Top Tips For Creating Eye Catching Content

As you plan your Instagram marketing strategy, it’s important to know what works for a restaurant Instagram design, and what to keep in mind. With more than 25 million companies worldwide already using Instagram for business, and more than 200 million users visiting at least one business profile every day, creating eye-catching content is even more important in order to make your restaurant stand out. As a visual platform, successful social media profiles are heavily dependent on eye-catching and engaging images. So, the pressure is on!

Read on to find out how you can design Insta worthy content for your restaurants’ potential hungry customers!

Understand your brand

An important starting point is establishing an overarching theme for your restaurant’s Instagram account. Take the time to think about your restaurants’ ambiance, considering the cuisine, atmosphere, locations, or concepts you wish to incorporate within your visitors’ journey as well as the atmosphere from the moment they take a bite of your food.

For example, if you own a Mexican style restaurant, your theme might be based around bright tones, Summer and zesty, just like Wahaca does. Or you might own a fine dining restaurant which may result in a more luxurious and clean design approach rather than loud and bright, take a look at how we’ve style Galvin at Windows. Take the time to define this before you start creating for your Instagram.

Your end goal is to connect with your potential audience and customers. So an important part of aesthetic development is taking the time to understand the content your audience best relates to. Do some research into your competitors and the accounts your demographic currently follow to sense check your theme direction.

Less is more 

While it may feel more comfortable to include several elements in your Instagram posts, sometimes it is more effective to use an approach where less is more.

For e.g. white space in graphic design doesn’t necessarily mean using white as a colour, we love playing around with space and colour when working with Döner Shack. It typically refers to areas in your design that are free from design embellishments or icons/text which makes your designs have more of an impact on its audience.

Try incorporating this technique by first avoiding the needless clutter that comes with over-designing. Focus on improving legibility, adding emphasis or grouping with white space to see the difference it makes. The result is a cleaner image that is much easier on your followers’ eyes and is more likely to attract a bigger audience.

While it is easy to over-design, it is also equally easy to over-edit photos. It may be tempting to add more edits to an image of your food since filters and other editing apps are so readily available to us, but you must allow your food to speak for itself. The simpler, the better. A visual overload will only confuse and drive customers away.

Your design-led or photographic content is the first thing potential customers will notice when they check your restaurants’ profile. They will make an instant decision whether or not to engage with your brand. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so be smart with your design decisions!

Take advantage of all tools available

Instagram has undergone many updates in the past few years which have provided us with easier access to a range of tools in order to showcase our content in engaging ways.

Beyond just your Instagram feed, you have the ability to add things like reels or live video/photos to your stories which last 24 hours. It’s a great way to share real life updates about your restaurant in real time about events, competitions, and other information related to your restaurant. It also allows you to utilize features that encourage audience engagement like emoji stickers, emoji slider, question and poll stickers, and quiz stickers etc. It is the most appealing process to help form a connection with your audience and encourage customers to visit your restaurant.

A smart and cleaner way of using the story feature is to have pre-made story templates that show off your restaurant as a brand. It’s not only an easy process since all it takes is dropping an image into your template, but it also adds character to your social media helping stray away from a boring and dull restaurant.

Instagram also puts a wide range of filters, special effects, and photo editing tools at your fingertips making it easy to post on the go but also as an added benefit just so we don’t have to spend the extra buck on other editing programmes. This opportunity to create strong visual content on social media gives people a reason to follow, like, comment, and eventually visit your restaurant. It can make or break your strategy.

Use templates

Graphic designed posts can be used to share reviews, announcements, quotations, brand information etc. Don’t have experience using Photoshop? No problem! There are many online websites you can use to source free templates when designing your posts or programmes such as Canva which make it easy to design a post that’s Insta worthy.

Using templates is an easy but also smart way to use your time, you simply update these templates with your chosen Instagram aesthetic, apply your brand guidelines such as logos, colours, fonts, additional icon/embellishments and you’re good to go!

Designing custom graphics for your feed will not only assist with making your feed stand out but it will also make each post more engaging than the last as you learn more about your brand and about what your customers want from you besides amazing food. It’s this confidence that will make your content eye-catching and exciting.

Have fun!

A customer is looking for a restaurant with character and a night where they can enjoy themselves. It’s important we paint our Instagram profile with a unique and exciting ambiance your customer will not find anywhere else.

The way to do this is simple… have fun! When posting, divide a photo into parts and post it as a carousel. This will reduce visual clutter when posting all information on one slide but will also make a more interactive experience for users.

Maybe, crop your photos into three parts and post across multiple tiles. It’s a quirky technique but results in an Instagram feed that will stand out from the crowd. However, future posts may jumble up unless you always post in threes. It’s risky business, but the outcome might be worth it if you’re willing to try it.

A recent trend in design and on Instagram is animation. It’s a fun and cool way to make a user stop scrolling and possibly visit your page. GIFs and videos are a great way to add movement and narrative to your visuals. They can range from high-production IGTV films to subtle photo animations, a.k.a cinemographs. Don’t be afraid to dive into this type of content because its what your customers are craving!

We hope these tips are useful and will be incorporated into your strategy to drive your results further. If you would like our help with marketing, want us to share further expertise, drop us a message here!