Most restaurants we talk to are not short of social media options. They are short of a clear view on where their time and money should actually go. TikTok, Instagram and influencer marketing all earn their place for different reasons, and for most hospitality brands the smartest approach is to understand what each one is good at and let them work together. If there is one mistake we see again and again, it is treating these three as a menu to pick from, when the brands getting the best results treat them as one connected effort.
The backdrop is worth knowing. For a lot of under-35 diners, social has become one of the first places they look when deciding where to eat, often ahead of Google or review sites. TikTok now drives a sizeable share of restaurant discovery among Gen Z, and a meaningful number of people say they have tried somewhere purely because it looked good on a video. That does not make any single platform essential for every brand, but it does mean the question deserves proper thought.
For many brands, TikTok works mainly as a discovery channel. It can be a genuinely useful way to get in front of people who have never heard of you, and for some restaurants it has become a real source of bookings off the back of a single well-timed video. Our honest take is that TikTok is the channel most hospitality brands still underuse, and for the ones willing to commit to it, that is often where the cheapest new-diner reach is sitting right now. The content that tends to perform is specific and a little raw: the pass in full flow, the queue outside, a founder explaining the one dish only their kitchen does. Heavily polished brand films often fall flat here.
It does ask for commitment, though. TikTok tends to reward volume and speed, which often means posting most days, sometimes more than once a day, and reacting to trends quickly. That pace is where a lot of generalist content plans struggle, and it is often why brands either lean on someone in-house who genuinely lives on food TikTok, or bring in an agency that produces this kind of content day in, day out.
If TikTok is often where people first find you, Instagram is usually where they check you out before booking. A diner will land on your grid to answer a simple question: is this worth my Saturday night? They will look at the menu, the room, the lighting and the last few posts. Surveys suggest a majority of younger diners use Instagram to vet a restaurant before visiting, so it is worth treating your profile as the last impression before someone books.
In 2026, reels and Collab posts with creators tend to reach further than brand-only content, so most restaurants get more from a reels-first approach. The grid works as your shop window, and stories signal that you are open and busy. An out-of-date profile can quietly put people off.
Influencer marketing is where we see the widest gap between brands. Done casually, it can be a lot of activity that changes very little. Done well, it can bring exactly the right people through the door fairly quickly. We will be blunt about one thing, because it matters: a lot of gifted influencer activity gives almost nothing back. Free meals handed out to creators with no agreed deliverables, no usage rights and no way of measuring the return will rarely do much for bookings. What usually makes the difference is how carefully the creators are chosen and how the campaign is structured. Across the industry, more of the budget in 2026 is going towards local micro-creators with engaged, trusting audiences, and there is less appetite for big national names whose followers may be nowhere near your tables.
Our approach at MeMo is to pick creators based on whether their audience is likely to turn up and book, then to structure each visit properly: clear deliverables, usage rights so the content can feed your own channels, and tracking so you can see what it returned. Our Roti King work with Morley’s, “Same Streets, Different Spice”, is a good example, where creator content, PR and social all carried the same story and built on each other.
There is no single right split, and it varies a lot by stage and by brand. As a rough starting point, an established venue might put around 40% of its social effort into an always-on Instagram presence, 25% into TikTok for discovery, 25% into a quarterly influencer programme, and the remaining 10% behind whatever is performing. A brand opening a new site often benefits from flipping that, leading with influencer and PR in the first few months to build some noise, then rebalancing once there is content and an audience to work with.
The one thing we would gently push back on is treating the three as separate jobs. They tend to work much harder together. A single creator visit can produce a TikTok that helps people discover you, a reel that helps convince them, and assets you can put paid spend behind. Kept in separate silos, the same budget usually does a good deal less.
Do restaurants need an agency for TikTok?
Not always. If you have someone in-house who genuinely lives on food TikTok and can post most days, often more than once, that can work well. If you do not, a hospitality specialist with real TikTok production tends to get more out of the channel than a generalist, simply because food content has its own rhythm.
How do I find the right influencers for my restaurant?
Look at engagement quality, where their audience actually is (London followers matter for a London venue) and any sign that their recommendations lead to visits. A comment along the lines of “went because of you” can tell you more than a very large but passive following. An agency with a vetted creator network can save you a lot of trial and error here.
Is TikTok or Instagram better for restaurants?
It depends on what you need. TikTok tends to be stronger for helping new diners find you, and Instagram for convincing them to book. If you have to choose, many brands are best starting with Instagram and adding TikTok once they can keep the content coming.
What does influencer marketing cost for a restaurant in London?
It varies widely. Gifted visits cost you food and drink but come with no guarantees. Paid micro-influencer campaigns tend to sit at the more accessible end, while well-known food creators command a good deal more per post. Agency-run programmes usually fold in the selection, contracts, usage rights and measurement, so you are paying for a managed result that includes all of those.
MeMo runs TikTok, Instagram and influencer programmes for hospitality brands from London, with a creator network we have built around bookings. If you would like help working out the right mix for your brand, or getting the three to pull in the same direction, we would be glad to talk.
