Hey everyone,
I’ve been Marketing Manager at Joli for two months now, and I was buzzing to get the first edition of this hospitality marketing newsletter out last month.
If you missed it and are wondering what this newsletter is all about, at the end of every month you can expect:
- My top 3 picks of content by Joli creators (and why they worked)
- Industry deep dives
- Partner spotlights
- Joli updates
- Anything worth knowing from our favourite tools and platforms
Alongside being a marketer, I’m also a food content creator, so I really get both sides of the coin when it comes to hospitality marketing, and I’m bringing you the inside scoop every month.
Right, let’s get into what happened in August.
(PS: if monthly isn’t enough for you, I’m on TikTok every week with hospitality marketing hot takes, tips and social media video ideas.)
Top creator content from August
A new Reel by @birkbites has everything I look for in a great piece of content. London food creator Lucy made this fantastic review for @sucre.london in collaboration with OpenTable. She combined snappy, high-quality b-roll with a clear and engaging voiceover. It tells a story with one key message, “the bougiest happy hour in London,” showcasing the food, cocktails and interiors while positioning it as the perfect girls’ night or date night spot.
I love this piece of content, and I’m not the only one. It generated over 70 comments, with people saying how amazing it looks and how much they love OpenTable.
@beckys.bowl Old Queens Head / Hot Saint Pizza
by @beckys.bowlInsane pizza spots are blowing up on socials right now, and I’m seeing a lot of “trying the best pizza in my city” style content. Becky headed to the Old Queens Head to show off the most incredible-looking pizza by Hot Saint Pizza.
What’s great about Becky’s video is the pace, a really clear voiceover, quirky text overlays with fun animations, and descriptive background music that make it a genuinely vibey piece of content.
We show a lot of love to Reels, but who else is loving carousels at the moment? Especially when they use text overlays and fun, creative edits. Turns out the algorithm agrees with us: Socialinsider’s Q2 2026 benchmarks show carousels as Instagram’s highest-performing format for engagement, edging out Reels.
Laura partnered with Heidi Bakery to showcase their sweet treats, creating a carousel that feels fun, visual and instantly scroll-stopping. Carousels absolutely have their place, especially when your menu items are aesthetically delicious 🤌
New from Joli: reporting just got a glow-up
If you’ve logged into your Joli dashboard recently, you might’ve noticed we’ve given it a glow-up ✨
Here are three of my favourite new features:
- See visit intent, not just views: saves and shares now roll up into an estimated visit intent figure, so you can see who’s actually planning to visit.
- Spot your best content, fastest: top-performing creators, posts and campaigns are surfaced automatically, no digging required.
- Become a Fast Responder: reply within 48 hours to unlock Fast Responder status and get 3x more applications.
There’s loads of new reporting to make it easier to track what’s working and what needs attention. If you have any questions about it, reach out to your account manager, Rhiannon or Michael K.
Why you shouldn’t skip TikTok, even with an Instagram page
TikTok has grown into a genuine search engine for hospitality: two-thirds of Gen Z now use it to search for restaurant recommendations, and TikTok search queries are up 174% year on year. If you’re not appearing in those searches, you’re invisible to a huge chunk of your target audience.
But not every brand has the time or resource to build a dedicated TikTok strategy from scratch. The good news is you don’t need one to show up in searches. Creator content is the quickest win, since it’s what’s already dominating TikTok search results.
To test this, I searched “places to eat in Liverpool,” “places to eat in Kent” and “pizza London,” then scrolled through the top 25 videos for each.
- Places to eat in Liverpool: only one brand account appeared; the rest were all creators. The one brand video was quite far down, and it showed a lasagne being loaded into a garlic bread bowl, something that’s practically guaranteed to go viral. Plus, one in every three videos was a paid ad, from brands like Gusto, Starbucks, Miller & Carter and OpenTable.
- Places to eat in Kent: no brand accounts appeared organically at all, purely creator content, though the same one-in-three ad pattern held.
- Pizza London: the organic content was entirely creator content, but brand ads from Elvet London and Pizza Hut still made an appearance.
My research shows that creators and ads are how you get found in TikTok search. If you’re not running gifted campaigns or UGC-style ads, you’re not showing up.
If you do want to get discovered in the algorithm as a brand, think of Instagram and TikTok as playing different roles. Instagram is where polished, aesthetic content earns its place. TikTok rewards the opposite: humour, unpredictability and trend-led content that gets people commenting and coming back. Subway is the classic example. Their videos are deliberately silly and often make no sense, but that’s exactly what drives comments, and comments are what the TikTok algorithm rewards most.
Instagram and TikTok: August 2026 updates
Here are the updates worth having on your radar if you’re running socials for a brand.
1. Better DM organisation. Instagram is expanding ways to organise and filter your inbox, including options to find unread messages, Story replies, unanswered messages, followers and verified accounts.
2. Reels can be organised into series. Instagram is making it easier to group related Reels together, creating a more connected viewing experience. Take this as your sign to start making a series of bingeable, entertaining content for your audience!
3. More emphasis on views and shares. Likes aren’t the only metric that matters. Instagram’s ranking system increasingly considers how much content is watched and shared, particularly through private messages.
TikTok
4. More control over post keywords. TikTok is giving creators more control over the keywords associated with their content, including the ability to suggest or block automatically assigned keywords.
5. More AI and automation for advertisers. TikTok is continuing to expand AI-powered tools across campaign creation, optimisation and performance. Although I don’t know how I feel about this one…
Customer shout-outs: Comptoir Group 🤝
This month we started working with Comptoir Group, and their early numbers are great:
- 🎥 145,408+ views across Instagram and TikTok
- 📺 177 hours of watch time (that’s watching Titanic 36 times over)
- 🚀 1,900+ saves and shares, the strongest signal that people aren’t just watching, they’re planning to visit
Not only do they have a full library of great content, they’ve also had 14 creator bookings with 5-star ratings. That’s what happens when you prioritise the creator and customer experience above everything else: it makes creators more likely to rave about your venue.
Big shout-out to Natasha Naik, Clara Mireau and the operations teams across the country for making it happen! Can’t wait to see their next campaign 😁
That’s it for this issue! I hope you enjoyed the read.
Follow us on LinkedIn for more social media news, hot takes and Joli product updates.
Speak soon, Izzy & the Joli team 💛
