Guys, i need one help.
i am bit confused what to do in Ai now
i already know Vibe coding, Vibe Marketing.
But i am coming from non-tech background.
But i love Ai
I would love to build me career around Ai
What can i start learning which will be helpful and in demand in future too
Let me know your pov
I have a small restaurant in Coimbatore. Been running it for 3 years. The food is good, I know it's good, my regulars know it's good. But I can't seem to grow beyond the same 60 70 people.
Everyone says Instagram. My nephew says Instagram. The guy who sold me my POS system said Instagram. Okay fine.
So I made an account. Posted photos of the food. Tried one Reel. Spent almost 2 hours on it. Got 140 views. Posted maybe 8 times over 6 weeks then life happened and I stopped.
Now the page just sits there. Half dead. And honestly it looks more embarrassing than not having a page at all.
The thing nobody tells you is that running a restaurant means you are everything. You are the buyer, the manager, the HR, the accountant, the guy who fixes the gas line at 7am. By the time service ends I have nothing left in me. Zero. Sitting down and thinking about what to post is just not something I can do.
I tried paying someone. A freelancer took 6000 rupees from me and posted 4 times in a month. Two of the posts had the wrong timings on them. I had to handle the comments from confused customers myself.
I am not looking for a lecture about consistency or "building a brand." I know all that. I just want to know how other people who are actually running their own place, not a chain, not funded, just a regular small restaurant, are managing this. Because right now I feel like I am failing at something everyone else finds easy.
Run a small marketing agency. 18 restaurant clients between India and NJ. Last quarter we spent around 12K total on Meta ads across all of them. Small operators mostly. Some at 50 a month, some at 800.
Posting this because every Meta ads thread for restaurants is either an agency promoting something or a one off case study where someone got 10x ROAS in week 2. Both are useless if you actually run accounts at scale.
Here is the honest version.
What worked
Lookalike audiences built on instagram engagers were about 40 percent cheaper per result than interest based targeting. Not even close.
Static carousel of the menu beat reels for direct response. Reels got more views and almost no orders. Took us three months to accept that.
Order online objective worked for delivery heavy spots. Messages objective worked for dine in. Mixing them killed both.
What burned cash
Boost post button. Just do not. Algorithm gives you the worst placements and the most expensive impressions.
Conversions objective with less than 50 events a week. Algorithm has nothing to learn from. Stay on traffic or reach until volume is there.
Targeting foodies as an interest. That word means absolutely nothing to Meta.
What I am still confused about
Same creative format works for a restaurant in NJ and flops for a similar restaurant in Hyderabad. Same cuisine bracket, same ad spend, same offer. Is it the algorithm reading local engagement differently. Is it image format preference by region. Genuinely have no theory yet.
Curious what people running ads for cafes and dessert places are seeing. The unit economics are completely different from full service and I think the playbook should be too, but I have not figured out what the playbook should be.