Meet the professional food Instagrammers seek by restaurants for their six figure followers and their stylish and artistic photography. Some of these professional Instagrammers are earning as much as $350 per photograph in a full time basis. Some of them have turned their account part-time while others are use their accounts for public relations purposes and free meals.
As reported by Wall Street Journal, "There are people who decide on where they want to go out to eat by their Instagram feed, and that's a fact that we in the hospitality industry just cannot ignore," said Helen Zhang, director of media strategy at LFB Media Group, a public-relations agency that works with such restaurants as the Stanton Social and Casa Nonna.
Brand and communications director for the Altamarea Group which operates restaurants such as Vaucluse and Osteria Morini, Olivia Young, acknowledged this fact and said that the company has also invited some Instagram users to eat and pay them to post photos.
"We eat with our eyes," she said. "For a couple of hundred bucks for one person, I'm going to have potentially 500,000 people seeing brunch at Morini."
Instagram users like Natalie Landsberg, Gillian Presto and Emily Morsefrequently often posted photos of what they were eating in highschool. Now, the three 19-year-olds who started the account @New_Fork_City in high school has now around 500,000 followers. They find themselves enjoying free restaurant meals, curating food and music festivals and receiving offers like creating their own cookie-dough flavour.
"We never did anything to say how can we get more followers, how can we get 'Instafamous'?" Ms. Morse said. "It just kind of took off."
There are many strategies that these Instagrammers follow to be successful. Most of them said to find your niche, for example, gluten free food or brunch. Some say they are posting photos at least once a day. Others creates a gimmick like letting followers submit their own photo giving them "Instafame".
The most crucial aspect perhaps is the photograph itself. Many Instagram foodies seek balance between artsy overhead shots and evocative images like melting ice cream or oozing egg yolks. These photographs tend to generate most responses.
There are no written rules in this kind of profession. Each account creates his or her own rules; accepting food for payment, money only, post with a certain fee.
This is how Instagrammers create a unique profession out of posting food photos. Do you like this article? Don't forget to share on Facebook!
