Influencer Marketing for Fast-Food Restaurants

The fast-food industry’s competitive nature means consumers have plenty of dining options and numerous factors impact their purchasing decisions. According to an Insider Intelligence report in February 2024, economic uncertainty caused some diners to switch to more affordable restaurant options, like quick-service or fast-food chains. It’s no surprise that fast-food restaurants need to incorporate influencer marketing into their strategies to stay top of mind for consumers. Let’s explore the best practices and tips for influencer marketing for fast-food restaurants.

Working with influencers to promote fast-food restaurants

Influencers can be beneficial partners for fast-food brands in many ways, including promoting new menu items, value items and deals. Take the following points and tips into consideration when planning your campaigns:

Identify the right influencers

Not all influencers will be a good fit for your brand. Find influencers who align with your brand values and have a follower base that matches your target audience. Need help finding influencers? Try searching izea.com’s creator listings for foodies or lifestyle influencers in the area, or post a casting call seeking pitching from interested creators. 

Leverage influencer creativity

Influencers are content creation experts. Allow them to use their unique style and creativity to showcase your brand in a way that will resonate with their audience. If you’d like to provide visual inspiration, consider leveraging AI tools to convey the brand message via creator briefs and images. 

Track performance

Leverage platforms like IZEA Flex to track analytics and ROI. With unique tracking links and a Shopify integration, for example, you can accurately connect sales to specific creators. This can help you understand the return on your investment and refine your strategy for future campaigns. 

Another way to track metrics is by leveraging IZEA’s full-service team and Solution Partners. Targeting the right influencers for your campaign will bring back the biggest reward, which we can help with. 

These tools help our full-service clients track metrics like actual on-location foot traffic and sales lift at restaurant locations.

Establish long-term partnerships

Seek out long-term partnerships with influencers. This can lead to more authentic promotions, and the influencer’s audience will be more likely to trust their endorsement of your brand.

Engage in social listening

Monitor social media conversations about your brand before, during, and after the influencer campaign. This can provide valuable feedback and insights.

Examples of fast-food influencer marketing campaigns

Here are a few successful examples of fast-food brands leveraging influencer marketing to boost their visibility, engage with customers, and promote their products.

@iskate_solo and Checkers

IZEA worked with Checkers and @iskate_solo, a skating influencer on TikTok, to run a campaign to build awareness for Checkers’ #FryFreak sweepstakes. 

@Feedmi_ and Yelp

This partnership between a local Austin restaurant, Yelp and an influencer Mimi, shared #YelpsTopTrends and some pretty tasty-looking food videos.

f’real + TikTok influencers

In this collaboration, IZEA worked with f’real and TikTok influencers in the niches of comedy, lifestyle and dancing to showcase f’real flavors and how they can be customized. 

These partnerships can be made easy by using IZEA’s Marketplace to find influencers to work with or our full-service team paired with IZEA’s Solution Partners.