Ever heard someone getting a free meal at a restaurant because of Instagram? Well, I got one. How?
Recently, I went with one of my friends, who happens to be a food blogger, to his favorite restaurant. After a hearty meal, my friend thanked the owner and we left the premises.
When I asked him why we didn’t pay the bill, he said it was an invitation from the restaurant. To explain more about it, he gave me an overview of his Instagram posts, some of them got the restaurant a seemingly good benefit.
Hence, as a gesture of goodwill, our meal was on the house. I was so astonished by this, I thought, why not give my readers (you of course) some wonderful tips on restaurant Instagram marketing.
Table of Content
- Tips to do restaurant Instagram marketing effectively
- Understanding Instagram algorithm
- Generate a hashtag for your restaurant
- Photography is the key to success
- Create food reels
- Use stories to promote your posts
- Update speciality cuisines in profile highlights
- Stay active on Instagram
- Be the trend
- Invest in paid promotions
- Partner with food bloggers
- Use Instagram business tools for better conversion
Tips to do restaurant Instagram marketing effectively
Well, before I started working on this blog, I invested enough time in researching ways to maximise the benefits of Instagram marketing for restaurants.
To my surprise, those strategies were something we come across in our daily Instagram feeds, but we fail to notice and imbibe them in our posts.
So, here are some tips on restaurant Instagram marketing that you can rely on.
1. Understanding Instagram algorithm
Before I begin with how to market your restaurant on Instagram, let’s understand how the Instagram algorithm works.
See, Instagram works on 3 fundamental principles:
- Which kind of posts do you like?
- Whom do you follow?
- What is the content that you post?
Based on these 3 aspects, it shows you relevant posts on your home page as well as promotes your feeds to the kind of audience you are following.
As a restaurateur, the accounts you follow would be mostly chefs, city pages, food bloggers, and your customers.
When you post any content on your Instagram page, it is promoted among your followers and other users that are following the same genre.
The more relevant is the content, the better is the engagement among the audience.
2. Generate a hashtag for your restaurant
Using hashtags in your Instagram posts is the most crucial step while you are approaching restaurant marketing on Instagram. First of all, it creates your unique identity amongst your followers.
Secondly, it defines you as a brand. Dominos, McDonald’s, Burger King, and many other famous food companies have their own set of hashtags. Let’s take McDonald’s for reference. Here are some of their widely used hashtags:
- #mcdonalds
- #mcdonald
- #mcdonaldsbreakfast
- #mcdonaldsmemes
- #mcdonaldsbrasil
- #mcdonaldsindia
- #mcdonaldstoys
I would suggest you begin by creating a unique hashtag for your restaurant. It’s simple.
- Just select one of your posts from the feed
- Select edit option
- Type # followed by your restaurant name
- If the hashtag already exists, change it
- Once you find one with zero posts, select it
- Copy and paste that hashtag in all your posts
Easy, isn’t it. However, if you find it difficult, here’s a video for your reference.
A surprising fact is that the trending and best hashtags for restaurants are user-generated. So, you see how important it is to create a unique hashtag for your restaurant.
3. Photography is the key to success
Photos are the essence of Instagram. Using hashtags will prove futile if you upload a low quality or improper photo. In all my blogs, I always say that photos play a vital role in attracting your customers.
Still, I have seen many restaurateurs making blunders in photography. In case, you need a guide to Instagram photography, here’s a blog for you.
7 Tips to Click Amazing Food Photographs For Instagram
During college days, our chefs used to tell us that presentation is something you should take care of before serving food to guests, because, “You eat with your eyes first”.
Focus on garnishing and presenting your food to click some eye-catching photos, as it’s a vital activity in restaurant Instagram marketing strategy. Whilst we are talking about the visual appearance of food, let me walk you through one of the trending features of Instagram – ‘Reels’
4. Create food reels
For me, Instagram reels are the best way to get maximum exposure amongst the audience. The majority of users on Instagram are millennials and GenZ.
Most of them are either working from home or travelling to and fro from the office. Well, just for a small break from their work, they prefer browsing Instagram reels and sharing with their friends.
A short 30-sec clip, which can be enjoyed quickly. Some of these food reels are so tempting, that it would compel you to try that dish once.
For instance, check out this reel.
In fact, behind the scenes (BTS) reels are another way to attract a larger audience. You can create some eye-catching short videos on how a particular dish is made.
Promote them on reels. Here’s one for your reference.
5. Use stories to promote your posts
You might be aware of stories, as it is now a common feature in all social media platforms. It is one of the easiest ways of restaurant marketing on Instagram.
You can upload any image, video, old reel, or any other post about your restaurant, and update it on Instagram stories.
If you have a special offer running on a particular day, such as smacking Monday – buy one get one free, tricky Tuesday – Flat 30% off on meals, or any of your other offers, promote them using stories.
Try to keep the content short and catchy. Use emojis, hashtags, and don’t forget to tag your restaurant.
6. Update speciality cuisines in profile highlights
Another feature that you need to be aware of is ‘profile highlights’. Whenever you upload a story, there’s an option of putting it as a highlight.
Moreover, you can group multiple stories in the same highlight. For example, your restaurant serves authentic Chinese food. So, you can highlight your restaurant’s special delicacies using this feature.
Suppose, you have four different styles of Chinese food viz; Cantonese, Mongolian, Schezwan, and Manchurian. Now, every type of cuisine would have certain bestsellers, right? So, all you have to do is put pictures of those dishes on Insta story and mark them in highlights.
You can take a cure from Maison Kurtos’s Instagram page for this.
Brunch menu in highlights A complete meal box promoted in highlights Food boxes in brunch menu Specialties of restaurant being used in profile highlights
7. Stay active on Instagram
Once users are engaged with your content, they expect something more from you. Like, I started uploading nature photographs just for my audience, but being an open profile it caught the attention of international travellers as well.
This gave my profile a sudden boost and I started receiving a good amount of followers. But sometime back, I took a break from Instagram, and when I came back, I saw a drastic drop in my followers.
So, now I keep on updating them with some relevant posts or a story for better engagement and profile views. Also, engage with the content of other users as well. Like and comment on posts of other Instagrammers that you find interesting, and promote them in your stories if possible.
8. Be the trend
I always say go with the trend, but that doesn’t mean that you can blindly follow the bandwagon.
Some of them might not even be relevant to you.
Instead, you can start a trend all by yourself. Think of an out of the box challenge, something like man vs food, where you can prepare an exclusive challenge for your customers, and the one who completes it will get a reward.
If you need a reference, take an idea from Man Vs Food, a restaurant in London. They have created various food challenges for its customers, and promote them on Instagram using their unique hashtags.
9. Invest in paid promotions
Like Facebook, Instagram also has options for paid promotions. By using targeted ads, it helps you to reach out to a global audience.
It starts from $1 per day, in which your post is promoted among 100-500 users, and depending upon the amount you invest you get the result.
Try to go for the post that has fewer likes, or something related to ongoing deals.
10. Partner with food bloggers
I narrated an incident at the starting of the blog, how I got a free treat because of my food blogger friend.
Well, you can also collaborate with one for your restaurant. Just try to find a famous food blogger in your city and invite him for a review on your restaurant.
Once they write a review about your restaurant and update it on their Instagram page, you can repost it on your profile as well. Results? Better promotion.
It means that your restaurant will receive views from the particular food blogger’s followers and your audience too.
This is a quite effective way to use Instagram for restaurant marketing, as it connects you with a large audience, which will result in better conversions.
If any of them has a YouTube channel, it’s like a cherry on the cake. However, ensure that they have a reach of at least a minimum of 5000 followers.
11. Use Instagram business tools for better conversion
“We are no longer a photo-sharing app.”
Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram.
Over time, Instagram has become more than just an app to share photographs considering its features like IGTV videos, reels, stories and business tools.
I’ve addressed almost everything you need to know about the features of Instagram for restaurants except for business tools and their significance. Instagram has an option to convert your page into a professional one.
By converting your page into a business profile, you can unlock certain benefits like insights, region-wise traffic, post engagement statistics, page performance review, and call to action for your restaurant’s listing.
In fact, if you are offering a dine-in option, you can enable the ‘book a table’ CTA on your page for increased conversions.
Moreover, with an insight feature you can see how many accounts you’ve reached and your content engagement ratio for each update you share with your followers.
Conclusion
Social media has always been one of the best ways for businesses to connect with their customers directly and efficiently. With Instagram being popular amongst the crowd, it is a reliable and free platform to promote your restaurant.
This blog guides you on ways that can help you in maximizing benefits from restaurant Instagram marketing. You can implement the mentioned strategies on your page and see your restaurant booming to the new heights with increased sales and popularity.