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Food Photography Hacks For Restaurateurs: Capturing Irresistible Dishes With Just A Smartphone
Suchitra mKonnekt • August 30, 2023
In today's digital age, visuals play a pivotal role in attracting customers. This has led to food photography becoming an essential skill for restaurateurs.
The power of visually appealing food images should never be underestimated – they can tantalize taste buds, ignite cravings, and ultimately attract more customers through your restaurant's doors. The best part? You don't need a professional camera to capture these alluring shots. With just a smartphone and some clever techniques, you can elevate your food photography game. Let's explore some food photography hacks tailored for restaurateurs like you.
1. Mastering Lighting -The Foundation of Great Shots
When it comes to food photography, lighting is the linchpin. In specific, natural light is your best friend. It's soft, flattering, and brings out the colors and textures of your dishes.. If you're shooting indoors, experiment with different angles to find the best source of natural light, and ensure that you select a well-lit spot, potentially near a window. For evening shots, use warm indoor lighting to create an inviting ambiance.
2. Composition - Telling a Mouthwatering Story
The composition of your shot can make or break its appeal. Start by choosing a simple, clean background that complements your dish. Remember, less is often more. Arrange your elements thoughtfully – use the rule of thirds to guide your placement. Showcase the hero of the dish and add a few complementary props for visual interest. Crisp white plates, wooden boards, and textured napkins can enhance the overall presentation.
3. Angles - Playful Perspectives
Experimenting with angles can also yield captivating results. The classic top-down shot, also known as the flat lay, is perfect for displaying beautifully plated dishes. Capture the intricate details and layers by shooting from different angles – a slight tilt can make a dish look more dynamic. Don't hesitate to get close and personal for shots that highlight textures and ingredients.
4. Focus and Depth of Field - Emphasize What Matters
Smartphone cameras offer the magic of creating a shallow depth of field, which allows you to focus on the main subject while gently blurring the background. Tap on the screen to set the focus on your dish, and let the background fade away. This technique draws attention to the star of the show and adds an artistic touch to your photographs.
5. Editing Magic - Elevating Your Images
Once you've captured your shot, the magic of editing can take it to the next level. There are numerous user-friendly apps available that allow you to
adjust exposure, contrast, saturation, and more. Don't go overboard – aim for enhancements that bring out the true essence of your dish. Remember, consistency in editing style across your social media platforms can create a cohesive brand identity.
6. Showcase Your Culinary Tale
As a restaurateur, your dishes tell a unique story – share that narrative through your food photography. Whether it's the love that goes into crafting each recipe or the seasonal ingredients sourced from local farms, every image should convey the passion behind your menu. Let your images entice diners not just with their visual appeal, but also with the story they tell.
7. Inspiration from the Pros - Learn, Adapt, Innovate
Explore the world of food photography by following established food bloggers, chefs, and fellow restaurateurs. Take note of their styles, compositions, and lighting techniques. Adapt and incorporate these learnings into your own photography while adding your personal touch. Don't hesitate to innovate – experiment with unique angles or color palettes that align with your restaurant's theme.
Conclusion -
Food photography is a powerful tool that can elevate your restaurant's online presence and captivate the hearts of potential diners. By mastering lighting, composition, angles, focus, and editing, you can capture dishes that are truly irresistible. Remember, it's not just about showcasing the food – it's about sharing the passion, artistry, and stories that make your restaurant special. And with the convenience of a smartphone, these food photography hacks are at your fingertips. So, get behind the lens, and let your culinary creations shine!
For more insights into the world of restaurant marketing and enhancing your dining experience, explore our blog posts:
Dine-in Discoveries: 8 Effective Offline Marketing Ideas for Your Restaurant (mkonnekt.com)
The Rise of Food Bloggers: How to Leverage their Influence for Your Restaurant (mkonnekt.com)
How to create a winning restaurant marketing plan: Step-by-Step guide (mkonnekt.com)
In the fast-paced world of restaurant marketing, email campaigns remain a powerful tool for engaging customers and driving conversions. However, success lies in the strategy.
In the competitive world of the restaurant industry, marketing plays a pivotal role in attracting customers and staying ahead of the competition. However, not every restaurant has a substantial marketing budget to work with.
In the competitive world of restaurants, boosting profits while maintaining affordability is a constant challenge. Fortunately, there are creative menu hacks that savvy restaurateurs use to increase revenue without resorting to price hikes.
Have you ever imagined a world without the internet? We live in an entirely digital world where online marketing channels are the optimal sources of increasing business growth.
In today's digital age, the rise of food bloggers has transformed the way we discover and experience restaurants. Their unique ability to captivate audiences with tantalizing food imagery and engaging content presents a remarkable opportunity for small to large restaurant owners in Dallas, Texas & all over the world.
Have you heard about these 10 awesome steps that can totally crush it for your restaurant marketing plan?
It's true, by following these steps you can easily dominate the competition and attract more customers to your eatery.
So why not give it a shot and see the results for yourself?
And every restaurant, regardless of size, can benefit from a given restaurant marketing plan.
Let's break this down step-by-step to make sure we don't miss a beat. We definitely don't want to risk losing out on the chance to win big with our restaurant marketing plan!
So, let's take it one step at a time and make sure we cover all our bases.
What is Social Media ROI? With social media getting used as a great device in enterprises to grow, it's been more and more vital to track the effects of your social media efforts. The most pressing question now is how to comprehend the consequences of your social media strategy. Are you on the right track when it comes to your content strategy? To understand this you would want to see what is called as “Return on investment”, or ROI.It is nothing more than the returns a company would expect from the time, resources, and minds invested in the company's entire social media strategy. In terms of math, it boils down to: Revenue-Costs/Costs*100. Now imagine you were running a grocery store and you purchased the groceries for $100 and sold them for $150, then you'd get: 150-100/100*100= 50% by plugging these numbers into the formula. Isn't it easy enough? But, in terms of social media marketing, how do you apply this concept? The return on investment (ROI) on your social media campaign is the amount of money you've made.But not all social media efforts are directly attributable to monetary benefits. As a result, all marketers must be able to extract and apply relevant data, as and when required. Why is it important to measure social media ROI? It's crazy how many marketers have no idea what kind of ROI they're getting from which channel or how their social media practices are impacting their enterprise. Since every step, every effort you put into your business has repercussions, this underestimation of social media can cause havoc for your business. As a result, it's past time for you to start treating your social media sites with the respect they deserve. If you've figured out which social media activities are yielding the best results, you can start planning strategies in that direction. For example, you will discover that posting stories on Instagram or running competitions on Facebook generates more momentum on specific days, resulting in increased monetary benefits to your company; as a result, you'll know what you need to do in the future. That’s the power of studying ROI. How to measure social media ROI? Step-1 Identify your goals: Always determine the goals you want to achieve from your activities before calculating returns or even thinking about analyzing the consequences of your social media efforts. Do you want to increase your following? Do you want more people to sign up for your newsletter? Do you want to increase your sales? Following that, you should consider calculating the ROI. Step-2 Understanding marketing funnel: After you've figured out your marketing objectives, you should move on to understanding your marketing funnel. Understanding how social media metrics connect to the customer journey is a crucial first step. Engagement with the consumer, which translates to reach in social media terms, is the first step in the customer journey, as it is in the early phases. Similarly, while learning about your audience in the middle stage, it translates to CPC, or cost per click , and CTR, or click through rate . Finally, at the last stage, encouraging your audience to purchase equates to conversions like sales, subscriptions, downloads, etc. Step-3: Calculate! Now that you have targeted your KPIs and understood what to calculate, now comes the tricky part, calculating them. In order to determine your ROI, you'll need the correct tools. Many built-in technologies, such as Facebook insights, Instagram insights, and LinkedIn insights, provide granular information on how people interact with your material. With these, you can keep track of all of your engagement. You can observe when your audience is active, where they are from, what demographics they have, so on and so forth. You can check how your audience reacted to your ad using Facebook Ads Manager. Another significant tool is Google Analytics. To find out how much traffic and conversions your social media marketing efforts are producing, add Google Analytics UTM parameters to the URL of your social media ads. Why is measuring social media marketing ROI difficult? Due to a variety of factors, social media managers and executives are finding it increasingly challenging to measure social media marketing ROI. Executives are unsure about what to measure. Many people believe that if their content gets a lot of likes and shares, their strategy is good enough; however, this is not always the case. We need to see if our efforts are yielding any quantitative results. Is your product being purchased? Is the quality of your online orders improving? Is your ebook gaining popularity? Always measure all the relevant KPIs and do analysis accordingly. Wrap up: Social media marketing ROI is a parameter that should never be overlooked, if you are putting in genuine efforts in it, and want good results out of it, keep measuring and keep analyzing!
The year 2022 has been nothing less than a rollercoaster ride! We've been through a lo of things, experimented, struggled and got through them all. Is safe to say that we at least tried to go through all of these, whether it was inflation, supply chain challenges, or labor shortages , and guess what was constant in all of them that helped us get through? Guess what was common in all that helped us get through? It's tech! Technology has always been by our side for us to improve and get through the difficult times that we faced. And let's face it, all these issues are not going away anytime soon, hence it is important, not only for the restauranteurs, but people in every industry to be familiar with the tech trends before planning out their strategies for the next year. Here, we have talked about the top 5 tech trends to watch out for in 2023. #1 Online Ordering- Not only because of the pandemic, which forced numerous restaurants to discontinue dine-in service, but also because of the convenience of online ordering, it is expected that online ordering and delivery will grow even more. People nowadays want their favorite foods delivered right to their door. To begin, a decent website and app provide a firm foundation to build. Allowing customers to pay for online purchases directly on your website would simplify the process even more. Customers will love the convenience of ordering and paying for food from their computer or mobile device. According to a report by Statista , the revenue of online food delivery is estimated to expand at a 13.68% annual rate (CAGR 2022-2027), resulting in a market volume of US$1.45 trillion by 2027. Restauranteurs should focus on taking help from in-house online ordering platforms, such as Foodkonnekt, which minimize the high margins charged by the third party delivery platforms and also enhance the customer experience. #2 Ghost/Virtual Kitchens- According to current data, meal delivery orders increased by more than 150 percent from 2019 to 2020, and UBS predicts the food delivery company to rise more than tenfold in ten years, from $35 billion to $365 billion. More restaurant operators and food entrepreneurs are turning to cloud kitchens as a feasible business solution as the demand for meal delivery develops. Restaurants rent space in virtual or "ghost kitchens," which are centrally located, licensed commercial food production facilities, to create menu items that are best for delivery. They are essentially kitchens without a dining area; food is only prepared for delivery. Under one roof, a single restaurant may manage multiple brands or virtual eateries, or the kitchen may serve as an incubator for other suppliers. As the demand for meal delivery grows every day, many restaurateurs have turned it into full-fledged businesses, and this trend appears to be continuing into the next year. The market for ghost kitchens is anticipated to reach $1.05 billion in value by 2023. #3- Loyalty programs- The next trend that we'd like to discuss is the technology that goes into establishing and implementing loyalty programs. We are all aware that the oncoming recession will make life more difficult in the following year. Consumers are spending less and less on products they don't necessarily use in their daily lives as costs rise. As a result, as a restaurant owner, you must choose how to optimize revenues despite the possibility of a recession. And here is when a loyalty program comes into play. In monetary terms, it is a well-known fact, and all marketers emphasize it, that new clients are more difficult to target than regulars. The cost of acquiring new consumers is significantly more than the cost of retaining existing customers. As a result, now is the ideal time to target your loyal customers. And that can be easily done with a proper loyalty program in place. Freekwent is a digital loyalty program that we at mKonnekt operate for our clients across several locations. It is an excellent approach to treat your regulars to fresh deals and discounts that you may choose to run. In these difficult times, it will help you retain those extra dollars. #4- Automated Inventory Software Management System- The marketplace is getting more competitive. Those who identify present demands and react accordingly will thrive in the long run. The world is becoming more frantic and digitally dependent. Customers want better efficiency, prompt service, and high-quality products. An automated inventory system is a modern solution to the myriad challenges associated with human inventory systems. Because inventory systems are automated, they are more efficient and straightforward to administer, allowing management to manage activities more effectively and at a faster pace. It helps restaurants manage their ingredient purchase orders, stock levels, menu, and recipes expenses. The best inventory management software systems for restaurants integrate with or are built into point-of-sale (POS) systems, minimizing administrative time. These services cost between $99 and $129 per month. Some tools, on the other hand, are free and have limited functionality. Furthermore, to enhance restaurant operations, says Dirk Izzo, President and General Manager of NCR Hospitality, they are using data for more accurate forecasts. #5- Restaurant Marketing Automation and Smart Tech- Customers and restaurant businesses are embracing AI, from robots that flip hamburgers and make salads to those that handle order taking. McDonald's acquired AI company Dynamic Yield in 2019 with the goal of enhancing the customer experience at drive-thrus with the help of the business' automated personalization offering. The menu choices are shown according to the time of day, the weather, the volume of customers dining now, and what's trending on the website. Additionally, it makes meal suggestions based on the decisions each customer makes. The need for third-party delivery services increased as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced individuals to remain at home. Although companies like UberEATS and DoorDash have adapted to the challenge, restaurants still have a chance to enhance delivery even further. So this is the food part of AI. There is a much more pressing need, and we are already seeing the increasing likeability on the marketing front of the restaurant industry as well. Everything is now digital. And there are numerous ways for customers to interact with a business. Everything from social media to chatbots to websites. And all of these contacts are a direct source of what we refer to as "first party customer data." This data is a gold mine, if you ask us. An astute marketer can do so much with this information. And this is where technology and analytics come into play, which will be a clear and prominent trend in the coming year. For example, in order to conduct a successful email campaign, order data can be segmented so that targeted messages can be sent to consumers who haven't ordered in a specified length of time, say three months, and another section can be developed for people who are regulars. We have a team of incredibly smart marketers here at mKonnekt ; contact us if you want to see the mKonnekt magic! Wrap up- Those who are in tune with changing conditions are the clear winners in any industry. Here, we addressed the biggest restaurant innovations that will come to power in the following year, so get ready!
Guess what any social media manager or content creator would say if you asked them today, for the key to growing your Instagram? You guessed it right! Instagram Reels. Creating and posting reels on Instagram is the secret sauce to increase your reach and engagement massively. If your social media and content strategy doesn't have reels in it, you are missing something very important. For one of our pizza franchise clients, we at mKonnekt started making and posting reels four times per week, and one of the restaurants witnessed an of increase of 1100% in IG reach and 1300% increase in engagement. Therefore, we will wish to preach what we do! Now, many people who want to boost their Instagram handle as novices find it quite challenging. Small business owners, personal brands, and everyone else may have difficulty developing an Instagram content strategy. Because, trust us, growing Instagram is no stroll in the park. We are here to save the day. We have come up with what you might refer to as a comprehensive guide or solutions to the top and most often asked questions about Instagram reels. Without further ado, let's go! Table Of Contents Q.1 What are Instagram reels? Q.2 How to make and post an Instagram reel? Q.3 What are some tips to make my reel viral? Q.4 What is the best time to post an Instagram reel? Q.5 How to track the top most important metrics? What Are Instagram Reels? Reels are brief, video-style pieces of content that may be produced to engage with your audience, grab their attention while educating them about your company story, and also be used to draw in potential customers. You can leverage reels to make entertaining videos to share on Instagram with your 15-second multi-clip films can be recorded and edited using new artistic tools, audio, and effects. Reels can be shared on Feed with your followers, and if your account is public, a new section under Explore will allow users from all around Instagram to access them. This wonderful video feature is accessible in the US and 50 other nations. On August 5, 2020, Instagram unveiled this fantastic feature. You can read the official announcement here . Instagram Reels have been a fantastic tool for brands and companies to exercise their creative muscles and provide a visual experience beyond a grid post ever since they were first introduced. How To Make And Post An Instagram Reel? Step 1- Open your IG profile’s homepage or what we also call as feed, and navigate to the top right hand corner. You will find a “plus” icon, beside the messages/DMs’ button. Another option is to click on the “Reels” icon, situated in the middle of the five buttons at the very end of the page. Both options will take you to the same interface.
'Tis the holiday season y'all! It is that time of the year- crispy breeze, misty evenings, family and great food. What does it mean for you as a restaurant owner? Here we are, with a detailed list of things that you can do to keep those orders coming in. Seasonal Menu Holidays are the best time to roll out a seasonal menu. Why should you do it? Guests feel festive during this time, and want to try exotic dishes, seeing a seasonal menu automatically attracts them as they want to have something exotic and something that goes with the theme and atmosphere. What should you think about before-hand? Do you have the ingredients with you? Are they easy to get hold of? Do your cooks/chefs know how to prepare the special dishes? Can the items on the menu be changed while maintaining quality for both large and small orders? In addition, think about how you'll package seasonal specials for pick-up and delivery. Consider your options carefully before providing these options for a dish if it can't be delivered to the customer in the same condition. Take a look at a few examples below- During the holiday season, customers are quite fond of flavors like peppermint, eggnog, gingerbread, cranberry, turkey, pumpkin spice, and chestnut. Make sure to highlight a variety of meals using these items. Coffee shops can come up with Pumpkin spiced lattes, other options are comforting soups and stews, spiced beverages, and peppermint-flavored desserts. You can serve soups from huge cauldrons to create a spooky vibe in the store. You can try with drinks and pastries. Remember how Christmas is always about candy canes and hot chocolate? Ingredients such as caramel, marshmallow, berries, and many others can be used. Instead of coming up with entirely new dishes, you can just simply tweak existing dishes and coming up with interesting and eye-catching names of the items- like spooky burger, chopped fingers, etc. Similarly, play with Turkey, cranberry etc. for Thanksgiving. Sales Forecasting Sales forecasting is one of the most important steps to undertake while prepping for the holidays. You should be aware of what kind of traffic awaits you during these special days. Analyzing the historical data from the sales report from the previous year is one method for doing this. Calculate the table turnover and the number of customers you anticipate on a busy night. Take A Look At Your Inventory Be ready for a higher foot-fall, ready by having what you need, inventory! The easiest method to plan ahead is to save kitchen notes and inventory analytics reports from past years while getting ready for the following year. In order to avoid having to apologize to your clients for running out of food to serve them, arm yourself with the greatest and freshest products and keep plenty of them on hand. Do You Have Enough Staff During The Holidays? Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, and other holidays imply that you should prepare for a significant rush at your restaurant. You might need to hire more personnel to handle the extra consumers because there will likely be more guests than on any of the normal days. If your restaurant's service slacks off because of your wait staff inefficiency during the rush, it can destroy the overall client experience and damage the reputation of your business. So, if you want to help you manage the Christmas rush in eateries, think about hiring seasonal workers. Will you have enough workers to handle extra business and big holiday parties? Plan ahead for your seasonal hiring today, before your rivals hire the most dependable candidates. Speak to your staff regarding what their aspirations are, what kind of shifts do they want? Do they need offs to go back home? Spread the cheer! Will you have enough workers to handle extra business and big holiday parties? Plan ahead for your seasonal hiring today, before your rivals hire the most dependable candidates. A successful customer experience is mostly dependent on having a sufficient personnel. Talk to your team members about your requirements and their expectations for the holiday season during one of your staff meetings. Others might want more time off, while some will probably want to work more shifts to make more money. Make sure to properly explain any changes to your holiday hours during the meeting so that everyone on staff, including management, is aware of when the restaurant will be closed and when hours will be extended. As soon as you've confirmed the availability of your staff, make sure the timetable is prepared and distributed to everyone. Even though unexpected absences are common over the holidays, be sure your expectations about shift changes and swapping are very clear. To prevent misunderstanding, establish a protocol and be explicit about the consequences of call-offs. Decorations Make It Worth It! Creating a Holiday mood is a fantastic way to encourage consumers to make purchases. People want to enjoy the season, not merely eat meals with a festive theme. Customers may feel more festive if your dining area, foyer, and restaurant outside are all decked out in Holiday décor. Make sure any modifications you want to make, however, complement the style of your dining room and your overall brand before you start decking the halls. Some workers enjoy decorating, and they show it. Make it an after-hours activity and invite their kids and family to assist. Plan to ask a volunteer to lead the decorating committee for each key holiday season. Decide on a transition date as well; no one wants to see Halloween decorations right before Christmas. Beyond how they appear, keep in mind that decorations and other interior design components should never obstruct the dining experience or the productivity of your staff. Think about whether the tinsel you wish to hang could go into your customers' meals or whether a festive snowman statue might get in the way of the servers going to the kitchen, for instance. When choosing decorations, be thoughtful and functional. Holiday Catering Catering enables restaurants to connect with customers who are attending social gatherings and holiday festivities at home or another location with friends and family. You might want to think about increasing your catering services if the Holiday season is slow for business at your restaurant. Why not invite customers to your restaurant? Catering can be employed for both casual backyard holiday gatherings and the formal family Christmas dinner as a fast service or fine dining institution. Along with these, make sure your marketing is effective by knowing your target audience. For instance, gatherings will be more focused on things like Christmas, Halloween, New year and game day parties if you live in a community with young professionals (when in season). Email, SMS with first-party data, and social media platforms for awareness and discovery where your target demographic is already active online should all be included in your marketing strategy. Never forget that running a catering company and a restaurant demand completely different business philosophies. Always prepare your team and inventory for it. Gift Cards And Promos For holidays like Christmas, not every outlet will be open. Use social media, emails, or direct mail to inform clients in advance of your holiday hours and schedule. It's also a fantastic opportunity to provide a discount in appreciation for their loyalty. During the holiday gift-giving season, costs and budgets are on people's minds; your customers will value any loyalty discounts you provide. Everyone enjoys getting gifts that are free. Giving your customers a Christmas cake at the time of invoicing or providing complimentary wine with their meal is similar to giving them a Christmas gift. When you have a special deal, people purchase gift cards for both themselves and other people. They can then be invited to your loyalty program at that point. Try out these tactics and prepare your institution for the influx to make the holiday season your restaurant's most profitable period of the year! Take A Cue Here- Halloween offer- 2 medium Pizza + Small Salad (house/ Caesar) + Small Cheese Bread @ $30 Thanksgiving Combo - 2 large pizzas,1 Caesar salad & a cheese bread $32 Christmas Offer- Kids Eat free on purchases of $30. Community Relations The holidays are an excellent time of year to demonstrate to the community that you care. That you wish to repay them by spreading happiness. Here are some tactics to consider implementing as part of your community relationship development efforts. Coupon Partnerships Collaborate with nearby schools, churches, and apartments, for example. You can give participating youngsters (on Halloween or Christmas events) vouchers for a free lunch or a free menu item, or you can provide move-in coupons to new members of the apartment complex. This encourages the entire family to go to the restaurant to utilize the coupon. When they are pleased with your services, they will recommend you to others, and they will quickly become your regulars! To increase online ordering, it is always best to provide coupons connected to a minimum purchase like BOGO Deals. You can also issue coupons with codes that are exclusively valid for online orders. Social Media Use social media to your advantage over here! Give your supporters a reason to spread the word! Give them coupons in exchange for bringing in new likes or followers to your page. Provide customers free gift certificates for generating user-generated content for your page, such as tagging your company page and posting photos from your restaurant. It may appear as a lot, but trust us when we say that it would be quite beneficial to your restaurant. Conducting contests is another way to generate a joyful atmosphere on your social media. For instance, mKonnekt held a Halloween photo contest for one of its clients. We requested that schools post images of their grade-specific Halloween decorations. After that, we instructed them to distribute the images and garner as many likes as they could. The contestant who received the most likes won, and our client's restaurant provided them with a pizza party. This particular trial was successful in generating a significant quantity of traffic, and our metrics increased dramatically. Toys For Tots Toys for Tots is a 71-year national charitable program run by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. The mission of “Toys for Tots” is to provide happiness and hope to the disadvantaged kids with toys, books, gifts etc. The vision is to put a smile on the faces of the kids who are not able to have the simple joys in life. Setting Up Angel Trees Angel tree programs are a great way of helping out the less fortunate and giving back to the community. Angel trees are more or less like the Christmas trees, the main difference being that the tree is decorated with gift requests and tags by the sponsored families. Not only would this program spread holiday cheer and bring smiles on the faces of the needy, but also make people remember your name as a brand who cares! Wrap-Up Good luck! We hope you’ll use these tips to market your restaurant in an effective way during this holiday season. If you have some more tips to add, feel free to join our restaurant marketing group- Restaurant Marketers Hub and have a discussion there!