Online ordering works for food on Instagram. Find out how!
As per the global digital report, close to half of the seven billion people in the world are active social media users and the fastest expansion of user-base is happening on Instagram. With over a billion people sharing their lives on Instagram every month, we are excited to discover the real potential of the platform.
In this blog post, we have covered 6 logical reasons why the online food ordering phenomenon will successfully gravitate towards social media. The reasoning has been categorized as follows:
- Popularity
- Bespoke experience
- Instant gratification
- Ad-clutter on aggregator apps
- Relevance
- Trust
In May 2018, Instagram brought in some extremely useful action buttons to turn discovery into action. Instagram creators had announced, “With the Instagram action buttons available, people can now make reservations, buy tickets, send an order, or book through famous third-party partners without having to leave Instagram.” After this people could do more with Instagram than just liking a food pic and moving on.
With that in mind, we set out to probe the scope of ordering food on Instagram itself. Does it have the potential to reduce dependency on food aggregators for both customers and restauranteurs? We narrow down our research to 6 points:
- Popularity: With 200 million Instagram users accessing at least 1 business account per day and 135 million of them clicking on shoppable ads, the scope of selling on Instagram is huge and poised to grow further.
As per Rival IQ’sIndustry-wise report, food and beverage posts draw a higher than average engagement rate on the platform. So how many restaurants are actively selling on Instagram? The answer is hardly any.
Apart from mentioning the website link in the Instagram bio and stories, using shoppable ads to create food orders is not being done at the moment.
People are drooling over the 366 million #food pictures on Instagram, surely that’s an encouraging figure for restauranteurs to start selling on the platform.
- Bespoke Experience: Customers would prefer interacting with the brand they use in a more personal way rather than a standardized experience of all brands on one aggregator. Instagram is the perfect platform for this engagement.
By tracking social mentions and collecting feedback on the platform, restaurateurs will know exactly what their customer is expecting from them. This information is valuable for tailoring brand experiences for customers.
- Instant Gratification: Now we are yet to meet a person who does not love instant gratification. As per data sourced by Invespcro, 84% of all shoppers make an impulsive purchase. How about feeding the impulse with delightful food? You can’t go wrong with that.
- Ad-clutter on aggregator apps: Remember the time you wanted to order breakfast and you could only finalize your choice by lunch? We’ve all been there. With the exorbitant number of choices that one gets flooded with on food aggregators, life would be simpler if you could see something that you like and order it without overwhelming suggestions.
Sweeten the deal by adding some discounts, the convenience of tracking the food, and making the payment online. You would not open a food aggregator app again.
Oh wait, we already do all that! Check out Radyes, We make food pics edible.
Image Source: https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/2019-social-media-benchmark-report/#title-food-beverage
- Relevance: Instead of liking a picture of a dish across the world, wouldn’t you prefer discovering something awesome to eat around you? Hyper-local ads on Instagram can be a gamechanger for restaurants since they will only reach people who can place an order.
This will surely generate traction amongst hungry Instagrammers located around your restaurant during lunchtime.
- Trust: The Instagram feed is a great way to know the story and motivation of a restaurant. This knowledge builds trust and interest in the food a restaurant dishes out. Instagrammers are more likely to order what they can trust in, rather than switch platforms to find something else altogether on a food aggregator’s app.
The ‘click it before you eat it’ phenomenon is here to stay, schedule a demo with Radyes to monetize this massive opportunity.
Platform users are spending an average of 53 minutes on the app every day. So tell me again why can’t they order food while they are at it?
