Key points at a glance
- A free professional account gives you insights and contact buttons. Name, bio and link tell people in seconds what you are, where you are and how to book.
- The link in your bio leads to your own website with menu, opening hours and booking, not just to a platform.
- Reels reach new guests, Stories keep regulars up to date, posts form the shop window that stays.
- A simple weekly plan with fixed formats beats spontaneous motivation. A few fitting hashtags and your location help you get found locally.
- Paid collaborations, giveaways and partner products must be clearly recognisable as advertising, in Austria and Germany alike.
This post is general information and does not replace legal or tax advice. Rules change and some differ between federal states: check the details with your chamber of commerce (WKO) or IHK, the competent authority or your tax adviser.
What Instagram can do for a venue
For hospitality, Instagram is above all a shop window: guests see dishes, atmosphere and people before their first visit. Regulars find out what is new, from the seasonal dish to Friday's concert. And people who do not know your venue yet come across it through Reels, location pages or recommendations from friends.
What Instagram does not replace: your Google Business Profile and your own website. Someone searching for “pizza near me” ends up in Google Maps, not on Instagram. Instagram creates appetite, Google and the website deliver the address, opening hours and the way to a table. So treat Instagram as one channel in your online marketing plan, not as the only one.
Setting up the profile: account, name and category
Create a separate account for the business and keep it apart from your private one. In the settings, switch to a professional account (business). It is free and gives you insights on reach and interactions, a visible category such as restaurant, café or bar, and buttons for calls, email or directions. Depending on the country and partner, you can also add action buttons such as booking or ordering.
Username
Short, easy to type and ideally the same as on other channels, for example the venue's name plus the town if the plain name is taken.
Display name
The venue's name and a term guests search for, such as “Gasthaus Lindner · Inn Graz”. This name can be found in Instagram search.
Profile picture
Your logo or a clear symbol that stays recognisable even tiny in a circle. Not a photo of the whole dining room.
Category and contact
Choose a fitting category and enter address, phone number and email exactly as on your website and Google profile.
Secure access
Turn on two-factor authentication and link the account to a Meta business account, so everything does not depend on one person who may leave the business one day.
Bio and link: the most important 150 characters
The bio is short, but it decides whether someone reads on. Answer three questions in it: what you are (cuisine, style, speciality), where you are (town or neighbourhood) and what the guest should do now (book, order, drop by). Opening hours rarely fit and change too often. Point to your website instead.
| Venue | Bio |
|---|---|
| Inn | Styrian cooking with produce from the farm next door · Beer garden in summer · Graz-Lend · Book a table 👇 |
| Café | Espresso from the portafilter, cakes from our own bakery and weekend brunch · Leipzig-Plagwitz · Menu and booking 👇 |
| Cocktail bar | Signature drinks and alcohol-free cocktails · Tue to Sat from 6 pm · Vienna 7 · Group bookings 👇 |
You can add several links to your bio. The first and most important one should lead to your own website, ideally straight to a page with menu, opening hours and booking. A third-party link collection is no substitute: it costs an extra click and does not strengthen your own site. What belongs on that page is described in the guide to restaurant website content.
Content: Reels, Stories and posts
Instagram has three main formats, and each has its own job. Once you understand that, you do not need to post equally much everywhere.
| Format | What for | Ideas from hospitality |
|---|---|---|
| Reels (vertical videos) | Reach new guests, including people who do not follow you yet | A dish being made in 20 seconds, mixing a cocktail, bread coming out of the oven, before and after plating |
| Stories (visible for 24 hours) | Keep regulars up to date, spontaneous and unpolished | Dish of the day, “two tables still free tonight”, delivery from the farmer, poll on the new cake |
| Posts and carousels | The lasting shop window on your profile | Signature dishes, dining room and garden, meet the team, seasonal menu, event announcement |
| Story highlights | Important Stories pinned permanently at the top of the profile | Menu, brunch, parties and groups, gift vouchers, directions |
People beat polish. The chef explaining why the veal patty is coming onto the menu has more impact than a perfectly lit photo. Show your team, your suppliers and everyday life behind the counter. For the photos themselves, a current smartphone and daylight are enough; how to make dishes look good is covered in the guide to food photography with a smartphone. Videos that work on Instagram usually work on TikTok too, more on that in the post on TikTok for restaurants. Behind-the-scenes team content also helps with hiring: how to advertise jobs via Instagram and your own website is covered in the guide on finding staff through your website.
Planning: a weekly plan that survives daily service
Most hospitality profiles do not fail for lack of ideas but because of daily life: at lunchtime nobody is free for Instagram, and in the evening all the energy is gone. Fixed formats and one planning slot a week solve that. You can schedule posts and Reels in the app or in Meta Business Suite; Stories work better when made spontaneously during service.
Monday: plan and photos
Twenty minutes: what is happening this week? Daily specials, events, new ingredients. Take photos and short clips in quiet minutes before service.
Tuesday or Wednesday: Reel
One Reel a week, for example a dish being made, the team or a look behind the scenes. Scheduling it in advance saves stress.
Friday: post for the weekend
What is on at the weekend? Brunch, live music, a seasonal dish. With a clear pointer to booking.
Daily: Stories
One to three Stories from the venue: dish of the day, free tables, the mood. Two minutes, no editing needed.
Monthly: review
Check the insights to see which content was saved, shared or commented on, and do more of it.
Plan seasonal topics early: asparagus, goose weeks around St Martin's Day, Christmas parties, New Year's Eve, Easter, the first day of outdoor seating. How to announce events across all channels is explained in the guide to promoting events online.
Hashtags and location: getting found locally
Hashtags have lost importance. Since the end of 2025, Instagram allows at most five hashtags per post or Reel and recommends a few truly relevant ones. Generic tags like #food or #instagood do nothing for a venue: nobody looks there for dinner in your town. Local and specific tags such as #breakfastgraz, #viennaeats or #brunchcologne work better, along with a hashtag of your own.
- Tag your location: link every post and Reel to your venue as a place. That way your content appears on the location page, which guests also fill with their photos.
- Captions with keywords: Instagram also searches captions. Write “breakfast in Salzburg-Lehen” rather than just “Good morning!”.
- Tag other accounts: suppliers, winemakers, roasters or the evening's band. It comes across as friendly and can reach their audience.
- Add alt text: in the advanced settings you can describe what the image shows, for people with visual impairments and for search.
Engagement: turning followers into guests
Instagram is not a billboard but a conversation. Comments and direct messages are often enquiries: do you have gluten-free pizza? Is there room for eight on Saturday? Reply quickly and kindly, ideally the same day. Saved replies for frequent questions save time. Bookings by direct message are possible but easily get lost in the rush, so guide guests to your online booking instead.
How to get it right
- Reply to comments and messages every day
- Share Stories from guests who tag you, with permission
- Use polls and questions in Stories, for example on the next seasonal cake
- Take criticism calmly and clear things up by message if needed
Better not
- Buy followers or likes
- Delete critical comments just because they are uncomfortable
- Use other people's photos without permission
- Accept bookings by message and not write them down anywhere
Labelling advertising: the rules in Austria and Germany
If you promote your own venue on your own business account, guests can usually tell. It gets tricky when third parties are involved or something is given in return. In Austria (§ 6 E-Commerce-Gesetz, ECG) as well as in Germany (§ 6 Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz, DDG, and § 5a of the Act against Unfair Competition, UWG), commercial communication must be clearly recognisable as such. The German media authorities (Medienanstalten) have published a guide on this; in Austria, the WKO can advise.
- Paid or supported posts for a brand, for example when a drinks supplier or brewery pays for them or delivers goods for free: label them clearly as advertising, ideally with Instagram's paid partnership feature plus a note such as “Werbung” or “Anzeige” at the start of the caption.
- Influencers and food bloggers you invite: a free meal counts as something in return too. Labelling is their responsibility, but you should agree on it. More on this in the guide to influencer collaborations.
- Giveaways: state the terms clearly and make them easy to find, meaning period, prize, how to enter and how the winner is drawn. Instagram also requires a note that the giveaway is not run by Instagram. A popular prize is a voucher for your venue, which you can design print-ready with the free gift voucher generator.
- English abbreviations like #ad or #sponsored are not enough on German-language channels, according to the Medienanstalten.
Checklist for your Instagram profile
Instagram for your venue
- Professional account, separate login for the business, two-factor protection on
- Display name with venue and search term, clear profile picture
- Bio answers: what, where and what the guest should do
- First link leads to your own website with menu and booking
- Address, phone and email as on the website and Google profile
- Highlights for menu, events, parties and directions
- Weekly plan with one Reel, one post and daily Stories
- Location tagged on every post, at most five fitting hashtags
- Comments and messages answered daily
- Collaborations and giveaways clearly recognisable as advertising
The website your Instagram link should point to
Menu as text, opening hours, booking and your best photos on a fast, mobile site. Take a look at a free preview of your website.
A free preview of your venue website, designed by us.
Sources
- RIS: E-Commerce-Gesetz (ECG), § 6 commercial communication (Austria)
- gesetze-im-internet.de: § 6 DDG, special obligations for commercial communications (Germany)
- gesetze-im-internet.de: § 5a UWG, misleading by omission (Germany)
- Die Medienanstalten: guide to labelling advertising in online media (May 2025)
- WKO: Kommerzielles Influencing (commercial influencing)
