If you’re a restaurant owner, Instagram Walls are the perfect way to show off your drool-worthy dishes to patrons, whether they’re first-time customers or neighborhood regulars. Think your restaurant doesn’t need Instagram? Ask any of L.A.’s 34 most Instagrammed restaurants, and they’ll likely tell you otherwise. In 2016, brands on Instagram experienced a 42% follower growth over any other social media platform— and that’s nothing to sneeze at.
Food lovers who are active on social media love any excuse to whip out their phones and document their dining experience. To get customers posting pictures to your display using your hashtag, inspire them to bring out their inner foodie and photography skills with these three simple methods.
1. Promote your hashtag in clever, creative ways
The first way to get people talking about your brand is by showing them how! Once you’ve picked a short and catchy hashtag, put it where customers will see it—on your menu, on your sidewalk sign and on your digital signage display. Have your employees remind diners to post photos after they’ve placed their orders. You can even leave comments with your hashtag on posts that are geotagged at your restaurant to let people know they should use it.
By using your hashtag, customers’ photos will appear instantly on your social media wall. They’ll be inspired to get that perfect angle for their shot.
2. Offer a little delicious incentive
There’s nothing like a small discount or free appetizer to get people inspired to share. If you’re just getting started with your social media wall, a campaign like this is an easy way to populate your content fast.
Whenever you introduce a new or seasonal item to the menu, that’s also a good time to do a promotion with incentive to order that item. It’ll inspire customers to try something new and give them a reason to keep coming back!
3. Launch a fun photo contest
Sparking competition is another great way to get people to up their photography game. Whether you’re trying to drum up business or simply get more exposure on Instagram, a contest with a slightly bigger incentive—say a gift card and bragging rights—is a surefire way to see an explosion of new posts about your business.
If you have a customizable or create-your-own type dish, you could do a “most creative dish”-themed contest. If your plates come out of the kitchen looking like works of art, you could do a “most artsy photo” competition. With endless seasonal events and holidays, you’ll never run out of ideas for the next time you want to get a promotion going.
When you serve up delicious food with a beautiful presentation and ambiance, it won’t be hard to get people to take photos—it’s a favorite pastime among social media gurus. But with a little extra inspiration and encouragement, you can get your customers to populate a never-ending feed of beautiful photos of every item on your menu.
An Instagram wall featuring customers’ posts will be instant gratification for their efforts, too. They’ll have fun seeing their photos on-screen in their favorite restaurant, and you’ll enjoy seeing the exposure and engagement your restaurant is getting.
(Be sure to encourage guests to share their photos with a Yelp review, too!)
Interested in showing Instagram Walls in your business?
Contact Enplug to get started today!