Restaurant marketing on Instagram

Effective restaurant marketing on Instagram is all about the visuals. Your chain might serve great food and have an unbeatable atmosphere, but in order for this to translate on social media’s most aesthetically driven platform, you will need top-notch photography.

But where do you start if you’re a business with multiple locations, especially if you’re country-wide? At YesMore we’ve worked with chains such as Carluccio’s and on brand partnership campaigns across locations, so we’ve learnt a thing or ten about how to successfully drive bookings through social media and create a buzz. Here’s a breakdown of how to get started and keep growing your account once you’ve learnt what makes your customers tick.

Collaborating with content creators in local markets is a great way to grow your reach and keep your content package varied

Instagram restaurant marketing tips

A varied content package of enticing imagery is essential for your restaurant marketing on Instagram. However, before deciding what to shoot where and when to post about your restaurants, it’s important to understand the most efficient and effective way to operate accounts for a scaled business. In our experience of working with restaurant chains, it’s best to have just one centralised team operating a single account for your chain for the following reasons:

It saves time and money: Multiple accounts require more time spent on scheduling and community management, meaning as a business you’d have to employ, or up-skill more members of staff – which is no doubt costly

The account will be populated with higher quality content: Multiple accounts require more individualised content in order for the accounts to serve a purpose. This means you’d need to commission different shoots at different locations, which can lead both to inconsistency in both quality and regularity of posting.

Growing your following will be easier: By using a centralised account, you’re targeting a much wider customer-base of followers and your content will be less niche, so growing your following will be easier

You can still appeal to local markets: Collaborating with content creators is a great way to grow your reach and keep your content package varied. It’s also a great way to tap local markets by choosing people who live there and are relatable to its specific demographic. If you use paid marketing on Instagram, you can use dark posts and geo target them to specific regions. This will allow you to measure results for individual areas and content creators – so it’s a strategic move all-round.

Posting a content package with a varied mix of image styles will help you to learn what engages your followers

Content for restaurant marketing

If you do settle on a centralised model for content production then the next phase of your content planning process is to decide on your content pillars – which you can learn more about in our social media content pillars blog. As an example from the restaurant world, when working with Carluccio’s, our pillars were:

Food shots: new and favourite dishes from your menu

Deli product shots: prep of dishes and deli products

Atmosphere: staff pictures or stories, new restaurants and the history of Carluccio’s

Posting a content package with a varied mix of image styles will help you to learn what engages your followers. To create this we recommend sourcing:

Professional photography in your branches

User generated content from customers found via relevant hashtags – and posted with their permission

Commissioned images shot by content creators at various sites

As well as using your Instagram posts to learn what customers love about their experience in store, staff feedback on their experience on-site can be invaluable in informing your content

Social media strategy for restaurants

In order to keep your feed fresh and avoid content becoming stale, we recommend these three rules for restaurant social media marketing:

1. Repeat and repackage your biggest hits: The content pillar you post most from should be your most engaging, which as a restaurant is probably your dishes. But is there a specific type of dish that always gets people talking, or prompts guaranteed likes, no matter the season or how many times it’s been on your feed? Ensure you use your analytics and social listening (analysis of what your users are saying about your brand on your posts and on others’ posts) to learn what your audience want to see more of. Then ensure you create more similar content or post old images in new contexts. You could try changing the copy, creating a close-up of the dish ,or an infographic to promote an in-store offer related to the item.

2. Let on-site inform on-feed: As well as using your Instagram posts to learn what customers love about their experience in store, staff feedback on their experience on-site can be invaluable. Do your customers go crazy for a particular dish or offer? Is it always busy on a particular day of the week? Then it’s likely content themed around these themes will get great engagement on social media.

3. Be reactive and avoid over-planning: Just like your staff and menu need to be adaptable to the nation’s mood, so should your content. When working with Carluccio’s rather than a rigid content plan, we used a checklist model. It meant we agreed to post about a set number of key launches and dates of the month ahead of time, using pre-agreed images. But the copy was reactive and naturalistic, as were the conversations with followers. This way, we were able to connect with audiences on an emotional level – all whilst laddering up to Carluccio’s key business goals.