When your posts get crickets: stop broadcasting, start replying.

The move is to stop posting into the void and start showing up in conversations that are already happening. The algorithm doesn't owe you an audience yet. But people near you are already asking where to eat. You don't need to shout louder, you need to be in their conversation.

A new account posting to no one is like singing in an empty room. Reach is earned by being useful to people before they follow you. So for one week, you'll mostly ignore your own feed and spend that energy being genuinely helpful in other people's.

1. Find the rooms. Search your town's name plus "foodie," "eats," or "recommendations" on Instagram and Facebook groups. Find 3 to 5 local spots where people ask for food suggestions.
2. Answer questions, don't pitch. When someone asks "best tacos near here?" and it honestly isn't you, recommend someone else. Be the helpful local. People remember who was generous, not who advertised.
3. Recommend yourself only when you truly fit. When it's a perfect match, mention yourself like a friend would, using the line below.
4. Reply to every comment on your own posts within an hour. Conversations get shown to more people. A monologue dies.

The honesty ("it's mine") is the whole trick. It disarms people and reads as a real human, not a brand. That's the opposite of what made you feel like a fraud posting into the void.