How This Bar Manager Rocks Her Location’s Social Media Presence

Refinery Bar & Grill is a family-owned, women-run business in Wood River. Opened in July 2018, owner, Stephanie has been in the industry for several years and enjoys promoting her newest location. She takes pride in her family-focused business, and she hopes that their location’s values shine through their consistent, quality service and the caring nature of their staff.

Due to some municipality limitations, Stephanie had to get creative with marketing as they launched their new establishment last year. She said, they are always on the lookout for efficient marketing, and social media is one of their best ways to grow and build their brand. That is when Stephanie enlisted the help of her daughter, Kayla. Kayla describes her role as, “Bar Manager, but I play a few different roles here. I take care of all social media and marketing, and you can still find me serving drinks behind the bar on the weekends.”

Refinery Bar & Grill’s social media presence stands out from the rest. Accel recently had the opportunity to interview Kayla* and talk about her social media management process, tactics she uses, and any tips she might have for location owners looking to get started with digital marketing for their location.

Kayla: If I remember correctly - I launched the Refinery Facebook page approximately 8 weeks before we opened. I wanted to get this hype going and wanted people from all over the area to know what was coming. We added sneak peek photos of construction and as we got closer to opening day, we featured fun photos and things the public could expect to see from us.

Kayla: I have always taken so much pride in the food that comes from the kitchen, so I always start there. Whatever we are featuring that week, or whatever specials are happening, we cook it up and photograph it. I shoot all images on my cellphone.

I am the one and only person who is allowed to touch social media. Bossy, I know, but it is my baby! Sometimes there will be a day or two that we don’t have much out on the internet when I feel absolutely no creativity. For me, its quality over quantity. One GREAT post is better than 3 average posts.

Kayla: I use a handful of programs to design things, some require more text and multiple items on one page - for that I use CANVA. I highly recommend the program to any small business out there, it’s user friendly and it will change that social media game for you! I also use a photo app called TEZZA [Tezza presets are Lightroom presets designed by Tezza]. Every picture you see from Refinery has the exact same filter over it. Consistency is huge, and that app allows me to adjust things so each picture is the same regardless of the lighting. I also will sometimes use Photoshop or Adobe Draw.

Kayla: To schedule I take advantage of the features Facebook has to offer. When you know what you’re looking for or looking at, you don’t have to go much further to find exactly what you need. The Facebook feature to analyze all the posts gives you such great insight to know what is actually working for your business. It can tell you if specials are working, if the time of day you are posting is good for you.

Kayla: We’re always here - if you need a cold drink, a friendly face or just good conversation, stop in and see us! As for the location - we have great food and some really cool video gaming machines.

If you’re a local business and you need some motivation/inspiration or you’re wanting to get started in social media, stop by and see me!