When it comes to mouthwatering photos of food, Instagram is the mecca. Food photography and Instagram are a better pair than bread and butter. One quick search and you will see all of the bakeries and restaurants leveraging Instagram in order to gain attention and drive foot traffic. Food is one of the most popular categories posted to the platform with multiple high trending hashtags that accompany the topic. The following steps will ensure that you take full advantage of the extremely powerful and free social media tool.

  1. There are over 1 billion active Instagram users every month! Just think about the potential to reach the masses without any of your hard-earned cash spent toward marketing or advertising efforts. Posting photos of your products on Instagram will allow your business the opportunity to reach more people than you could imagine. How do you make sure you reach those people and gain a larger following? Consistency and hashtags. According to a recent study, having at least 1 hashtag will get you 12.6% more engagement on your posts. If you take the time to research the top 10 hashtags in the food industry, then you are setting your posts up for immediate success. Hashtags are only effective if you are consistent. Working in a bakery and making fresh, delicious products each day, you should have no problem generating content for posts daily.
  1. Instagram users are easily influenced. According to the same study, 30% of users said they bought something they saw on Instagram. That means if you start taking photos of your freshly baked cookies or bread than you have the opportunity to turn some of those views into sales at your bakery. These sales come at the simple cost of taking your smartphone and hitting a few buttons!
  1. Video is quickly becoming the preferred type of content on Instagram. According to the study, user-time spent watching video is up 8% year-over-year, and 53% of marketers say Instagram video is an important part of their marketing strategy. What does this mean for a baker? Pull out your smartphone and take quick videos of your cookie depositor producing consistent high-quality cookies or your rack oven rotating to reveal trays of delicious pastries. These videos, whether on your feed or story, will generate tons of engagement and show off your craft. Speaking of Instagram stories…
  1. Instagram users are posting almost as many story posts as they are normal posts. In fact, out of the 1 Billion monthly users on Instagram, 31.4 million of them use Instagram stories every day! About to load a fresh batch of artisan bread into your deck oven? Why not take an ever-so-popular boomerang and put it up on your story tagging your bakery’s location? There is so much customization that can go into Instagram stories and it can give potential customers a look behind-the-scenes of your bakery or promote what is being baked on that particular day!

At the end of the day, Instagram is a powerful marketing tool for businesses that is totally free and requires only a few minutes of your time to get your product in front of thousands of hungry eyes in your area. We hope you can take this information and apply it to your bakery, and if you ever have further questions on promoting your bakery or bakery equipment, give Empire Bakery Equipment a call or visit us online!