We scoured the earth for every reasonable social media tip for restaurants, vetted them against a few social media experts that know how to work the algorithm to their benefit and collected them here for you.
You might be asking yourself, “Then why are you sharing them instead of using them to grow your own social media presence?” Great question. Mainly because we’re tired, but also because we’d rather you have success in your social media efforts and then tell your friends that you hire through Poached.
Buckle up, this one goes into the weeds - FYI, most of this advice is focused on Instagram and Facebook (TikTok and other platform tips are on the way)
Step One: Train Your Account
This one is literally a life changer for a lot of people, and one we’ve attempted to do with great results (even though we didn’t do a good job executing it).
The basic premise is this: You need to ONLY follow the accounts that your ideal followers FOLLOW. If that sentence is stuck in your head, here’s a nice little graphic to help visualize it:
If you’re a pizza shop, follow only pizza shops. If you’re a fancy French restaurant, follow other French restaurants. If you venture outside this strict rule, understand that the further away from following only who your desired followers follow - the more diluted your research will be.
We’ve seen this have a massive and immediate impact on our friend’s Instagram accounts after they tried it… If you've ever felt dissatisfied by what you see in your Instagram feed - it is 100% because you're following one or more irrelevant accounts. This problem is made even worse if you're interacting with those accounts, (simply pausing over a post can indicate that you're interested in it!).
Once you unfollow every account that isn’t your target account, your “For You Page” (symbolized on Instagram as the search icon) becomes filled with examples of what types of trending posts, hashtags, media, music and effects that your ideal followers are engaging with. If you use these trends in your posting routine, your posts will get more engagement, greater distribution, and you will start seeing more and more followers from your posts.
If you're struggling figuring out what to post, making this switch can be very helpful. It will at least remove some of the guess work. Additionally, adding trending audio you find in your For You Page acts as a boost to your post's organic reach. The same goes for the other aspects as well, like Hashtags and Effects.
Use this information as a guide to know what to post, which trending audio to add to your posts and which hashtags to use in your descriptions.
Step Two: Use Trending Audio, Hashtags, and even Effects
As you browse your newly cleaned up feed and search page, watch for the hashtags on posts. Use only 3 to 7 hashtags total and focus on a happy medium between very popular and very specific.
If you’re looking at a Reel that has music in it, watch for an upward arrow near the song title. You can click on the song itself in the lower right hand corner and see more details in addition to other similar trending audios.
Similarly, if there’s an effect on the post, like a shiny sheen or funky transition, these can also show the same upward (to the right) arrow to indicate it’s trending among this posts subject, creator, hashtags and description.
When you use these popular items, it’s like swimming with the current… each post gets a little boost (and sometimes a big boost) by being among other trending posts.
Step Three: Get Your Captions Right
First off, use polls or ask questions. There is an innate human urge to answer a question, and this psychology works well in social media. Start with a poll or question for your post description, tell a story or say something interesting, then get to the call to action (“follow for more”) and end it with some solid hashtags.
There are many hashtag tools out there. ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Claude can get you started if you’re stumped, but mostly just remember; no less than 3 and no more than 7.
Have a few single word hashtags, and a few multi-word hashtags. If you’re posting a story or a reel, type keywords on the video itself… if you can’t get it to look good - you can shrink the words down to nothing and it’ll still have the same effect.
Don’t sleep on your bio either, this is an idea place to tell your story: Describe your account, why people should follow you, and a call to action here “join the community” will help.
Step Four: Post Often and CONSISTENTLY
We know you’re busy and have a million things to do. Consistency is so key that we have to have a tough-love conversation here: if you do any of the above sporadically rather than regularly - it will massively reduce the effectiveness.
Let’s say you only have time to post once a week - I’m saying post at the exact same time every week. We have first hand feedback that the same time of day can be more important than how often.
The problem with only a few posts a month is this: How do you know that the one time you did post is the day to post? So as many times a week as you can, post at the exact same time of day. Set an alarm, do what you can to be consistent. If you want to do an extra post here and there, sources say that’s fine. Otherwise, stay on schedule.
If you’re struggling with consistency, try and keep it simple. You might be over-thinking it. An ignorable post at the right time, might be better than the sporadic perfect post (that no one sees).
Bonus tip: Reels Verses Posts (and also stories)
It’s simple: Reels are shown to strangers first, Posts are shown to followers first. Remember this and act accordingly. Speak to your followers in posts, introduce yourself in Reels. Carousels are key to getting your followers to engage with you. They can be very effective.
There are theories online that say your stories are shown to about 10% of your followers initially, and based on their reactions, they are shown to your next 10%, until the reaction dwindles down to zero. If you have a few people that always like your stories - Engage with them! Keep the conversation going!