Instagram Marketing for Restaurants: Pro Tactics + Examples

Spending more time on perfectly plated dishes than perfectly placed posts?

We all know the feeling. Pouring your heart (and spices!) into delicious dishes, but your restaurant still feels quiet. 

Well, in the social media era, there’s a secret ingredient: Instagram marketing! Instagram is a powerful tool to connect with hungry customers who crave the unique flavors you offer.

This blog is all about Instagram marketing for restaurants. I’ve got some tried-and-tested tips to help you build up your restaurant’s presence on IG. Stick around and let’s dive in!

What is Instagram marketing for restaurants?

Restaurant marketing on Instagram is about utilizing the platform’s capabilities to attract customers and grow your business. 

The key elements of Instagram marketing for restaurants include building desire and brand awareness, engagement and community, and driving traffic and sales. 

Why should you use Instagram marketing for your restaurant business?

Whether you’re running a cozy little diner or a bustling restaurant, Instagram is the best bet to reach your business goals. 

It’s not just me saying it, the numbers speak for themselves!

• Instagram has over 2 billion monthly users worldwide. Let’s put it this way: potential customers!
• 63% of customers use social media to find new restaurants and explore menus. I really do!
• When choosing a restaurant, 88% of people rely on online reviews on social media.
• 58 restaurants generated over 1 billion impressions on Instagram in 2017.
• By now, there are about 523M posts tagged #food and 56.3M posts tagged #drinks on Instagram. 

Suggested post: Social Media Marketing for Small Business

Benefits of restaurant Instagram marketing

Instagram is a free and widespread marketing tool that allows you to reach multiple goals like connecting with your existing customers and reaching new ones. Let’s find out how Instagram marketing helps your restaurant:

Display mouthwatering delights

Instagram’s focus on images and videos allows you to showcase your food’s mouthwatering presentation, inviting atmosphere, and happy customers in a way that text-based advertising can’t. 

This creates a strong visual identity that attracts attention and makes your restaurant memorable.

Increase local visibility

By using location tags (geotags) and relevant local hashtags, you can significantly increase your discoverability for people searching for restaurants in your area. 

This is especially powerful for attracting new customers who might not know about your establishment yet.

Two-way communication

Unlike traditional advertising, Instagram fosters a two-way conversation with your customers.

By responding to comments and messages, you can build relationships, address concerns, and personalize the customer experience.

Direct menu promotion 

Adding new dishes to your restaurant’s menu is like launching fresh products for a business.

Just imagine how eye-catching pics from special offers paired with catchy captions can entice customers to try new dishes and boost your sales!

Promote special offers & events

You can use Instagram to announce limited-time offers, happy hour specials, live cooking demonstrations, chef interviews, or a sneak peek of your kitchen. 

I bet this creates buzz and can draw people in to experience your restaurant firsthand.

Track results

Thanks to free Instagram insights, you can get valuable data on your content’s performance. 

You can also track key metrics such as likes, reach, impressions, and website clicks. This data helps you identify which content most resonates with your audience. 

How to use Instagram for restaurant marketing?

No doubt, Instagram is one of the most budget-friendly and efficient marketing channels for small and medium restaurants. 

Curious to learn how to grow your restaurant page with budget-friendly marketing strategies? Read on!

Create a professional account

Setting up a public professional account is the first thing you should do. 

Under Settings and Privacy, Creator Tools and Controls, you can switch your account type to Business account. 

Now, it’s time to build a professional bio and username. Use your restaurant name as your username.

• Your profile picture should include a high-quality visual of your logo.
• Add any achievement or unique point that makes you stand out from the competitors in your bio. For example, if it’s Michelin-starred or run by a popular chef.
• Include key information like opening hours and links to your website or online ordering platform.
• To boost your discoverability, you can even add your restaurant’s location to your bio.

Key elements of an Instagram bio for Food Businesses

• Business name: Clearly state your business name for easy recognition.
• What You Do: Briefly describe your food services. (e.g., “Upscale event catering” or “Delicious food for any occasion”). 
• Keywords: Include relevant keywords to improve discoverability in searches. (e.g., “Wedding catering”, “Corporate events”). 
• Unique Selling Point (USP): Briefly highlight what sets you apart (e.g., “Locally Sourced Ingredients” or “Stress-Free Event Planning”).
• Emojis can make your bio more attractive. 

Identify your ideal customer

Take this step carefully. You need to know your ideal customer’s demographics, food preferences, and maybe lifestyle. 

Don’t worry! It’s not complicated.

1. Make a list of popular local restaurants with a similar cuisine or vibe. 
2. Then, look at their follower base. Who are they engaging with? What kind of comments do they receive?
3. Another way is to look for food bloggers, reviewers, or local personalities with an audience that aligns with your ideal customer. Steal their audience!
4. Find popular hashtags and geotags related to your cuisine, location, and target audience interests.
5. By looking at the most popular posts under these hashtags, you get a glimpse of the kind of users who engage with that content. 

Create high-quality content

When it comes to food, taking mouthwatering photos and creating catchy videos is a must. 

Modern smartphones take incredible photos. Just learn to use your phone’s camera settings and explore apps for editing.

Here are a few tips to shoot catchy photos and videos:

Natural light is key: Hey! You don’t need expensive studio setups. Find a well-lit corner with natural light streaming in. 

South-facing windows are ideal during midday. Diffuse harsh sunlight with a white sheet or use a white foam board to bounce light back onto your dish.

Style it up: Don’t just plop a plate on a table. Think about the story you’re telling. Use props like cutting boards, napkins, cutlery, or fresh herbs to add depth and texture. 

Play with contrasting colors to make your food pop (think vibrant greens next to warm browns).

Focus on Details: Take close-up shots of mouthwatering textures like glistening sauces, perfectly grilled meats, or fluffy pastries.  

Experiment with angles – overhead shots for full plates, or a side view showcasing layers in a sandwich.

More economic hacks: Invest in a few basic tools like a white or black foam board for background control, and colorful plates to complement your food. Thrift stores and flea markets are treasure troves for unique props. 

Explore several Instagram marketing tools to help you create photos and videos. 

How to create engaging videos for your Instagram restaurant page?

• Show the Process:  People love seeing food come together.  Film chopping vegetables, sizzling ingredients, or plating the final dish.
• Movement and Close-ups:  Combine smooth panning shots of the entire dish with close-ups of enticing details like cheese being pulled or ingredients being mixed.
• Use Time-Lapse or Slow-Motion:  Speed up long processes like dough rising or slow down pouring sauces for a mesmerizing effect.
• Add Appealing Sounds:  Include sizzling, crackling, or pouring sounds to heighten the sensory experience.
• Storytelling Through Video:  Use short videos to tell a story.  Show people gathering, enjoying the food, or the atmosphere of your restaurant.

Leverage different content formats

Sure thing! Reels and videos might be stealing the spotlight on Instagram, but that doesn’t mean you should just forget about Stories, Carousels, and all the other cool formats.

Reels are great to reach more people on Instagram. Stories are the ideal content to engage your followers. Let’s dive into a few Instagram post ideas for your restaurant account:

Short and eye-catching Reels

A day in your restaurant: Take viewers on a quick tour  – prepping the kitchen in the morning, plating a dish, and a glimpse of happy diners.  You can use upbeat music and fast cuts to keep it dynamic. @_oxomoco is a good example.

How-to tutorials: Share short, easy-to-follow recipe snippets. Showcase a signature sauce, a unique cooking method, or a fun dessert you offer. Check this out from @lilianewyork, for example.

Suggested post: How to make a Reel on Instagram?

Interactive stories

Instagram interactive stickers like polls and quizzes are the best and simplest options to engage your followers. 

Test your viewers’ food knowledge with fun quizzes about cuisines, ingredients, or cooking terms.

Or, run polls to gauge interest in new menu items or upcoming events.

Use food-related hashtags

You can use hashtags effectively for your restaurant’s Instagram page because hashtags are still alive! 

So, aim for a mix of broad and specific hashtags, typically between 5-15 per post. Use not-too-big, not-too-small hashtags. 

Happily, you can use various types of hashtags to increase your discoverability.

• Location hashtags (geotags): Target a local audience using relevant city or neighborhood hashtags (e.g., #ChicagoEats, #[YourCity]Foodie). 
• Cuisine-specific hashtags: These are hashtags related to the type of food you serve. (e.g., #ItalianFood, #SushiLovers, #VeganFood).
• Ingredient Hashtags: One hashtag idea is to highlight key ingredients in your signature dishes (e.g., #WagyuBeef, #SeasonalProduce, #CraftBeer).

Design Your Grid Layout Harmonically

Push yourself too hard to share more posts, and you will neglect the importance of a good grid layout. Check @burgerking and @littleheavenfeel grid layout theme. 

A texture of cheddar-like orange decorated a square of at least nine posts, making it eye-catching. However, another post shows beautiful high-quality pics, which are still good but not good enough. 

Designing your grid is one of the most important things you need to do. The harmonic visuality of your layout is subconsciously attractive, and the viewer becomes a follower without knowing it.

This is only one reason that restaurant Instagram marketing is more sophisticated than it looks. 

Suggested post: 30+ Creative Instagram Feed Designs

Schedule Your Content

In theory, you may think, “Oh, yes. Now I know what to do, ” but designing your posts can become harder in practice. It is far from easy to check your layout and harmonize it daily. 

The first thing you should do to schedule your IG posts is to have an Instagram content calendar. 

Don’t Miss Occasions On Calendar

Restaurant Instagram marketing is a competition like any other traditional marketing. Competition in marketing means taking as many opportunities as there are. 

Many local, national, social, and universal special days that catering businesses are looking forward to. 

You might have heard of American Mother’s Day, women’s Day, World Vegan Day, National Burger Day, and so on. 

Don’t find only relative occasions regarding edible goods. You can prepare your restaurant for Valentine’s Day and make a mark on it. 

Engage with your followers

Instagram marketing is not only about posting mouthwatering photos. You need to build a loyal community around your restaurant on Instagram. To spark engagement, use these tactics:

Run contests & giveaways

Believe me, giveaways make buzz and that’s all your followers want!

Caption this photo, Tag a friend who needs a dish [add dish name], and Photo scavenger hunt are some ideas to run an exciting contest. 

Post user-generated content

Want to build trust? Try reviews from happy customers. For example, encourage them to post photos of enjoying your food or drinks using your branded hashtag. 

Then, repost your favorites and tag the customer, thanking them for their support. 

Respond to comments and DMs

So simple, right? Reply to your followers’ questions and don’t be afraid to start conversations quickly-if possible. 

Like positive comments and respond with a friendly emoji or a short thank you message.

You can use an Instagram autoresponder to manage your DMs. FAQs and Saved Replies could be a great help. 

Examples of Instagram marketing for restaurants

You bet! Check out these real-world examples of restaurants killing it with their Instagram game. Get ready to be inspired!

Cena Vegan

Cena Vegan is a restaurant in LA obviously for vegans. The restaurant has an active presence on Instagram with more than 71K followers and 830 posts including over 220 Reels. 

Cena Vegan has a complete profile with the location and online ordering link in the bio, and highlights.

It has posted high-quality close-up photos and videos of its dishes, events, and customers. 

Lilia Ristorante

Lilia Ristorante has its location in the username, opening hours, a website link, and its own hashtag in the bio (#KeepItSimple). 

Highlights are organized with a cover. There’s a consistent theme all over the profile. 

You gotta peep Lilianewyork’s Instagram! They’ve dropped over 2,300 posts, including some sick Reels. 

Their food pics are top-notch, and they keep it short and sweet with the captions, plus they got their own hashtag game going strong. 

And oh, don’t miss those short Reels that show you how their dishes come to life!

Crumbl Cookies

Crumbl Cookie (without E!)is a perfect example (Not a restaurant, however): Up to 4.4M followers, complete bio, consistent theme and color palette, and super high-quality photos that grab hearts. 

Their captions are seriously creative and totally grab your attention. But wait, there’s more! They’re all about engaging with their followers and responding to comments like champs!

 And they keep things fresh by dropping a variety of content, from Reels to Carousels.

Eleven Madison Park

Check out this page, yo! They’ve got more than just their own posts – customers and staff are getting in on the action too, which is pretty cool and unique!

With a whopping 420K followers, their food pics are drool-worthy. It’s like they’re narrating the story of Eleven Madison through their posts. And hey, their bio keeps it simple and clean, not all cluttered up.

Short on time and budget? Here’s the solution:

Starting up and boosting your restaurant’s Instagram game can take some time and effort. And if you’re new to the game, be ready to put in double the work!

But hey, here’s a heads-up: steer clear of those quick-fix solutions like buying followers. Trust me, it’s not worth the hassle, and it won’t do you any favors in the long run.

Now, here’s where things get interesting. Ever heard of Instagram growth services like AiGrow? These guys can seriously give your Insta journey a boost from zero to hero.

With AiGrow, you basically hand over the reins to a dedicated account manager who knows all the tricks of the trade. 

They’ll handle the nitty-gritty stuff like creating and scheduling killer content – think Stories, Reels, Carousels, you name it.

So, long story short? No need to stress about mastering the Instagram algorithm. Leave it to the pros and watch your restaurant’s Insta presence soar.

Instagram marketing for restaurants: FAQs

Is Instagram good for the food business?

Yes, Instagram is a free and effective marketing tool for food businesses allowing them to showcase their dishes, connect with their customers, and find new ones. 

How to promote the food business on Instagram?

To promote a restaurant on Instagram, you need to build a complete bio including your location and unique selling points, create high-quality photos and videos of your dishes, environment, and sometimes kitchen, and use relevant hashtags along with captivating captions.