In this vlog, host Roy Abdo interviews DC Food Gang, a DC-based seafood influencer with over 125,000 engaged followers, to share five actionable strategies that restaurant owners can use to grow their Instagram presence and drive foot traffic. The conversation covers (1) creating experience‑focused visual content that treats food as art, (2) researching competitor hashtags and customizing a 30‑hashtag set for each post, (3) actively engaging micro‑influencers by searching local “places” posts, liking, and direct‑messaging them, (4) forming cross‑promotions with neighboring businesses such as hair salons, and (5) hosting regular media events that invite influencers, collect their contact info, and turn their posts into free advertising. The vlog ends with a brief motivational note about overcoming fear of rejection and failure. The tone is conversational and instructional, with enthusiastic and supportive sentiment throughout.
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5 tips on how to increase your Instagram and food followers and get more traction and get more people in your business. Guys, it's a new, it's a new vlog. We have the Seafood Gang with us, the seafood influencer, and we're going to be talking to you restaurant owners. This vlog is a little different. What we have, we have a DC influencer here and we're going to be talking about tips for you restaurant owners, but also we're going to be talking about him, how he started his Instagram feed and how it's exploding. Watch us and let us know. First, let's start. Tell us more about you. How did you start this Instagram feed? He has about 100, over 125,000 followers. High engagement. Let's figure out the recipe.
Yeah, so DC Food Gang first started out as a sales tool, but as my passion grew for taking pictures, videos for food, uh, you know, I just wanted to keep growing the account in terms of providing value for the people that are looking at the food and ultimately bringing them into the restaurants that I provide content for.
5 tips on how to increase your Instagram and food followers and get more traction and get more people in your business. You guys ready? What's the first advice you'd give them?
Okay, number one, content is king, especially in a—
what is content?
Tell them. So content is where, you know, the restaurant would post images or videos about the food or the whole experience that they're trying to provide for the customers. Um, so yeah, make sure you guys—
people don't want food, they want an experience. If you're not building the experience as soon as they walk in with whatever you're gonna put in, the special way you serve the food, the composition, the presentation. Food is an art, right? And they're buying that piece of art from you. And if you're not designing this art, what's gonna happen? Someone else is. What's the second advice you give them?
Speak the language of the audience.
What's your magic recipes for hashtags?
So what I do, I actually look through my own competitors, to be honest. So whatever account that does really well in the local area, or let's say in your niche, we do, I look at their hashtags that they use and the posts that work for them. And I literally copy the hashtags and then twist it up with my own hashtags. So let's say I get 30 hashtags, which is the max amount of hashtags you can post on every picture or video you do. I just copy and paste it and then just switch out whatever ones I want to switch out. And yeah, I mean, from there it's good to go.
And here's another— the third advice we're going to give you is about engaging with your target audience. So if I was a restaurant owner, here's what I would do. I'd go on Instagram, I look on Instagram on this side, get on the search bar, you go into what? You go into places. Once you get into places, you hit search, look on DC, and you can see here's the top posts. So those are people that they're getting some traction on their posts, right? And here's like the most recent ones. So if I was you, what are you gonna do? You gotta look up those people if they have high audiences. Like for instance, she just posted 3 hours ago, she already has 300 likes. Maybe you should invite that person to the restaurant. You know what I mean? You gotta do some work and research and figuring out where, who are those people. There's that we call them all micro influencers. Send them a message, tell them, hey, we have this restaurant, we realize that, you know, we're— we have a bunch of followers, we'd like to invite you to our restaurants, join us and let us know about the experience, about the food. The second thing I would do is look at who posted recently and like those photos if they're in your area. What's going to happen, they're going to see that you like their photos and they can engage in a conversation. The fourth advice we talked about is partnerships and cross-promotions. Think about it, people around you, if you have a hairdresser around you, if you have some local business around you that sells some other stuff that could be complementing your business, that's a great way to cross-promote. Post, post something on their post and then they will post something on your Instagram. That's going to get you what? Exactly, cross-promotion. What's the last tip you want to give them?
So the last tip that we want to provide is the events that you guys hold. Getting in front of these micro-influencers, we're going to go back to that point. These micro-influencers have a big following and whatever they post on their Instagram, people will see, their friends will see, their local audience will see. And based off of that, you want to use as many micro-influencers as you can and get them to post your content. But how do you do that? You bring them to an event that you host, let's say like a media event. You say, hey, we got free meals. We're gonna comp your meals. Just come in, you know, take pictures, photos, videos, post it on your Instagram. You know, we respect you guys' Instagram, so we want to bring you guys over for a free meal and to, you know, just network.
Here's what's gonna happen. Once you post that one event a month, which is the last tip we're giving you, in that one event, you're gonna make some noise about it. Hey, we're doing this for you guys. And once they come in, you collect their emails, their contacts, and you build a relationship with them. Thank you for following us for the 5 tips. And now we're gonna show you some actions, how DC Food Gang get into the whole filming and how he does his magic. Appearing and disappearing stuff. Ready?
Let's get it. Let's do it.
There's one thing I learned from a good mentor of mine is everything in your life is down to two fears: fear of rejection and fear of failure. And if you figure out a way to accept that rejection, move on past that failure, you could just do anything in life. Because the fact that you're gonna wake up, try something, and get slapped on your face, get punched on your face, swallow the blood, and keep moving forward, that alone will get you success. And the fact that you have an idea and you're gonna wake up and give it a shot and try to succeed with it, that trying is the success.
