Instagram: 5 Easy Tips for Venues

When it comes to venues, events, and hospitality, we’re operating in an aesthetics-driven marketplace. People want to find beautiful looking venues, and they want to imagine themselves in the space, in the moment – the grand party entrance, getting married, leading a conference, toasting to the end of a productive work year. Helping your potential customer envision themselves in your venue can convert itself into an enquiry for an event, or a customer for Sunday brunch.

According to Instagram Advertiser statistics, 60% of Instagram users learn about a product or service through the platform and 75% percent of users then take some sort of action, such as visiting a company's website. Not to mention, people just straight-up like to look at food, drinks, and pretty things. People love torturing themselves over gorgeous pictures of succulent dishes and creamy coffees, so much so they’ll follow tonnes of cafes, bars, and restaurants just to have a constant flow of culinary hedonism in their social media feeds. Personally, I’ll look up cafes on Instagram to see if I want to eat there. And if the content is truly good, I’ll follow the venue on Instagram, right then and there. Boom – you just got yourself a loyal customer.

So, let’s get into it! First things first, get your business on Instagram and follow these tips.

1. Create good content and know your voice
Quality content is paramount. If you’re not a photography aficionado yourself, hire a professional to take some beautiful shots of your venue and all the magnificent things it has to offer. Ensure your images are high resolution. Get a beautiful mix of the food and beverages you dish up on the daily, and show off what makes the venue truly unique. Put yourselves in the shoes of your future customers – what do you look for in a venue? What do you want to see in your social media feeds?

Use captions to convey your brand’s voice. It can be light and friendly, or corporate and professional, or really witty and humorous. It’s up to you! Just pick a tone, and keep it consistent.

2. Produce content frequently
48.8% of brands use Instagram, and the top brands post 4.9 times a week. Post every day or every two days to keep up engagement. Make it worth your followers’ while by keeping your engaging updates consistent and mildly frequent.

3. Use hashtags
But you DON’T have to put them all in your caption!
Posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement than those without. Your caption doesn’t have to be “Come on down to #venue for the #best #coffee in #melbourne!” – that looks silly, and your audience will see right through it. You don’t have to sacrifice an engaging caption for hashtags. The caption of your images is your voice, so keep it true to your brand and keep it high quality.

4. When it comes to hashtags for Instagram, here are a few tips:
First, look up the best hashtags to use for your business. Are you a cafe? Here are the most popular hashtags to cultivate likes, comments, and followers:

#coffee #coffeetime #melbourne (or whatever city you’re in) #cafe #amazing #delicious #coffeeaddict #roasted #coffeeshop  #australia #coffeelover #butfirstcoffee #coffeelove #coffeeislife #coffeebreak #barista #coffeebean #baristalife #coffeeoftheday #photooftheday #freshfoods #foodie #gourmet #events #venues

If you’re a restaurant, you can tailor those hashtags to be more restaurant or cuisine-specific.

5. How to post all those hashtags without looking obnoxious:
Go to your phone’s notepad, and open up a blank page. Enter three full stops, each at the start of a new line, like so:

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Then, enter your group of hashtags for easy and quick access:

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#coffee #coffeetime #melbourne (or whatever city you’re in) #cafe #amazing #delicious #coffeeaddict #roasted #coffeeshop  #australia #coffeelover #butfirstcoffee #coffeelove #coffeeislife #coffeebreak #barista #coffeebean #baristalife #coffeeoftheday #photooftheday #freshfoods #foodie #gourmet

Once you have posted your image and caption, head to your phone notes, copy and paste your three dots and hashtags. Head back to your post and paste them into a comment on the image. That way, people won’t take much notice of your heap of hashtags. You can even delete the comment after a while, once you’ve racked up enough engagement.

If you really want to get your business out there on Instagram and build up followers, you can use services like Instagress and Archie to do the hard work for you. These are automated services that follow, like, and comment on Instagram posts for your account. You can taper the service to your needs, your location, your field, et cetera.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to promoting your business how you want your customers to see you. This involves seeing content through their eyes and being vigilant in producing quality content. What are you waiting for? Get 'gramming!

Find and book the perfect venue for your event with VenueNow.