20 new Instagram features to use for your restaurant

Instagram is the essential place to promote your restaurant. But how do you gain visibility on the social network? How do you gain followers? Engage a wide audience? Make your content visible?

To increase your page’s visibility on Instagram and generate traffic to your restaurant, you need to make it appealing first. How? By creating regular, high-quality content that is unique to your establishment! We’ve detailed all our tips for creating attractive content HERE without needing expertise.

But once your posts are created, how do you maximize their reach? You have to satisfy the Instagram algorithm! Playing the social network’s game by using new features is one of the decisive criteria for boosting your content. Here are the 15 new Instagram features to know when promoting your restaurant. Use them liberally to satisfy the algorithm, engage more of your followers, save time, and improve your communication!

Download the infographic

An easy restaurant page management and more customer conversions with Instagram

1. Filtered notifications

Are you receiving too many irrelevant notifications? Are you missing some of your customers’ comments or messages? However, it’s essential to respond to all of your community’s interactions to show your appreciation. This is also because the Instagram algorithm values your restaurant’s content on this criterion!

The social network now allows you to filter your notifications! Show only comments to ensure you don’t miss any, then tags and mentions, as well as new followers.

2. Status update

When you are closed for holidays or any other exceptional reasons, you need to inform potential customers. If they don’t know, they might end up going to your restaurant only to find it closed, and vice versa.

A new Instagram feature can help you announce in real-time that your restaurant is exceptionally closed. The “Profile Status” option will display the state you have chosen in your bio for 24 hours, such as “Working,” “Happy,” “Open,” “Closed,” etc.

3. Reserve button

Your ultimate goal is to have more customers booking tables in your restaurant. If a user arrives at your Instagram page and it makes them want to book, they should be able to do so easily. If they can’t find what they’re looking for quickly, you might lose them.

Instagram helps guide users towards booking with the addition of the “Book” action button at the top of your profile. If your reservation system is listed in Instagram’s partners, connect it to your business account to make it easier for your customers to convert.

4. Discovery address map

What if we told you there’s a new way to attract local customers to your restaurant? To convert a user through Instagram, they need to arrive at your page (through sponsorship, influencers, algorithmic promotion, etc.), be attracted to it, and then book a table. There’s now a second conversion lever on Instagram!

Instagram has launched its map to help users discover addresses close to them, mainly restaurants, cafes, bars, and hotels. If you appear in the area searched by the user, it’s a very effective way to gain customers. By clicking on your restaurant’s icon, potential customers will see your information (hours, address, distance, price range, etc.) right away. They’ll even see reviews from users who have mentioned your place!

Using Instagram Stories to create engagement around your restaurant.

5. Extended duration

You need to engage your subscribers to bring them in and keep them coming back! Stories represent an ideal way to share with them the behind-the-scenes of the restaurant, the team, the new items on the menu… on a daily basis. Videos of food preparation and tasting, the atmosphere live from the restaurant, for example, make Instagram users want to come.

So, to take even more advantage of this conversion lever, you now have not 15 seconds but 60 continuous seconds of stories! The opportunity to share even more emotions with your community.

6. Conversion links

To maximize the conversion of internet users into customers, you need to make the path to your website, reservation or delivery, as easy as possible. The “Swipe up” option, only available to accounts with +10k subscribers, gave the advantage of redirecting the user to the internet page of their choice directly from their story.

Today, the social network offers everyone the possibility to include an internet link in their story. With the new Instagram “Link” sticker, you can accompany the potential customer to the page of your choice, which facilitates their conversion to the restaurant!

7. The ability to schedule

Making stories on a daily basis takes time and the reflex to think about it. But this task is essential to engage the community of your restaurant and satisfy the Instagram algorithm. And it must be done strategically!

Since this summer, you can schedule the publication of your stories. A very useful feature, especially for anticipating your activity on important dates on the marketing calendar, found here. To access this feature, all you need to do is download the Facebook Business Suite application for free.

8. Story likes

To measure the engagement rate of your page, the Instagram algorithm takes into account: interactions in private messages, saves, comments, and likes on your posts. But there is now a new, even simpler way to interact that affects your engagement rate!

Users can now like stories to show their interest without having to write a message. It’s an easier interaction, so invite your followers to like your stories!

Tools to perfect your stories

9. Trending music

With the TikTok phenomenon, some trends are becoming viral, and music plays a big part in this! Songs are everywhere on Instagram stories and reels because they grab attention and generate excitement in videos. So use them to animate the content of your restaurant and capture the attention of a wide Instagram community!

How do you stay on top of musical trends? Instagram helps you with its new icon, which lets you know if the song is gaining in popularity. When you go to the music (by searching or from someone’s post), the social network shows you the number of Reels that have used it and whether the trend is continuing.

10. Captioning lyrics

And what if you want to make sure that the user has understood the message of your video?

By adding captions to your story, the user can see your lyrics, whether or not they have the sound turned on!

Reels, an essential Instagram format, increasingly developed

11. Engaging responses

As we mentioned earlier, responding to your users remains essential to keep them loyal and reflect a positive image of your restaurant.

Today, you can engage your community even more. For any comment left on your Reels, you can respond in video!

12. Careful transitions

Reels are becoming increasingly important on Instagram. It’s a format that users like, so the network’s algorithm highlights accounts that use it. And for you as a restaurateur, Reels allow you to communicate about your dishes and your venue in an attractive and fun way. Don’t make reels because you don’t know how to do them?

You no longer need to hire a professional to create high-quality videos! For those who don’t use it yet, Instagram has deployed its Align tool, which allows you to make perfect transitions. Success is yours!

13. The boost of Reels

As mentioned earlier, Reels are essential for your Instagram page. This format is highlighted by the algorithm and highly appreciated by users, so it becomes inevitable to play the game. How can you make your Reels go viral and maximize their conversion power?

For a long time, you could allocate a budget to boost the visibility of photo posts, carousels, and simple videos. But recently, Instagram has also invited everyone to sponsor their Reels content! A small budget is enough to distribute your videos to a large audience.

A harmonious and aesthetic Instagram feed for a restaurant that makes you want to visit

14. Carousels modification

Another engaging format is carousels. Several photos and/or videos that follow each other in a single post keep users’ attention longer. A format, therefore, favored by Instagram. But until now, publishing a carousel required more attention. Because to remove one of the photos and/or videos from the slideshow, you had to delete the entire carousel.

The social network now offers the ability to edit your carousel and remove one of the slides!

15. Reorganizing your posts

The first impression your restaurant gives on Instagram goes through its global feed and bio. Your feed alone describes the atmosphere and type of offers of the restaurant. So you must take care of your posts and their consistency, for a harmonious and aesthetic overall result.

There are several techniques or applications to preview your feed before posting a photo. But what if Instagram allowed you to reorganize your already posted content for a perfect overview? The dream! A functionality still under development at the moment.

Credits: Alessandro Paluzzi twitter @alex193a

16. Pinned posts

There are certain posts that you would like to leave in front of your profile for a longer time, such as when you organize a contest on a publication, for example. Unfortunately, it ends up disappearing in the feed among other posts. Instagram has found a solution!

You can now pin posts at the top of your publications to keep them prominent for as long as you need!

17. An Instagram page outside of Instagram

To gain followers, you need to make your restaurant’s Instagram page known. Start by adding your username @…. to strategic locations: your email signature, business cards, prominently displayed in the restaurant, on the website, delivery bags, etc. But what could be more impactful than your username?

Share your Instagram page directly as a preview outside of Instagram. A great way to encourage users to click on your restaurant’s preview. Other people can also promote your account in this format.

Credits: Instagram

Collaborations for twice the audience

18. One post for 2 accounts

With a chef, a brand or another restaurant: collaborations are all the rage! They have become a very trendy way to promote your restaurant. A strategic communication operation, which allows you to reach a second audience! And the ephemeral effect of collaborations creates curiosity among consumers.

Instagram supports collaborations with the possibility of co-creating a post with another account! How? The post or reel appears in your feed and that of your collaborators, with each name at the top. Ideal for promoting collaborations, but also ideal for increasing your visibility by appearing on a third party’s feed!

19. Remixing content

A collaboration with a brand, chef or restaurant presents the perfect opportunity to boost your establishment. You can easily create buzz around this ephemeral offer, provided you communicate about it. So be creative!

One of Instagram’s latest features might give you some ideas: remixing another user’s reels… In your case, remixing with your collaboration account!

Your restaurant’s audience better targeted on Instagram

20. More in-depth analysis

To always perfect your marketing strategy and target your audience well, you need to track your past performance. Instagram previously provided you with statistics for only the last 30 days.

Good news! You can delve deeper into your analysis with the availability of your Instagram statistics for the last 90 days.