Instagramming Your Grocerant to Success

Modern Restaurant Management magazine says Instagram is a marketer’s dream of visually driven content, and one of the platform’s favorite topics is food. Instagram is an easy-to-use tool that delivers the perfect opportunity to showcase just how irresistible food is via pictures, highlight can’t-miss special offers, share customer experiences, and track and leverage industry trends.  

The magazine says the prevalence of Instagram has brought many food trends—especially healthy eating trends—mainstream more quickly. Instagram has introduced us to trendsetting menu items such as avocado toast and matcha lattes, and it has helped establish highly engaged communities around healthy eating and special diets such as Whole30, paleo and keto. And the demand for healthier food is only increasing. According to a February 2019 study by Tastewise, there is a $9 billion demand for healthy food in restaurants across the country. 

So to make your grocerant great, you better be using the Instagram tool to success. One of Instagram's most widely used features is the ability to use hashtags to track trends and reach target audiences with your content. To further drive engagement and reach Instagram audiences, you should be using a variety of hashtags, including those you’re tracking, in your content as well.

And be sure to monitor customer feedback and engagement. With an engaged customer base on Instagram, you can track which menu items are trending based on what your followers are sharing and tagging in posts and stories, combined with your sales results. Identifying and tracking those trends can help determine menu specials and promotions to offer in the future, which then can be showcased on your Instagram channel.