Are you a food creator or food styling enthusiast? And do you want to make your Instagram food Reels stand out from the crowd?
Food is one of the most popular types of content posted daily on Instagram. In fact, food bloggers, professional chefs, restaurants, and other food-centric businesses have started using Instagram Reels to advertise their brands and recipes. The platform provides a perfect tool to do this because you can display your culinary skills while also interacting with followers in a more meaningful way.
If you want your reels to perform well, you can follow a few best practices when creating them. Instagram claims there’s no right way to make a reel, but we have repeatedly seen some things work for food bloggers.
In this post, we will explore six food blogger tips for creating amazing Instagram food Reels and growing your community.
Why are Instagram Reels Important for Food Bloggers?
Instagram describes Reels as “entertaining, immersive videos where you can creatively express your brand story, educate your audience, and get discovered by people who may love your business.”
Reels are a great way to get discovered by a wider audience and build brand loyalty. Most successful reels are under 90 seconds long, so the trick is to learn how to master short-form content and post regularly.
This format has become the primary way of posting videos on Instagram. In an update made in July 2022 by the company, it was announced that all video content posted on the platform that is under 15 minutes would be shown as Reels. This means that if you plan on using Instagram to post short videos, you need to get Reels right.
You might be worried that focusing on Instagram Reels may take your audience away from your actual blog website. In reality, this is a non-issue. You can, in fact, use Reels to direct new fans to your blog, where they discover more of your recipes and content.
So reels don’t have to replace your blog, but rather can be a great strategy to help grow it!
Our Top 6 Tips to Create Amazing Food Reels
In this article, we are going to cover the top six tips that food bloggers should use if they want their Instagram reels to stand out and be successful.
1. Be Relatable
Contrary to what you might think when you first get started with Reels, viewers are not just interested in food. What they want to see is the persona behind the videos; the content creator.
This is why it’s so important to always humanize your videos. Whenever you can, you should try to tell your story, use voiceovers, or even show your face if that’s something you’re comfortable doing. Most of Instagram’s own tips about creating Reels are about this exact thing. If your audience can connect with you more personally, they will definitely want to stay around longer.
2. Be Consistent
The second thing you will need to remember is that you are not just a food blogger (or a face); you are a brand. Your Reels will perform better if you find your USP or Unique Selling Point.
Are you known for healthy, mouth-watering desserts? Making plant-based vegan meat substitutes? Whatever it is, it’s good to find your niche and remain consistent within it. Your audience will connect with you more if they know what to expect from your videos. Instagram also recommends having consistency in all your posts by, for example, using the same tone of voice, a unified color scheme, and a regular calendar.
3. Engage With Your Audience
Your TikTok or Instagram fanbase will respond to your Reels more if they know you reply back. Address as many TikTok and Instagram comments as you can, especially if people are asking questions. You can actually use your Reels to answer FAQs. Another excellent idea is to make recipe Reels based on your audience’s suggestions.
4. Include Tips
Sharing a recipe is a great thing, but including tips that your users can use consistently in the kitchen will make your Reels more valuable and unique.
For example, not everyone will try to recreate the triple cookie dough fudge sundae you posted, but they will highly appreciate learning how to make sure chocolate doesn’t bloom. Adding tips and tricks to your Reels will keep your audience engaged and inspire them to watch more videos – even if they don’t plan on making every recipe you post.
5. Show the Process
Viewers love seeing the process of food being made. There are many ways of experimenting with showing this. For example, it’s common to first showcase the end product, and then take users through the steps ingredient-by-ingredient.
Remember, you ideally want Reels to be short, so it’s better to find intelligent ways of doing this to keep your audience engaged. Don’t be scared to also pair text and visual effects to make the process more attractive and easier to follow.
6. Use Reels to Direct People to Your Food Blog
As we have covered above, Reels are a great way to build a new foodie audience that you can then introduce to your blog. Combining the two can help you grow your brand, so keep these pointers in mind if you want to make sure you do this well:
- Link to the recipe: It’s best if you don’t leave the complete recipe in the full video description. Ideally, you should have the recipe up on your blog and when you post a Reel, tell people they can find the link to your blog in your Instagram bio.
- Link to pages and posts: You can choose whether to link to your website’s landing page or highlight a specific page or post. If you want to direct viewers to a particular post for whatever reason (for example, if you have an affiliate link you want users to click on), it could make sense to try the latter approach. If you want to build your brand and get people to know who you are and what kind of content you create, you should point them to your website’s home.
- Use Linktree: A Linktree is an excellent way to combine your entire content library from a single location. This platform allows you to add any links you want, customize your bio, and create a landing page that is specifically designed to generate more conversions. With Linktree, you can give your viewers the option to go to your site or a specific post on it.
How to Give Your Instagram Viewers A Good Experience on Your Site
If the majority of your audience lands on your yummy food blog through your Reels, it means they are impressed with the quality of your Instagram content. And as a result, they will be expecting a similar experience on your site. So, how can you make sure they’re satisfied?
For WordPress users, the best way to do this is by using the WP Recipe Maker plugin. This plugin lets you add beautifully-displayed recipes on your sites and offers many totally customizable design templates to choose from. Users can adjust the serving sizes for recipes, switch to the unit system that they’re familiar with, and save specific recipes they want to try!
Using a customizable plugin like WP Recipe Maker makes sure that Instagram users who come to your food blog for a specific recipe will have a good experience on your site. With WP Recipe Maker, you can even reuse your Instagram Reels by adding them as videos to your recipe pages – and bridge the experience for visitors who land on your site through Instagram.
Additionally, if you talk about any specific products that you have a partnership with, you can use the plugin to add equipment or ingredient links directly into your recipes as affiliate links. Fans of your Reels may want to try these products for themselves so directing them to your website gives them an opportunity to do that without being too pushy about sales.
Grow Your Food Blog with Instagram Reels
Using Instagram Reels can help you grow your audience and build your brand as a food blogger. One of the main benefits of using Reels is that you can use them to direct people back to your site. You can point them to your landing page or specific pages, and you can link the complete recipes so your audience can remain engaged in your content across all your channels.
To make sure you build a following, the first thing to keep in mind is to ensure your Reels stand out. That’s why we have included six helpful hacks or step-by-step mini-tutorials in this beginner’s guide that will help differentiate your Reels from other Instagram food videos.
If you genuinely want to use your Reels to build your social media and product brand, you should consider providing a website experience that is up to the task, too. This means that your site should not just look great but also give an excellent experience to all Instagram users who come looking for more information about your food.
WP Recipe Maker can help you connect your Reels and website content by presenting your best recipes on beautifully designed pages. You can easily change the way the recipes are shown by using pre-built templates or creating your own using your brand color scheme and style. You can also publish all recipes following the best SEO standards and allow users to print them, adjust servings, add nutritional facts, change measurement units, and much more.
