Instagram for restaurants: the comment is the order, if you answer it

Views are not covers

A reel can reach fifty thousand people and fill no extra table. Reach is the audience; the comment is the moment somebody in that audience decides they might actually come.

That moment is short. A question answered in a minute is a booking. The same question answered the next afternoon is a guest who has already eaten somewhere else.

Answer in the DM, every time, in seconds

The fix is not a social media manager awake at midnight. It is a rule: when somebody comments a word you chose — menu, price, book — they get a private message with the menu, the location and a button to book or order, while a short public reply tells everybody else to check their messages.

Two limits keep this from turning into spam. Send one automatic message per person per day, however many times they comment, and use Instagram's official messaging API so the account stays in good standing.

What to post in an ordinary week

Consistency beats production. Five short, real clips a week will do more than one polished video a month.

• •A signature dish being made, start to finish, in fifteen seconds
• •The room at its busiest — a full restaurant is the most persuasive picture you have
• •A regular's usual order, with their permission
• •This week's offer, once, with the word to comment for details
• •The kitchen or the pass during service, because people trust what they can see

Measure the only number that matters

Likes and followers are the scoreboard for somebody else's game. For a restaurant the question is how many conversations started on Instagram became a booking or an order.

Put a short code in the automatic message and ask for it at the table or in the order note. After a month you will know which posts filled tables, and you can stop making the ones that did not.