How to promote your restaurant on Instagram

Published 05.19.2022 - Last update 06.22.2022
Waiter staff
Table of Contents
  1. What should I create an Instagram for my restaurant?
  2. How can you introduce your restaurant on Instagram?
  3. What is the best way to promote your restaurant?
  4. Boost your business now

What’s the first thing your customers do when their food arrives? While 10 years ago, the answer would be 'eat it', thanks to the rise of smart phones, the first thing many diners now do is take out their phone to capture the perfect picture of their dish and share with their followers on Instagram. 📱 Nurturing your restaurant's Instagram account has become more important than ever, which is why we've put together some useful tips to help your restaurant shine on Instagram. 

What should I create an Instagram for my restaurant?

If your restaurant isn’t yet on Instagram, you're missing out on an important opportunity to boost your online visibility and get new customers. There are a number of key reasons as to why an Instagram marketing strategy for restaurants is important. Instagram has become one of the most popular social media platforms - it's the second most downloaded app in the world and the fourth most used!* If that’s not convincing enough, bear in mind that 1.22 billion people use the platform every month.*  

Girl looking at the phone

Establishing an Instagram presence for your restaurant will not only allow you to build the perfect showcase for your restaurant but also allow you to interact with your potential diners, get insights from them and make improvements that will drive your restaurant to success. 

How can you introduce your restaurant on Instagram?

Getting started might sound a little overwhelming, but all you need is organisation and a clear strategy. 

  1. Define the essence and identity of your restaurant. Firstly, you need to know what image you want to covey and the key traits of your restaurant that you want to highlight. Does your restaurant have the best healthy food? Or does it serve a unique cuisine? Perhaps you offer a unique dining environment? Define what features you want to focus on when sharing your content. After that, you’ll need to define the style and desired look and feel of your brand to make your Instagram page more attractive. 
  2. Define different and clear content platforms according to the type of content you want to share. To do this, analyse and define the target market of your restaurant and ensure you create content that is appealing to them. Your content needs to be visually appealing but most importantly, it needs to be interesting for your followers, so make sure you have storytelling within your feed. By engaging with your audience you’ll be able to maintain their interest. Finally, establish a content calendar to plan out your content in advance and ensure you are regularly posting.  
  3. Set up your feed by creating story highlights, creating a unique hashtag which identifies your restaurant and let everyone know by partnering with local micro influencers, and your closest circle so then they’ll share it to their accounts. 
Fish food in a black plate

What is the best way to promote your restaurant?

🤳 Publish attractive pictures of both your food and venue. Visual content is the main attraction of Instagram, so it's important to post attractive images of your dishes. Dedicate time to plan, prepare and photograph your gastronomic creations in the most appealing way and also make sure that you provide a caption that it is both original and descriptive for the user. Combine this with pictures which capture the ambiance and decor of the restaurant in order to create an artistic and creative feed.

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🕐Use stories to interact with your followers. Did you know that 500 million accounts use Instagram stories daily and 58% of users say they’re more interested in a brand after seeing it in a story?** Stories will become your best allies to provide content to complement your feed. For example, use stories to launch polls, ask questions or present new topics to your community. Using stories you can get new ideas to help improve or grow your restaurant offering. Last but not least, you can also use them to show the day to day life of the restaurant and let the customers know how your team works while preparing the dishes! 

Girlfriends laughing and eating

⏩ Boost videos and reels. Videos and reels are a key component of Instagram. They perform best with most algorithms as they retain the user’s attention for longer. Sharing videos and reels will allow you to present your content in a more entertaining and original way, and will also also play a key role in helping new users discover your restaurant. Put some music in the background, film the preparation of your dishes or take a tour of the restaurant.

💬 Engage with your community. Use Instagram to not only showcase your restaurant but also as an opportunity to get to know your diners, engage with them and get insights from them. Do this by replying to comments, creating online polls, sharing user-generated content and reposting on stories. 

💶 Social media paid. Sponsored or advertising content is a way to reach more people on Instagram or any other social media platform. Due to the high amount of profiles and competition to have more followers, it has become more difficult to acquire more reach. Therefore, one way to achieve this is to invest on paid posts or have collaborations with micro or macro influencers. 

Don't miss the opportunity to showcase your restaurant on one of the most powerful social media platforms. All you need to do is start taking amazing pictures and videos of your culinary creations to build the perfect showcase on Instagram! 📸

 

*Hootsuite. 35 Instagram Stats That Matter to Marketers in 2022 

**Omnicore. Instagram by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts

***Later. Why Video is Hottest Growth Hack Right Now  

 

Table of Contents
  1. What should I create an Instagram for my restaurant?
  2. How can you introduce your restaurant on Instagram?
  3. What is the best way to promote your restaurant?
  4. Boost your business now
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