Proven Methods to Grow Your Restaurant's Follower Count on Instagram

I get asked all the time, "how do we grow our follower count on Instagram?" The honest answer is to have incredible service, incredible food, and use best organic growth practices.

However, most people don’t seem satisfied with that answer and are looking for a magic button. I get it. Social media takes a ton of effort and a ton of energy and it would be nice to see some reward, RIGHT!?!?!

Admittedly, it’s probably not a coincidence that the most buzzy and successful restaurants have bigger follower accounts on Instagram.

And the truth is, while we all hope to go viral, going viral starts with effort and is ignited by luck. They say fortunate favors the bold. If you’re set up for it, you’re more likely to see growth.

So with that, here are 8 ways to grow your follower account on Instagram:

1. GREAT CONTENT

OK, so that isn’t exactly a magic button, but it’s the truth. Great content will lead to growth.

Great content has a few key elements:

Know who your guests are and what they care about. Create content that aligns to retention and what is it that will make people want to come dine with you again. People don’t follow a restaurant on Instagram unless they’ve already eaten there which means that followers are guests. That means your content needs to be about retention. Show us what its like to be a guest.

Use a mix of carousels and videos. Be sure you’re also posting the stories. More on this later.

2. CONSISTENCY

Retention is an awareness game and it’s imperative that you stay top of mind. If you aren’t consistent with your content feeds, there’s less likely that people who follow you will see it therefore, it stands to reason -- you gotta put gas in the tank.

Set a goal of posting content no less than every third day. You don’t need to post every day and you certainly don’t need to post several times a day, but you do need to show up 2 to 3 times a week.

Also, the Instagram algorithm favors accounts with compelling content that share consistently. Reason why? They want people on the app, and if people like your content and your content keeps people on the app then Instagram is gonna give you some extra juice in the algorithm.

3. ASK QUESTIONS

If you were using Instagram as a broadcast channel, meaning all your content conveys a message of "do this for me," "do that for me," "do this for us," then you aren’t using it for what it is, which is a social media platform. Social media is social and therefore, what makes it work is engagement.

Try once a week (or every other week) to ask a question in your content. The best bet is to ask for an opinion that may or may not be popular like "do pineapples belong on pizza," or "which do you prefer - burgers or chicken sandwiches?"

Want to super power that? Do this ...

4. CONTESTS

Everybody loves winning and when the barrier to entrance for a contest is low, such as "leave a comment below," people are happy to engage. Run a contest on your Instagram account monthly offering people an opportunity to win a gift card or perhaps an experience by leaving a comment based on a question you asked.

Be sure to have a deadline that extends 3 to 5 days out. They’ve recently updated the algorithm to match more of what TikTok does. In an effort to show the most relevant content to the viewer, they may not elect to show your most recent post to your followers so you need to give them a few days for the algorithm to catch up.

Bonus tip: promote the contest in an email 24 hours after the content goes live on Instagram. Naturally, will you get more engagement but you’ll be crossed pollinating your list which ultimately leads to Omni channel awareness from your guests.

5. DIGITAL ADS

Whether your goal is more followers or just for more people to know about your restaurant, awareness and traffic ads on Meta, both Facebook and Instagram, are inexpensive, scalable, and effective ways to grow your local presence.

Use this playbook:

• Run traffic ads on Meta targeting the right audience for your business, don’t use more than 10 interest and keep the radius with your delivery or catering zone.
• Make sure you’re creative aligns with discovery and it’s easy to understand. The best performing ad Handcraft Burgers & Brew has ever run on. Meta was "best burger near Bryant Park in Times Square" with a photo of and absolutely eye popping cheeseburger.
• Make your Instagram profile the link you’re driving traffic to from the ad. For those people that find your restaurant to sit there interest, they’ll give you a follow.

6. GUEST UGC

The best marketing for a restaurant is is not your own. It’s when your guests are excited to tell other people about the food and experience. Social media this comes in the form of sharing content. if you can get your guest to share more content, you’ll get more awareness, more followers and more buzz.

Easier said than done, right? Here’s two ways to make that process easier:

A. Share UGC: Whenever one of your guests shares their experience on social media, always like and comment on the content AND then share it to your stories. This will say thank you to them, but encourage others to do the same.

B. Use Guru Club : I freaking love this. Turn every guest into an influencer. Get your guests to share their experience on Instagram and tagging your brand by offering them an incentive.

We give guests $5 when they do it. We get awareness, increased engagement on social media, direct connections to guests through DMs, grow our database and drive return trips.

Guru Club automates the whole process and makes is trackable.

7. INFLUENCER MARKETING

Influencer marketing is great because it’s a combination of efforts all in one. Working with content creators to help spread awareness for your restaurant is like advertising, UGC and trust Marketing all in one. These people have worked hard to build up an audience of followers who are interested in their recommendations. You can leverage this to get awareness restaurant.

If you want my full Influencer marketing playbook read this article - "All Your Influencer Marketing Questions Answered "

And don’t be afraid to create a budget for quality influencer collaborations. People deserve to be paid for their work.

8. GET HELP

If you don't have the time, energy or creative bandwidth to do this on your own, get help. Either hire someone to work for you directly or outsource it. We have lots of clients who use us for most or all of this.

At Handcraft Burgers and Brew , we have 3 external resources helping us with content creation and marketing efforts! (and now you know how I do it!)

Is any of this working for you? Do you have any other suggestions?

Please share them in a comment or reply!

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Do you need help with any of this? Send me an email [email protected]

- Rev Ciancio

WHAT DOES REV DO?

*I help restaurants to build guest marketing programs.

*I help hospitality tech companies with lead generation and content marketing.