How do you choose a social media agency for a bar or restaurant in Madrid?

First: do they come into the venue?

A social agency for a bar in Madrid has to be able to meet you in Malasaña, in the sierra or wherever the room is. Someone who works only with photos you send will post late, and will post a dish that is already gone. The visit is the filter. Distance can be forgiven; never having seen the bar cannot.

Ask who shoots. If the answer is “the community manager when they can”, you do not have production. At tuinsta.design Cristina Osuna photographs and Carlota publishes. Two people with names, not a department.

What to ask for in month one

Number of pieces, how many come from a visit to the venue, whether there are stories on a service day and where the link goes: WhatsApp, a call or a booking. “Community management” without that list cannot be compared with another proposal.

Also ask what is not included. Ads are another budget. Menu design is another. Folding it all into an opaque fee makes it impossible to see whether you are paying for posting or for production.

Signs they do not know a bar

They talk about going viral, weekly trends and “brand tone” before asking what runs out at three. They propose dance reels in a dining room that is not that. They send a reach report and never ask whether anyone came in from the story on Saturday.

A good sign: they ask the kitchen hours, which dish you want to push and how you answer WhatsApp when you are on the floor. The network supports service; it is not a second business.

How we work in Madrid

We visit the bar or the restaurant, shoot photo and a short video of what is coming out that day, and publish it with the hour, the neighbourhood and how to book. Bases in Collado Villalba and Malasaña, coverage across the Community of Madrid. Remote work is for scheduling and replying with judgment, not for inventing the plate.

If you are comparing, send us what you post now and how a booking comes in. We say whether month one is a visit and a short grid, or whether the Google listing has to be fixed first.

The first visit as a filter

If you are between two agencies and both write well, ask each for a short visit before you sign the month. Whoever makes it hard to come into the bar has already told you what the work will be: remote, with whatever you send, and late. Whoever comes, looks at the bar and asks what sells out can publish the following week with something true.

That visit does not need a huge production. It needs to show whether they listen to the kitchen and whether the video they propose fits between two passes. Cristina works like that: a short window, a real plate, the room. Carlota turns it into pieces with hours and a WhatsApp, not into a concept the venue does not recognise.

If neither will come in, do not pick the cheaper one out of tiredness. Keep looking, or post today’s dish yourself with a clear link until someone who will come in shows up.

In Madrid the visit filter stops the profile that looks like another city. If the agency cannot say which day they are in your neighbourhood, they are not running your bar: they are running an account. Ask for the day. If they give it, compare month one. If they do not, you can cross them off even if the proposal is well designed.