There is little doubt about how powerful Instagram can be for restaurant marketing. For both newer establishments and community staples, having an Instagram marketing strategy can be incredibly beneficial.
Why? Because it’s one of the main avenues customers use to discover new restaurants and research what they want to try. It’s where your customers are and where you should be too. It’s no surprise then why 69% of restaurants are on Instagram.
We’ve all seen examples over the last few years of restaurants becoming ‘insta-famous,’ with a particular dish or the restaurant decor gaining attention on the platform. Seeing that popularity encourages other customers to patron that restaurant to experience the buzz themselves, or just to see what the fuss is all about. There’s a big FOMO (fear of missing out) element of social media, and capitalizing on that is the best way to direct traffic to your restaurant.
However, Instagram shouldn’t just be a short-term fame grab. If used correctly, you can use it as a long-term marketing strategy to attract new customers and retain old customers.
Here’s how to craft the best restaurant marketing strategy for Instagram:
Make yourself easy to find.
The first step of your Instagram restaurant marketing strategy is how you set it up. This includes the username you choose, how much profile information you fill out, and how you use hashtags and locations. You might see these as very basic steps, but it’s always surprising how many restaurant Instagram pages are woefully incomplete.
Within your Instagram profile, you can add specific details to your bio to make it easier for people to learn about you quickly. This includes:
- Your USP! Be creative but catchy and to the point.
- Your physical address.
- The cuisine you offer.
- Hours of operation.
This gives customers the ability to understand who you are and what you serve at a quick glance. If they’re interested to learn more, typically that comes in the form of good visual content in your feed. If your images and videos are attractive enough, they’ll scroll and maybe even give you a follow. It’s great to build your follower count not only because of the vanity metric, but because you’re likely to continue showing up in their feed thus you’ll continue to remind them of your services and products. In addition, you can perform retargeting paid campaigns to your existing audience.
You can also identify and/or create hashtags to use across your content. Having a central hashtag that you use across your social platforms can be helpful in creating a brand. It helps build social proof, and gives you an easy tool for social listening.
Using Instagram story highlights.
Another great feature of Instagram are the story highlights. We recommend having a few different highlights that showcase the following:
- Your popular menu items.
- Your outdoor and indoor seating.
- PR or press features.
Be creative with your visual content.
Now that you have your basic Instagram profile set up, it’s time to strategize on what you’re going to post! As a general rule of thumb, we wouldn’t recommend ad-hoc posting, or not entirely. Social media should be a part of your greater marketing plan, and it shouldn’t be used as an afterthought if you want to be driving leads, sales, and conversions.
Ideally, you should be batching content. In other words, creating content ahead of time and scheduling them out to be published at a later date and time either through a scheduling app, Facebook Business Suite, or natively through the platform. Allow yourself some wiggle room for reposts from other users, stories, and spontaneous posts that may be relevant to the news (remember that Bernie meme?).
You can also create your own posting regimen that you stick to in order to vary your content. For example, you can go by the 33/33/33 rule of being promotional a third of the time, engaging a third of the time, and informational a third of the time. You can pick your balance, but it’s important to identify these buckets so you don’t become a tired account that no one wants to follow.
You can also think about your overall grid aesthetic and what you’re trying to portray. Some choose to highlight colorful food and go for a vibrant look, while others may choose a more toned down and monochrome look. Users love seeing a visually pleasing and cohesive grid, and it encourages them to keep coming back to your page to see what you’re up to!
You can balance out high-quality food photography posts with content about your ingredients, process, staff, etc. Don’t be afraid to really branch out and be creative to highlight your unique selling points. Stories are always a great way to connect with users and create more real-time engagement, especially if you do Q&As, polls, stickers, and other interactive content.
Beyond your media, your written copy is also important. Having your Instagram as a place to share new flavors, limited time offers, or sales is a great way to incentive people to follow your account for more than just beautiful photos too.
Browse around to see what competitors are doing and what seems to be getting them higher rates of engagement so that you can differentiate yourself more.
Start looking at your data.
No Instagram marketing guide is complete without talking about analytics. We’ve done a pretty deep dive on the subject here, so we’ll keep it brief. Your Instagram analytics is your guide to what is working and what isn’t.
The more you start to look at the figures and get a sense of trends and behavior, the better your strategy will be. Having some KPIs set ahead of time (i.e., follower growth, engagement, likes, etc.) will help you track and measure success down the line as you grow. Analyze your posts and metrics to see what resonates with users, particularly when following the 33/33/33 rule mentioned earlier.
When creating an Instagram marketing strategy, it’s essential to think about your short-term goals and long-term success. Gaining followers and engagement initially is tough, but you’ll start to see growth in no time with consistent posting and fun content. Want to learn more about the ins and outs of Instagram marketing? Get in touch today!
