Restaurant Franchising & Innovation Summit

More than a post: Turning influencers into content engines for your restaurant

At the Restaurant Franchising and Innovation Summit, marketing experts discussed the evolution of influencer marketing from a secondary tactic into a core strategy that prioritizes authentic content creation, micro-influencer relationships and adaptation to the rising impact of AI on search visibility.

Photo: Willie Lawless/ Connect Media

April 24, 2026 by Mandy Wolf Detwiler — Editor, Connect Media

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At last month's Restaurant Franchising and Innovation Summit, industry experts gathered for the "Brewing Buzz and Building Tribes with AI and Influencers" panel to discuss the rapidly shifting landscape of digital marketing. Hosted by Davi Dubinski, global head of sales for Momos, the session featured a lineup of experienced marketing leaders: Jody Boyce, CMO of Teriyaki Madness; Jessica Serrano, CMO of Bagel Brands, and fractional CMOs Stacy Kane, who handles marketing for several brands, and Julie Wade representing Crazy Pita.

The discussion explored how influencer marketing is evolving from a mere auxiliary tactic into a core engine for authentic content creation that can, in some cases, even outperform traditional national media ads. From the strategic value of micro-influencers in local markets to the challenges of measuring ROI as AI search begins to impact SEO metrics, the panelists emphasized that the future of the industry depends on authenticity, co-creation and building genuine relationships with brand fans.

Influencer marketing: Core vs. auxiliary

Dubinksi asked the panelists if influencer marketing was a core channel or simply an add-on to their current marketing plan.

Boyce said influencer marketing is something Teriyaki Madness has been testing the last few years and it keeps growing in popularity for the brand. She said it's becoming a bigger part of their overall marketing plan. They paid an influencer $5,000 to do a video in his own car and it worked well.

"It outperformed our ads, and so we are leaning heavily into it on Meta for sure for our ad spend," Boyce said.

Serrano said influencer marketing has grown at Bagel Brands. She used to think about influencers as more paid organic engagements that capitalized on their audience but now sees it as an engine for content creating. The evaluation of which partners they used has shifted.

"Now it's less about who their followers are or where they live, but more their ability to create content that actually drives strong hooks, attention-grabbing content and focusing on converting that to paid media," she said.

Kane said her the largest brand she works with is Ziggi's Coffee, which has nearly 120 locations. Every campaign that they do has some sort of influencer activation. "It can be as small as giving a free drink for a micro-influencer to use to taste a new beverage, or it could be as big as a giant influencer party where we're cultivating relationships with influencers for more authentic content," she said.

For the smaller brands Kane works with, they work with influencers piecemeal as the brands can afford it. Though influencer marketing can be affordable, brands also need the human side of it, "and when you have an eight-unit brand, sometimes that's a little difficult. We have a couple of tips and tricks up our sleeves to make it kind of work," Kane added.

At Crazy Pita, Wade said the founder is the ultimate brand influencer. He's the face of many of the brand's videos on social media and has become synonymous with the brand.

"He has become the ultimate influencer for the Crazy Pita brand," Wade said. "And then in other brands that I've worked in, it's been much more the traditional way that you would expect, whether it being a little bit of paid or also just that organic influencer. He's really the only one that that is a core part of what the social media strategy is."

Macro vs. micro influencers

Dubinksi asked how the brand representatives know when it's time to go with a macro-, micro- or nano-influencer. For instance, Dog Haus is working with Jake Paul, but that might not be right for every brand. How do you know what influencer to go with and at what time?

Boyce said she thinks times are changing. In the early days of influencer marketing, brand reps thought they had to spend a lot of money on an influencer. Since then Teriyaki Madness has found influencers for as little as $400 to a couple thousand dollars, but they're not spending big money on them anymore.

"As long as the content is good and they have followers and, mainly, interaction on their own pages with their followers, you get your bang for your buck," she said.

Serrano said there's value in micro-influencers, especially when opening in new markets. "If you find those influencers that have even a couple thousand followers but are really concentrated and focused in that market, there's a lot of value in inviting them in …(for) free food, and at the end of the day, they want to create content that is engaging for their audience."

Kane said Ziggi's is currently using influencers who are already customers. Ziggi's has been in business for more than 20 years, so there are influencers who have been going there for many of those years. "You start with your loyal fans first. They don't want any money. They just want a relationship, they want to be part of the conversation," Kane explained. "So that's been really successful for us."

Wade added that with a brand she had worked with previously, they stuck to using influencers for either an LTO or grand opening. That brand did have a high number of stores in Nashville, so they were contacted by many influencers in that area. "We were very lucky that we would have country people, artists and artists' wives that would reach out to us and want to be part of our conversation," Wade said. They were all customers and fans of the brand, and so those posts that we did with them and the collaborations that we did really, really resonated because they were fans of the brand first and they were customers."

Measuring ROI and performance

Dubinski asked if influencer marketing is more of a performance-based marketing avenue or is it all about brand visibility and awareness?

Boyce said Teriyaki Madness has recently learned that for the brand, it is about awareness, but the interesting statistic is that awareness is outperforming SEO metrics. Using influencers is now affecting the AI search, with at least eight different terms or it. The AI search is starting to outperform Google and is pulling from influencers.

Serrano said the answer's nuanced – it's both performance based and also about building awareness, but at the end of the day, brands must demonstrate the ROI on it.

"Again, it comes back to leveraging the best-performing influencer content in paid (marketing) and learning from that and continuing to optimize against it. What are the hooks that work? Which kinds of influencers resonate best on different channels? Definitely both," she said.

Kane said she'd love to say that ROI was super easy to formulate with influencers, but it isn't.

"We've tried a bunch of different tactics across our brands," Kane said. "Here's a little tip: Don't make your code that you're giving to influencers 15 characters long for them to use in your app, because it just gets lost in translation."

Wade agreed, adding that most of the influencers she works with she tries to pay them in food rather than a stipend.

"We didn't really do codes or anything to have a one-to-one correlation with what they were doing and what was coming back into the store," Wade said. "But when you're not paying them anything and you're just giving them a little bit of money to go in and buy the food, then anything that you're getting is a residual from that — it's a win."

About Mandy Wolf Detwiler

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Mandy Wolf Detwiler is the Pizzamarketplace.com and QSRweb.com editor for Connect Media. An award-winning journalist, Mandy brings more than 20 years’ experience covering food, people and places. Mandy has been featured on the Food Network and has won numerous awards for her coverage of the restaurant industry. She has an insatiable appetite for learning, and, yes, she can tell you where to find the best pizza slices in the country.

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