How to get more followers through design for food and beverage brands
Struggling to get your social media Instagram feed looking flawless?
It’s not just a pretty face, your Instagram feed plays a crucial role in social media marketing and whether users click the ‘follow’ button.
See our top 4 tips below to get a drop it like it’s hot social feed and get your customers clicking that follow button!
We’ll be talking about social media design marketing elements like:
- Consistency of colours
- Balancing content
- Importance of lighting
- Quality of images
#1 Colour
One of the easiest ways to get your Instagram feed poppin’ is to get a consistent colour scheme. You might think this is basic but it’s super important because your feed reflects your food and beverage brand, and you need to get it right, straight from the get-go!
Start by choosing a theme for your social media feed and then develop your colour pallet from there, i.e. will it be moody, colourful or minimal?
We recommend taking and choosing pictures that have similar colour elements running through your images. However, a quick way to build a strong colour scheme is to use a photo filter across all your images. This can be done in online tools like VSCO or build your own in Adobe Lightroom.
A hospitality Instagram feed we love is @barmargauxmelbourne. The team nailed a consistent colour scheme with warm tones and pops of burgundy through their whole feed… the outcome? It looks freaking awesome!
#2 Balance
It’s a balancing act when deciding which images look great next to each other and it can be one of the trickier parts of building a 🔥 feed.
So, here’s our little secret, we recommend using a grid format tool so you can play around with the placement of your social media content before posting them. An awesome social media design online tool like Canva can make your life so much easier, and is fantastic if you’re doing social media marketing in the food and beverage space.
Alright, so you’ve now got a tool that can help you see all of your images laid out like an Instagram feed but how do you get your social media feed looking great?
1. Space out your content i.e. food, beverage, promotion, event, personality
2. Use a range of close-up images, design tiles with text and images that have a plain background
3. Use colour to help break up your feed but still remain consistent with your chosen brand style.
One of our favourite balanced feeds which is totally on point is @maybe_sammy_sydney. A stunning Sydney cocktail bar, these guys separated their content with vintage black and white images, coloured drink and bar shots and a consistent style with their marketing promotion tiles.
#3 Lighting
Every professional photographer knows that lighting is key to great, professional looking photos but let’s face it A LOT of hospitality venues: restaurants, bars, pubs and clubs, are taking the DIY approach using smartphones.
If you’re going to take the time to take photos of your venue, food & beverages whether it’s with a professional camera or a smartphone, head towards the window light (unless you have a proper lighting set up). 😉
The best times for natural lighting are in the morning or in the late afternoon, photographers call these times the ‘golden hours’. Avoid taking photos in direct sunlight or where it’s to dark, they won’t look any good.
Our in-house photographer always tries to use natural light for all her food and beverage photoshoots. We take inspiration from Sydney café @blackwoodpantry with its light and bright food and beverage images, they do it well.
#4 Quality
QUALITY QUALITY QUALITY! We can’t drill this into you more. With the amount of social media content we see every day, there is no room for nasty images. Viewers, particularly in cluttered markets like Sydney and Melbourne will just pass on through without so much as a thought or a second glance.
‘Quality’ is what will get you noticed and is probably the most important detail when you’re thinking about pulling together a drop it like it’s hot social media feed.
How do you get quality you ask? Well, start with professional images and on-brand graphic design. It’s important to make a small investment into these two elements to drive Facebook and Instagram engagement and reach, grow your social media following and ultimately ROI. 
One of our favourite places to shoot that does a killer job with their Instagram feed is Sydney rooftop restaurant and bar @thefernerymosman. Down-pat! See all the work the we did that got HUGE results on our case study page for The Fernery Mosman.
As social media marketers and public relations experts we have some great strategies that can gain your campaign visibility and direct reach within a community Facebook page, whether your launching a new restaurant, venue or pub. Contact us to chat about how we can support you or have a look at some of our work to see the results we deliver.