Welcome back, readers!
Last time, we went over why your Twin Cities restaurant should consider using Instagram as a platform to promote itself socially.
Today we’re going to go into detail about what steps your business can take to use Instagram effectively.
Yes, it’s a term that’s been floating around the Internet for a while, but it’s the best way to describe the technique restaurants use to draw in customers.
Food porn basically means taking short videos or pictures of your menu items, and presenting them in the most enticing way possible. Instagram has over 97,000,000 posts with the foodporn hashtag, and it continues to grow constantly!
This is pretty easy to do, put a little time and thought into photographing your food. Consider the lighting, and maybe use a bit of slow motion.
You can make a beautiful 30-second video of drizzling chocolate over your restaurant’s famous dessert, but if people don’t have a way to trace it back to you, there’s a problem.
Instagram is great for resharing others videos, but it can be easy to lose track from where the original video came from. To make sure your name stays associated with your post, add a little logo to every image with your company’s name on it.
Below is an example of a business having their logo in the top corner. Notice it doesn’t distract from the video, but still keeps their brand clearly present.
Instagram is a fantastic way to become more personal to your customers, but don’t become too personal. As tempting as it is, keep your company Instagram page as focused as possible. This doesn’t mean you can’t show genuine fun moments of your staff, but no pictures of your family pet or vacations.
If it’s not related to your business, save it for your personal account.
People follow you on Instagram because they’re interested in the pictures of your restaurant or bar. Posting random pictures that have nothing to do with your company will make you lose followers.
It’s so free and simple, plus it will win you brownie points with your followers! Anytime someone tags a photo of your business, be sure to share it on your Instagram account.
Lots of individuals and small businesses have found this an easy way to engage with their customers.
This also gives you extra content to share without doing tons of work. If you use an app like Repost, it’s much easier to share others photos of your business. Be sure to credit the customer who shared the photo, a quick “Thanks” and tagging them is a way to show you care.
By using hashtags and locations on Instagram, you set your business up for some pretty easy advertising.
Social media is a great and low-cost way to give yourself free advertising and some reach. But before you set out to create an Instagram account for your restaurant, you need to make the commitment to use it.
As discussed in our Pinterest blog, social media takes time and effort to receive any return on investment. So commit to a game plan before and if you want to see some ROI.
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