My playbook to Instagram and Tik Tok
People eat with their eyes. Instagram and Tik Tok drive a TON of awareness and marketing for people aged 14-45, which we think will be most of our customers.
2 main components go into this: Organic content and influencer content.
Organic Content
For organic content, we started posting 1 month before launch. Our goal is to post daily, with a look and feel that is well-established on launch day, and stands out from the crowd. I think so far we've succeeded.
To start building a buzz 1 month out, we needed photos completed at a minimum 5 weeks out. (FYI - this whole thing is basically a giant project management exercise. I've dealt with consulting deadlines and mayhem for the last 6.5 years so this is what I'm used to.)
Our photos turned out AMAZING. Identifying the best photographer to use could be a thread in itself, its messy to find great help for good value.
We got really lucky and found a great photographer at a fair price for both of us. Not the most expensive option, not the cheapest.
Once we had our awesome photos, we started using Canva's content planner for scheduling.
Within each post, we include relevant hashtags so that the post shows up in peoples discovery feed (the magnifying glass icon in the IG app).
I wasn't sure what hashtags would be best, but heres the approach I did to try and find the best keywords that would help us get discovered.
Write down hashtags from already successful accounts
Google "Social media hashtag trends"
Pick a tool, I chose Hashtagify
Sign up for free trial
Start searching for key words
Record popularity on twitter and IG in a google sheet
Rank to your liking
This took 1 hour, and will inform my strategy for months. I did this for Instagram and Twitter, since I'm also posting business-building tweets so much.
Key takeaways
The best hashtags on twitter vs. IG are very different
"virtual/cloud/ghost" terminology has a tiny footprint, won't help with discoverability
For twitter - use generic hashtags (#Food or #Hospitality)
For IG be more local (#eat614 + #columbusfoodie)
For twitter and for virtual kitchen operator, my audience is operators, partners, and potential investors interested in the creation/growth of my business, and following my journey.
Geography doesn't matter, I just need the widest net possible.
For Instagram and for Smash Brothers Sliders, my audience is potential customers. These need to be hyper local. So I need to dial in the most engaging hashtags in the Columbus food market.
Now on to influencer content:
I first started compiling a list of influencers in our area. I did this from:
Google searches
Searching hashtags like #columbusfood and #eat614 and seeing who was posting to those hashtags
Once I started finding a few food accounts, you can typically open their follower list and see many other food accounts. A lot of them have plenty of "regular" followers, but also follow each other.
You can usually tell which ones are the food accounts. I started DM'ing a bunch of them. I briefly shared:
What our concept is
When we launch
How we're delivery / takeout focused
Where we'll be located
And asked if they were interested in either:
Attending an in-person event on 11/24
Receiving a free delivery of our product
In return, I asked that if they liked our food, if they'd be willing to share a post with their followers.
I said I'd be happy to send them 2 combos so they could enjoy with a friend or significant other, or give them 2 vouchers if they came to the event (for the same reason).
So far have 4-5 influencers coming to the event. Each have between 5-20k followers. Also did 3 deliveries to 3 more influencers, each with 5-20k followers. Only cost is our time + food cost. Its a win-win for both of us.
We've been posting for like 18 days and we have 300+ followers. Not a ton, but solid, and our engagement is high, getting 50-90 likes per photo. Out of 300 followers thats 17-30% likes/followers.
We don't pay for followers and never will (some people do as a signaling attempt).
Within the next 2-3 days, we expect some of these larger accounts to share their reviews/posts showing off our product and explaining their experience. This should provide a good bump to our follower account - will gauge the impact and make sure its getting results.
And then i'm trying to re-share things to my profile such as:
When we're featured in the news
When influencers leave reviews
and tagging those accounts, who often re-share on their own and get more eyes.
I feel pretty confident we'll see steady growth.
So my instagram playbook is:
Create good organic content that stands out
Post it consistently with discoverable hashtags
Connect with influencers
Do something special for them in return for posts
Repeat
If your offering is good, there is NO WAY this doesn't build a strong, engaged follower base over time with minimal cost.
What about Tik Tok and Reels?
Ok, so thats what I'll call "Traditional Instagram Audience Building". What we haven't covered is Instagram Reels, aka the Tik Tok copycat.
I am just now starting this, its completely new to me. I had never had a tik tok before or shared a reel before Saturday 11/20.
But from what I can tell, the concept is pretty much the same:
Produce organic content often
Identify best hashtags for discoverability
Connect with influencers
Repeat
Except its with short-form video instead of photos. The way I come up with organic content for this is simple. Be a copycat.
Find other videos that get a ton of views
See the style / song they used
Do the same thing, but for our food
Example of this in action and how I KNOW it works: I saw a video of someone showing a short clip of an apartment pre-renovation, then snapping their fingers and cutting the video to the post-renovation view.
They played it to a song that had a prominent snap in it. Looked awesome, got a ton of views.
So I just did the same thing but for food.
Short clip of empty grill, snap my fingers, cut to clip of patties on grill
Short clip of cheese on patties, snap, cut to clip of patties on buns
Short clip of empty box, snap, clip of full box
Unless you're an influencer, or you are a natural creator, I suggest that you just use Tik Tok and IG Reels as a mechanism to stay trendy and relevant, but apply those trends that are relevant to YOUR brand.
I know this works because the FIRST video I posted went what I'll call "mini-viral" on instagram reels. It got 5k views on reels and 165 likes. They were from some of my own followers, but lots of people that don't even follow me. Thats more impressions than any post I've ever made.
Thats the power of Reels and Tik Tok. You can go viral if your content is good. Not the case for traditional, follower based social media. It incentivizes good content creation.
(I think thats why Tik Tok is eating into social media "share of attention" at an incredible pace.)
I only got 650 views and 6 likes on Tik Tok, but hey not bad for 1 video. It was the FIRST piece of content I had ever posted to Tik Tok. I had 2 followers at the time. I think the key difference is that on IG i had an initial follower base, and they gave some immediate likes and shares.
Then, these algos react positively to immediate likes and shares, and show it to more people. It creates a little flywheel. So the solid base I had on IG gave me an initial pop to get the first post shared to 5k eyes, whereas on Tik Tok I had 2 followers and so its just harder for the piece of content to catch virality.
I know this was a long post, but I hope it is useful to other operators.
There is absolutely a playbook to growing a social account. I'm sure theres more I haven't uncovered yet, but so far so good, and seems to be repeatable for multiple brands.