Facebook marketing for pubs: why it still fills tables

Facebook marketing still works for pubs because your locals are on it. Ofcom found that Facebook and Messenger reached 93% of UK online adults in May 2025, and over-35s spend the most time there. For a pub, that means a Page that's kept up to date, an event for every quiz and match, short videos, and the occasional well-judged post in local community groups.

#Is Facebook still worth it for pubs?

Yes, particularly if a good chunk of your trade is over 35 or lives within a few miles. Plenty of your customers still open Facebook every single day.

Ofcom's Online Nation 2025 report, published in December 2025, has the numbers. Facebook and Messenger together reached 93% of UK online adults in May 2025, with an average of 42 minutes a day. On an average day that month, 63% of UK online adults used the Facebook app on their phone, against 44% for Instagram. Among the ten biggest social platforms, Facebook and Messenger had the highest share of users aged 55 and over, and people aged 35 to 54 spent the longest there each day.

Instagram leans younger. Ofcom's report describes its audience as skewing towards 18 to 34 year olds (though its own age chart shows plenty of older users too), while Facebook's is slightly weighted towards over-35s. In plenty of pubs, I'd guess that over-35 crowd covers most of the regulars, the parents booking a family Sunday lunch and whoever ends up organising the office Christmas do. So run both, and don't let anyone tell you Facebook is only for your nan.

#Get the basics on your Page right first

Someone landing on your Page should be able to see when you're open, what you serve and how to book within about ten seconds.

Go through it on your phone, the way a customer would. Check the opening hours (including kitchen hours, which is the one people usually get wrong), the address, the phone number and the website or booking link. Make sure the cover photo is recent enough that people recognise the place when they walk in. From October onwards I'd make it the Christmas menu, and there's more on that in how to fill your Christmas party bookings.

Then answer messages. People message a pub's Page to ask if there's a table for six on Saturday or whether dogs are allowed, and a reply the next afternoon is often a booking you've already lost.

#Use Facebook events for every quiz, gig and big match

Create a separate Facebook event for anything with a date and a time. For a pub, I think it's the most useful thing Facebook does.

You set events up from the Events section while you're switched into your Page, and Facebook says events hosted by Pages are public (Facebook Help Centre). Anyone can find one, share it into the family group chat or send it to the five-a-side lads, which is exactly what you want.

A few things make the difference between an event people act on and one they scroll past:

• Put what it is in the title ("Thursday quiz, £50 jackpot"), because the date and time already have their own fields
• Use a real photo from your pub that still reads on a small screen
• Fill in the details people actually ask about: start time, price, team size, when the kitchen closes, how to book, whether dogs are welcome
• Create one event per date, so each quiz or gig has its own day for people to respond to
• Share it from your Page a week before and again on the day, and in local groups where the rules allow it

For live sport, set up an event for each big fixture with the kick-off time and which screens you'll have it on. The guides to promoting live sport in your pub and promoting pub events go further on both.

#Video on Facebook is all reels now

Short, vertical clips are the format Facebook is pushing. In June 2025 Meta said videos posted on Facebook would be shared as reels, rolling out over the following months, and that reels would no longer have any length or format restrictions. The Video tab became the Reels tab, and Meta says reels can be recommended to new audiences, depending on your audience settings (Meta for Creators).

That last bit is what matters for a pub. A ten-second clip of the roast being carved or the room filling up before kick-off can be shown to people who've never followed you. Ideas that work well on a phone:

• A pint being poured, close up, sound on
• The band's soundcheck the afternoon before a gig
• Chef plating the dish of the week
• The quiz master reading out a question, so people can play along

Add a line of text on screen so the clip makes sense without sound, and post the same clip to Instagram Reels while you're at it. Nobody's expecting a film crew. A steady phone and decent light will do.

#How should a pub post in local Facebook groups?

Carefully, and as a neighbour first. Local community groups reach people who've never heard of you, but the admins and members will turn on anyone who treats the group as free advertising.

Read the group rules before you post anything. Plenty of local groups have a set day or a single thread for business posts, and if yours does, stick to it. If the rules don't say, message an admin and ask. It takes two minutes and saves an awkward removal.

Post as yourself, and say who you are ("I run the Fox & Feathers on Mill Lane"). The posts that go down well are the ones that are useful or part of the community: a charity quiz, hosting a meeting about the new bypass, opening for a couple of hours on Christmas Day, a lost dog that turned up in your beer garden. A straight advert for two-for-one burgers usually doesn't.

When someone posts "where's good for Sunday lunch near here?", it's fine to reply, but say it's your place, keep it short and let your regulars do the bragging. And never argue about a review, a price or a parking complaint in a community group. Take it to a private message, politely, and move on.

#What should a pub post on Facebook each week?

Three to five posts a week on your Page, plus an event for anything with a date, is plenty for most pubs.

Hootsuite's experts recommend one or two Facebook posts a day for businesses in general, and the businesses it measured averaged 14.2 Facebook posts a week in early 2025. That's a lot for a pub where the person posting is also the person changing the barrels. I'd take four good posts every week over fourteen a week for a month and then nothing, and the same logic is set out in how often a pub should post on Instagram.

A typical week might be a reminder about the quiz, the weekend specials, a reel from behind the bar, a post about one of the team, and the match on Saturday. You'll find plenty more in these pub social media ideas. On Facebook you can put the booking link straight into the post, and you've got room for a bit more detail than you'd use on Instagram, which suits food times, prices and parking notes.

Meta Business Suite lets you create and schedule posts for Facebook and Instagram in one place (Meta). If you'd like the posts written for you as well, Venuesmith builds a plan from a sentence about what's coming up and publishes to Facebook and Instagram once you've approved it.