3 tips for a more Instagrammable shop or restaurant

From the Museum of Ice Cream to Mr. Holmes Bakehouse, in San Francisco and beyond businesses are centering their shops around Instagram, helping customers and bypassers get the perfect shot. Crisp, clean, minimal designs offset by pops of color are all the rage and the businesses have taken notice of what makes customers pull out their phones and post it to their favorite social media sites.

While hundreds to thousands of shares and likes on Instagram and other sites might not directly correlate to sales, being the talk of the town online certainly won’t hurt. After all, Time Out New York even gives awards for the “Most Instagram-Worthy Cocktail.” Needless to say, a little effort in making your business more photo-friendly is well worth the effort. Here’s how you can make your shop more Instagrammable, even if a complete redesign isn’t in the budget.

1. Create novelty items

Customers want to experience something new, exciting, and relevant. Creating an innovative new product (especially if it is for a limited time only) could be just what you need to have everyone checking in. Is your local NBA, NFL, or MLB team in the playoffs? Why not create a menu item around that?

For more evergreen options, businesses have had lots of success creating hybrid items, such as the cronut and cruffin. Combining things that customers love in ways they’ve never seen them before has become a new path to customer obsession.

Beyond that, make sure your products are as aesthetically pleasing as possible. No matter how you feel about society’s obsession with taking pictures of their food, the more exciting your dishes and drinks look, the more likely your business will be broadcast out onto the internet.

Have a set menu, but still want to get onto the novelty wave? Try customizing coasters, napkins, sugar packets, or something else small with your logo and a saying that goes along nicely with your product offering. “You’re sweet” sugar packets could be a nice addition to a small coffee shop.

2. Bathrooms

Themed bathrooms delight customers when they least expect it. I’ve seen 70s themed bathrooms, complete with disco music and rainforest themed bathrooms with ferns coming out of the wall.

Transporting customers to a different place is a surefire way to have them telling their friends “you have to go there and don’t forget to go to the bathroom!”

3. Decor

If you want to redo the interior of your business or even just add a new and photogenic feature to your shop, upgrading decor is an easy way to do it. Neon lights with clever sayings, wallpaper with wild animals, overhead lighting that gives customers a glow, these seem like small things, but they inspire customers to pull out their phones and share, share, share.

4. The bottom line

At the end of the day, having an Instagrammable shop means that you’ve put time and effort into aligning the aesthetic of your business with your brand image in a way that delights customers. Modern businesses must be concerned with how their products look, taste, function, and now—how they photograph. Adjusting your business to attract social media aficionados will help expand your reach.

And as an added bonus, these customers are also creating content that you can share out on your company’s Instagram. User generated content is much more authentic than the same old product shots. As long as you get the content creator’s permission before posting, these images will serve as a way to show how much customers love your products and keep the line out the door.

Creating opportunities for customers to take memorable photos is just one way to help your business stand out, but of course it is an add-on. Your product quality and service will keep customers coming back and turn those social media followers into customers.

Making your business more Instagrammable helps turn a visit to your shop into a full experience—one that they’ll want to capture and tell others about.

Having an Instagrammable shop is great, but of course you’ll want to devote time to keeping your business running smoothly. Homebase is the top work schedule app for businesses that want to save time, boost retention, and reduce no-shows. Get started for free.