Instagram wants original content. According to SocialPilot's tracking, in 2026 Instagram extended its originality checks beyond reels to photos and carousels. Accounts that mostly repost other people's content are treated as “aggregators” and shown to fewer new people.
For a restaurant or café, that is good news. Nobody else has your food, your room or your team.
What can hurt your reach
- Reposting viral clips from other accounts, even if they are about food.
- Re-uploading a creator's video of your venue as your own post.
- Posting videos with another app's watermark, like a TikTok logo.
- Posting the same reel again and again with tiny changes.
What to do instead
- Shoot your own. Even phone footage beats someone else's polished clip.
- Use Collab posts when a creator films at your venue, so the reel lives on both profiles.
- Trending audio is fine, as long as the visuals are yours.
- Export clean files from your editing app, with no watermarks.
Try this week
Write a list of ten things only your venue has: a dish, a person, a view, a ritual. Make each one a reel.