go out with information that is no longer true.

Some moments cannot be planned: the energy of a full room on a Friday night, a special that has just come out of the oven, a delivery of something exceptional, the terrace opening because the sun has appeared. These are worth catching live, usually as a short story rather than a post.

Pick two live slots a week. One might be the busiest moment of the weekend, a few seconds of the room in full swing. The other might be whatever is genuinely happening that day: the specials board, a new arrival from a supplier, a dish about to sell out. Two are enough; more becomes a burden.

Live moments show what scheduled posts cannot: that the venue is real, busy and alive right now. A ten-second clip of a packed room on a Friday tells potential guests more about the atmosphere than any polished photo. A story about a dish that is nearly sold out gives a reason to come tonight.

They also feel more personal. Guests who see the same chef in a quick story each week begin to feel they know the place. That familiarity is one of the things that turns followers into guests.

The schedule that collapses has a recognisable shape: too many posts, no batch, everything dependent on someone finding a moment during service and one person carrying it all. It looks impressive on a planning sheet and fails within weeks.

Avoid it by starting small. Three posts a week and two live moments, done reliably for three months, will do more for the venue than a daily plan that lasts ten days. Once the small schedule is a habit, you can add to it if there is time.

Three scheduled posts a week is a realistic baseline for most restaurants. It is enough to keep the account active and visible, and small enough to prepare in an hour. Spread them across the week, perhaps early in the week, midweek and before the weekend.

Each post should earn its place: a dish worth wanting, a room worth visiting, a team worth meeting. Three good posts beat seven rushed ones, because guests remember the good ones and scroll past the rest.

An example of a week that a small kitchen can keep:

Adjust the days to your own week. A venue that is closed on Mondays might batch on Tuesday; one that is busiest at lunch might move the live slot to midday.

The weekly schedule works best with a social calendar behind it: a plan for the coming months that marks the moments worth posting about, such as menu changes, seasonal dishes, events, holidays and quiet weeks that need a push. It is a simple form of an editorial calendar, the planning tool publishers use.

Look at the calendar before each weekly batch. If a new menu starts on Thursday, the batch includes it. If a quiet week is coming, the posts can focus on reasons to come midweek. The calendar gives each week's batch its theme.

Each slot in the schedule has a natural kind of post. Early-week posts can introduce something new: a dish, a menu, an event. Midweek posts can show the people and the work behind the food. Weekend posts can show the room and the atmosphere, with a reminder to book.

When ideas run short, look at the ordinary week: deliveries, prep, the team, regulars' favourites, the view from the pass. Our guide to what to post when nothing new is happening covers ideas for weeks without news.

One person should own the schedule: they run the weekly batch, check the scheduled posts and handle the live slots or make sure someone does. Without an owner, the schedule depends on everyone remembering, which means it depends on no one.

Give them a backup, too. When the owner is on holiday or ill, someone else should know how to run the batch, so the account does not go quiet. A short written note of the routine makes the handover easy.

The kitchen is the source of most good restaurant content, but chefs are busy. Make it easy for them to help: ask for one photo a week of something they are proud of, sent to the schedule's owner, or a minute during the weekly batch to plate a dish for the camera.

Chefs who see their dishes posted, and see guests respond, often become enthusiastic contributors. Credit them in the captions, and share the comments with the kitchen. It turns social media from a marketing task into something the whole team takes part in.

Busy seasons, such as December or the summer, are when posting schedules are most likely to slip, because everyone is stretched. They are also when restaurant social media matters most, because guests are making plans.

Prepare ahead. In the weeks before a busy season, batch more than usual: two or three weeks of posts, scheduled in advance, so the account keeps going while the team is flat out. Keep the live slots, because a busy room is the best content there is, but let the scheduled posts carry the load.

Quiet weeks are the opposite: there is time, but less to show. Use them to bank posts for busier periods: photograph the new dishes, film the team, take pictures of the room in different light. A bank of spare posts makes the busy weeks far easier.

Quiet weeks also need posts of their own, giving guests a reason to come. A post about a midweek supper, a quiet table by the window or a dish that suits the season can fill a table on a slow night.

Scheduled posts and live stories do different jobs. Posts stay on the profile, so they should show the venue at its best: the dishes, the room, the people. Stories disappear after a day, so they suit the moment: tonight's specials, the full room, a quick hello from the kitchen.

Use the batch for posts and the live slots for stories. That way, the profile stays polished, and the stories keep it feeling current and real.

Replying to comments and messages is part of the schedule, not an extra. Set aside ten minutes a day, at a quiet moment, to answer questions, thank people for kind comments and reply to booking enquiries.

Prompt replies matter more than perfect posts. A guest who asks about a table for six on Saturday and gets an answer within the day may book; one who waits three days probably will not. Make replying part of the owner's daily routine.

Every schedule has bad weeks: the batch is missed, the photos do not work, a key person is away. A bank of spare posts, a dozen or so prepared photos and captions that are not tied to a date, keeps the account going through them.

Top up the bank in quiet weeks and use it sparingly. A dish photo that works in any season, a picture of the team or a shot of the room can fill a gap without anyone noticing that the week went wrong.

Every few weeks, check the schedule against your social media strategy. Are the posts reaching the people you post for? Are they encouraging the action you want, usually a booking? Is the rhythm sustainable?

If the schedule is producing posts that do not serve the strategy, change what goes into the batch, not just how often you post. Our guide to a social media strategy in four sentences covers how to set the strategy the schedule serves.

Change the schedule when it is not working or not sustainable. If the batch keeps getting missed, make it smaller or move it to a better time. If the posts bring no bookings, change what you post. If there is spare time, add a post or a live slot.

Change one thing at a time, and give it a few weeks before judging it. A schedule that is adjusted gradually, based on what works, lasts far longer than one redesigned every month.

Plan for the times when the schedule's owner is away. Before a holiday, batch two weeks of posts and schedule them, and agree who will handle live moments and replies while they are gone. A short note of the routine, the logins and the usual posting times makes it easy for a colleague to step in.

Without a plan, the account usually falls silent the moment its owner goes on leave, and it is often in the busiest weeks of the year that this happens.

A good post can be used more than once. A popular photo of a dish can return a few months later with a new caption, a seasonal favourite can be posted again each year and a team introduction can be refreshed when someone's role changes. Followers rarely remember a post from months ago, and new followers have never seen it.

Reusing the best posts saves time and keeps the schedule going in weeks when the batch is thin. Keep a note of which posts did well, so they are easy to find.

An invented bistro's daily posting plan collapsed after a fortnight. The owner replaces it with a smaller schedule: an hour on Monday mornings to shoot three photos, write three captions and schedule them for Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; a live story from the full room on Friday night; and one live story of the day's specials whenever they are worth showing.

The head chef sends one photo a week of a dish he is proud of, and the owner spends ten minutes each afternoon replying to comments. Three months later, the account has posted without a gap, guests mention the Friday stories when they book and the owner has a bank of a dozen spare posts for December.

servearound does not plan or schedule social media posts, so the weekly batch and the calendar are yours. What it shares with the schedule is the material: the dish photos you add to the menu appear on the digital menu guests open from the table's QR code and on the venue's menu page, so a photo taken for Monday's batch can serve the menu as well, and campaign emails can carry pictures too.

Each venue's booking page, at its own address on servearound.com, is the link for the bio and for posts that end with "book through the link in our bio", and it can show the venue's Instagram and other social links. Reservation analytics show bookings by source but not which outside channel sent a guest, so the effect of the schedule is something you estimate. See Campaigns.

Often enough to stay visible and rarely enough to keep it up. Three posts a week is a good baseline.

Shooting, writing and scheduling a week's posts in one session, usually an hour early in the week.

Moments that cannot be planned, such as a full room or tonight's specials, usually as stories.

One owner, with a backup who knows the routine.

Batch two or three weeks ahead, and keep the live slots.

Use a post from a bank of spares prepared in quiet weeks.

Within a day. Set aside ten minutes daily.

When it is not sustainable or not bringing bookings, one change at a time.

A social posting schedule a kitchen can keep is small and built around service. Batch the week's posts in one hour early in the week: three photos, three short captions, scheduled for the right times. Keep two live slots for moments that cannot be planned, such as the full room on a Friday or the day's specials, and spend ten minutes a day on replies.

Give the schedule an owner and a backup, plan it from a social calendar, involve the kitchen with one photo a week and bank spare posts in quiet weeks for busy ones. Check it against your social media strategy every few weeks and change one thing at a time. A modest schedule kept for a year does far more than an ambitious one that lasts a fortnight.