Arjun Gill
Social media marketing for food businesses through TikTok and Instagram Reels is revolutionizing how local and home food businesses connect with their audience! These platforms are unleashing the potential for visually stunning food content, helping businesses attract customers, establish their brand, and drive up engagement.Â
Short-form videos are taking over social media, and it’s time for food businesses to harness that power to their advantage. In this guide, we’ll dive into how you can use TikTok and Instagram Reels to enhance your food business, increase engagement, and cultivate a dedicated following. Let’s get cooking!Â
Why is Social Media Important for Your Food Business:
Social media has completely changed the game for food businesses, especially when times got tough during the pandemic. While many businesses struggled, others turned to TikTok and Instagram Reels to create content, which expanded their social media reach and not only kept them afloat but made them even more successful!
These platforms offer an open stage for local and home-based food businesses to really connect with their customers through digital storytelling. You can share your story, show off those mouthwatering dishes, and build a community around your brand. With captivating videos like behind-the-scenes shots, cooking tutorials, and customer testimonials, you can build trust, drive traffic to your website, and boost your sales—all while keeping your audience engaged!
Why You Should Use Instagram Reels and TikTok for Your Food Business:
TikTok and Instagram Reels offer an incredible opportunity for food businesses to attract a local, and sometimes even a global audience in just a few seconds. Whether it’s TikTok’s viral potential that can skyrocket your business without a massive budget or Instagram Reels seamlessly integrating your content into the algorithm, the possibilities are endless. Using location-oriented hashtags or enabling locations connected to your posts will increase your presence among local’s explore pages, and boost engagement.
With their focus on quick, engaging content, these platforms are the perfect stage for sharing your delicacies. From cooking tutorials to fascinating food preparation processes, your content has the power to attract and retain a dedicated following, turning viewers into loyal customers. Get cooking and get ready to shine!
The Obstacles and How To Overcome Them When Using TikTok and Instagram Reels for Your Food Business.
Creating consistent and high-quality content for TikTok and Instagram Reels can be daunting for small food businesses. Challenges are to be expected, in any aspect of creating and operating a food business, and operating social media is no different, but as obstacles come, there is always a way to work around them:
 Maintaining Consistency: Post consistently and let your brand shine!
Batch Filming: Batch filming is a very common solution, where you dedicate one day a week to film various types of content, and then share that content over the week. Following a schedule and routine with batch filming can ease out the process and have you spread out specific duties over days.
Algorithm Changes: Shifts in TikTok and Instagram’s content ranking algorithms can reduce visibility. Staying up with trends may help you keep up with the algorithm.
High Content Quality: Instagram Reels often demand more polished, high-resolution videos compared to TikTok’s casual nature. It is always important to have your photos and videos of your food well-lit.
Competition: Standing out in the crowded food market can be tough. Maintaining your beliefs, and pushing for unique content can assist in standing out.
Staying on Trend: Keeping up with trending hashtags and viral content is essential to maintain growth.
Technical Skills: Efficient use of video editing tools is recommended, but you can get away with the simplest editing techniques, and letting the food do the talking.
Audience Engagement: Actively managing comments, shares, and direct messages gives a personal touch to the brand.
Authenticity: Balancing genuine storytelling with professional content, and maintaining the human aspect of a food business.
 Ad Fatigue: Avoid overly promotional content, as it may decrease audience engagement as they lose interest.
Overcoming these obstacles requires adapting to social media trends, engaging with followers, and focusing on creative content strategies.
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Where To Start With TikTok and Instagram Reels
It can feel overwhelming when you think about using Instagram Reels and TikTok marketing for your food business. The best place to start is by following the steps below, one at a time:
Set Up Professional Profiles: Craft a polished business profile with a bio that highlights your food offerings, add relevant hashtags like #foodbusiness, and include a clear call-to-action to drive traffic.
Explore Platform Features: Dive into tools like Reels editing, TikTok’s sound libraries, and fun platform features like Duets or Instagram Stories to enhance your content.
Start Simple: Begin with easy, snackable content—like quick food prep clips or simple recipes—to get your audience interested.
Use Trending Audio and Hashtags: Boost your visibility by hopping onto trending sounds and popular hashtags for food businesses that align with the food niche. 88% of TikTok users state sound is crucial to the TikTok experience.
Create a Content Calendar: Stay organized with a consistent content schedule, focusing on peak times when your audience is most active.
Study Competitors: Peek at how successful food businesses are leveraging TikTok and Instagram Reels, and take notes from their content strategies.
Optimise Video Length: Keep TikTok videos short and snappy (15-30 seconds) while experimenting with longer Reels (up to 60 seconds) on Instagram.
Cross-Promote: Share your Reels and TikToks across other platforms like Facebook and Instagram Stories to maximize reach.
Leverage User-Generated Content: Encourage customers to share and repost their food experiences, showcasing real-life engagement.
Track Performance: Regularly check platform insights to see what’s working—track views, engagement, and growth to adjust your strategy, by checking Reels Analytics and TikTok analytics.
Attracting Local Customers: Using specific hashtags or including Facebook or Instagram locations can help you reach out to the audience local in your area. Putting up ads promoting your food business can also help attract local consumers.
These steps provide a comprehensive starting strategy for effectively marketing your business on TikTok and Instagram Reels in the food business space, so you can start on the right foot and get to sharing those mouthwatering dishes. Ensure you are staying consistent and following these steps. Doing so will allow you to understand better how you can use TikTok and Reels at their best for your food business!
Best Ways to Use TikTok and Instagram Reels for Your Food Business
Create Engaging Content
The key to success on TikTok and Instagram Reels is creating engaging and visually appealing content that showcases your brand and what you are all about. Food businesses have a unique advantage on these platforms because food content is naturally eye-catching, and there is always an audience for it. Some key strategies to keep in mind when creating engaging content:
Visual Appeal: Ensure your dishes stand out by using great lighting and a simple, clean setup. Bold, colourful foods naturally attract attention and make a strong visual impact.
Storytelling: Take your audience beyond the final dish by sharing behind-the-scenes footage, from sourcing ingredients to the cooking process. Highlight personal or cultural stories behind the recipes to add meaning.
Share Who You Are: Be personal about who you are, and share why you created your food business. Audiences love a good personal story behind a food business and are more attracted to interact with those businesses after hearing them, especially those locally based.
Follow Trends: Stay relevant by using trending music, and hashtags, and participating in food-related challenges to increase visibility.
Simple Editing: Effective video editing doesn’t require complex tools. Use apps like CapCut, a free editing tool with expansive features or the built-in features on TikTok and Instagram Reels to enhance your content while letting the food shine through.
When creating engaging content, it’s important to showcase what your food business is about and be unique. Avoid copying other brands and representing your food business as something it’s not. Food businesses that fully embrace themselves often gain the most traction – and have people coming back craving for more!
Connect With Your Audience Through Instagram Reels and TikTok
Customer engagement is crucial to succeed on Reels or TikTok. Building a relationship with your audience is key to sustaining growth on TikTok and Instagram Reels. Hooking them in can be tricky, but there are various ways to hook them in. To foster customer engagement, you must have a high amount of audience interaction and stick to creating content that assists in being recognized by the algorithm, but also having the audience crave for more, assisting you in growing Instagram followers or boosting TikTok engagement. Here are 13 helpful tips:
Reply to Comments: Engage with your followers by responding to their comments. Building this connection creates a sense of community.
Highlight Local Flavour: Create content that reflects your local area, whether it’s a farmer’s market visit or a regional dish, making your audience feel connected to your roots.
Host Q&A Sessions: Go live to interact with your audience in real-time. Answer questions and share your passion for food, helping create stronger relationships with followers.
Cook-Along Tutorials: Invite your audience to cook alongside you during live tutorials, offering a personal and engaging experience.
Run Giveaways: Boost engagement by hosting giveaways. Ask your followers to tag friends or share content for a chance to win, which helps increase reach.
Repost and Share Content About Your Audience: Encourage customers to share videos enjoying your food, and repost their content to show appreciation while increasing audience interaction.
Behind-the-Scenes Content: Share behind-the-scenes glimpses of your kitchen and cooking process to add authenticity and build trust with your followers.
Interactive Stories: Use Instagram Stories to create quick polls or quizzes about your dishes, encouraging followers to engage with your content.
Consistent Posting: Stay active by posting regularly. Consistency helps keep your audience engaged and your brand visible, keeping viewers interested in seeing new videos weekly or daily.
Educational Content: Share cooking tips, tricks, or nutritional facts that can spark curiosity and encourage more interaction.
Collaborate with Influencers: Partner with local influencers to expand your reach and attract new followers interested in your culinary offerings.
Follow Local and Holiday Trends: Participate in local or seasonal trends to keep your content relevant and timely, especially during festive periods.
Engaging Captions: Use captions that ask questions or encourage conversation, inviting your audience to interact with your content and deepen engagement.
Engagement is key to growth, and maintaining engagement assists you in connecting to a wider, and larger audience, and boosting your food business on Reels and Tiktok!
Examples of Food Businesses Using TikTok and Instagram Reels
Many small food businesses have successfully used TikTok and Instagram Reels to grow their brand. Take, for example, a local bakery that shares daily videos of its bread-making process. The raw, authentic feel of these videos has led to a dedicated following of people who enjoy watching the entire process from dough to freshly baked bread.
Home chefs also capitalize on TikTok’s relaxed vibe by sharing quick, easy recipes in short videos that don’t require professional lighting or a film crew. The relatability and simplicity of these videos resonate with a broad audience, leading to high engagement and increased sales.
Examples:
TikTok: Cris and John Vietnamese Street Food – @crisandjohn
Their restaurant focuses on a fusion of Vietnamese food with a Mexican twist. Garnered an impressive 66.2k followers, the restaurant simply takes advantage of trending sounds, as well as good lighting and well-plated food to show off its dishes to the world. A great example of how simple lighting and beautiful-looking dishes are enough for TikTok.
TikTok: Sticky – @stickyaustralia
A unique food business focused on creating stick lollies, the business has created a massive following of 7.6 million followers. A great example of showcasing the behind-the-scenes, the people behind the restaurant, how it goes with creating those sweet, colourful stick lollies, and the satisfying process of making them. It is one of many businesses that could have been shut down during the pandemic, only for them to post on TikTok and become the massive business they are today, with millions of followers and views.
TikTok: Baker Rae – @bakerraexcafe
Baker Rae is a Filipino-inspired bakery and cafe based in Toronto, Ontario. Their TikToks revolve around the business showcasing their indulgent baked goods, as well as the people behind it. Being open about starting as a home-based kitchen, and eventually opening up their first cafe, Baker Rae does a great job at showcasing their delicacies, but also telling the story behind their business to their audience.
Instagram: JJ Bakes Company – @jjbakescompanyÂ
JJ Bakes Company is a food business based in Langley, BC, focusing on baked goods and pastries, as well as an assortment of unique and colourful drinks. Their brand on Instagram focuses on promoting their dishes but also posts many Reels of interacting with their customers and keeping up with trends, such as recently, they have been posting content related to football season and fall festivities.
Instagram: Bad Roman – @badromannyc
Full of delicious Italian dishes, colourful drinks and plates of pasta, Bad Roman based in New York City uses Instagram to showcase their delicacies, as well as Reels, adding funny, edgy jokes to tag along with their pictures. A great example of how Instagram requires a different level of professionalism compared to the laid-back content that is common on TikTok.Â
Instagram: Nabs Cake House – @nabscakehouse:Â
Nabs Cake House, a local, home-based food business based in Mississauga, Ontario, consistently posts to Instagram, showcasing their delicious and visually stunning cakes, as well as tips and tutorials related to baking. A brilliant example of simply showcasing what your business is capable of, using good lighting and letting the food do the talking.
Instagram: Shelbys – @shelbyscanada
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