Food post ideas for Instagram

Do you have a restaurant or a bar and have decided to use social media to your advantage but have no idea where to start? Let's try to help you out with these 15 creative Instagram post ideas for your restaurant.

A picture is worth 1,000 words, right? At least that's the main theory behind the popular social media platform, Instagram.

But why should you use it in your strategy?

1. About 1 billion people visit Instagram every month
2. Over  500 million  users upload content to  stories every day
3. 63  %  of users log into Instagram at least  once a day
4. According to estimates, each user will spend at least  28 minutes a day  on Instagram
5. 200 million people visit at least one company profile per day
6. 1/3 of the most viewed stories come from company profiles
7. Brands post an average of 2.5 stories per week
8. Sponsored ads on Instagram will potentially reach more than 800 million profiles

It is obvious that these marketing strategies are working for many companies; otherwise, there would not be all these numbers. The real challenge though is figuring out how to make it work for you.

Today, posting images, sharing stories, and optimizing your Instagram feed are not just creative ways to use Instagram but rather your ticket to a much wider audience than you've ever been able to reach in the past. 

Remember that there is no miracle formula to follow. However, there are a number of proven marketing approaches that can help you increase engagement on your social media pages.

This article will briefly review some creative Instagram post ideas for your restaurant or bar.

Experiment with videos

Once upon a time, the main content of Instagram was photos. We said that an image speaks more than a thousand words, but today a video speaks of it for millions. Integrate video content, even as short as 15 seconds, into your strategy using Reels. Post interesting and engaging videos.

Does your restaurant serve delicious desserts or other dishes that you finish preparing right at the table? Great, make a video of the process. In this case, you are more likely to get more results with a video than with an image.

Collaborate with other brands

Experience collaboration with a company that your restaurant shares a common market with. This is an easy way to reach followers you didn't previously have. But choose a brand that resonates with your restaurant's image. This can be your local produce supplier, a company that manufactures various restaurant supplies.

Launch competitions using hashtags

People love having the chance to win free stuff. Contests on Instagram using hashtags are a great way to not only get your name out there but also to increase engagement.

Create a custom hashtag for the competition and ask your followers to post images using that hashtag. With the right promotion, you'll have a good number of followers posting using your hashtag and increase the likelihood that users will visit your page to learn more about your restaurant.

Use high-quality images

If you're posting low-quality photos on your restaurant's Instagram page, it's time to start rethinking your strategy. If you're looking to improve your photos, you can invest in a better camera or phone, invite influencers, or even hire a freelance photographer to help you out.

Use polls in Instagram Stories

Instagram has implemented the Stories feature that allows you to take polls. People love to feel engaged, and creating surveys that ask for their preferences, for example, is a great way to achieve this.

When a vote is cast, it shows the results in real-time, resharing the results of the polls and giving the user an idea of ​​what others think.

Show your staff

Whether it's posting a photo of your employee of the month or celebrating a colleague's birthday, your followers love to have a reason to be happy and celebrate with you. Show your followers that there are real people behind the social media account. This will make your brand more accessible and more human.

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Let your followers know where they can make reservations 

Does your restaurant accept online reservations? Let your followers know. Post a reminder every week to keep your followers up to date. When they decide to visit your restaurant, they won't need to look for the best way to book a table. 

This point is particularly important. Embed a booking link in your restaurant's Instagram bio. So that your followers, if interested, can book a table at your restaurant in seconds directly from Instagram.

Use Influencer Marketing

The very quick way to make your restaurant known to the public is to invite influencers. Social media influencers, often including bloggers, are the people who have garnered thousands upon thousands of followers online. A photo shared on their social media accounts can result in hundreds of people being enticed to visit your restaurant.

In this case, it is better to choose local influencers, as it is difficult for them to find you from another part of the UK. Also, evaluate the involvement of their accounts well; unfortunately, the numbers often deceive, and to grow an account, influencers use the wrong methods that lead to inactive followers.

Share behind the scenes

Your followers and potential customers want to see there is more to your restaurant than just— food. Posting behind the scenes of your restaurant on social media is a direct way to add a human element to your page that would otherwise be lacking in the myriad of food photos.

Instagram giveaways

Instead of running a competition using hashtags, or any other competition, try throwing a simple giveaway. The rules should be simple enough to get as many followers as possible to join.

One idea is to ask your followers to tag their friends in the comments and make sure they both follow your restaurant page. Thus your profile will reach a wider audience, also increasing your followers.

Be careful using this strategy, as it has its cons. An example is an increase in followers who follow you only during the contest, but as soon as they find that they have not won, they take off. This is because they are not interested in what you share and who you are.

Take your dishes out of the restaurant to take away

Even if you represent a restaurant, your followers still want to see how you can get into their daily life. Post photos of your food outside the restaurant.

If one of your most popular dishes is spaghetti, take it out to the park and have a picnic scene to show that your food is great for take-out too. There is no way for your followers to know what you are offering if you don't show it.

Current events

Instead of trying to read your followers' minds, post what you know they are already thinking about. Posting photos relating to events and news is generally well-received because the topic is already on everyone's mind.

This includes content relating to holidays, conferences, local events, and the various world and international days, such as that of carbonara. 

Conclusion

You may think that your content should be entirely related to your dishes and your restaurant, but that's not quite the case. A good social media strategy is about entertaining users. Think about how you can integrate fun content, but without completely breaking out of your brand philosophy. An example can be resharing of nice incidents that happened somewhere in the world while someone is eating, funny memes about couples in restaurants, etc...