by By Josie Smith
In the age of influencers and personalized marketing, businesses have to constantly evolve their social media practices to stay relevant and keep their audiences attention. This can be especially difficult in the food and beverage sector, in which the audience isn’t looking to the business for the most recent trends–rather, they either do or don’t want the product the company is selling.
I have spent the last seven weeks helping my client, a seafood company, grow its reach on social media, particularly Instagram. In the process, I have learned a few key practices that can be applicable to any food and beverage company looking to grow its audience and stand out.
Play to Your Strengths
Every company has its own niche, whether that be its origin story, way of preparing or delivering services or something else, identifying what makes a business unique is the most important part of creating personalized messaging to individual brands. Content has to stick out of the hundreds of thousands of posts each day in order to be recognized and remembered. Use the company’s mission and primary audience to guide what your messaging and tone should be. For example, a burger place with a GenZ audience might post more trendy reels, whereas a coffee shop with a GenX audience might post more single image content. The lesson here is to develop messaging and a tone for posts that conveys brand values and never waiver from it.
Keep it Consistent and Simple
As mentioned above, there is an overwhelming amount of content out there all the time. People are picky. They have to be. Short captions are your friend, pick the most important parts of what you want to convey and give it a little sparkle (don’t be boring) and your audience will hear you through the white noise. Pair these captions with high quality images that represent your brand and do everything in your power to keep the reserve of images high. Repeats are noticeable. Find ways to have ‘segment’ type posts that go out every week/ two weeks/month that people can look for. The lesson here is to use your niche to draw your audience in with clever captions, interesting images and remind them why they should be paying attention.
Quality over Quantity
Algorithms rule the online world, inconsistent posting will drive your engagement down and push your content down too. Posting consistently, even if it’s once a week will keep your business on your audience’s and the platform’s radar. However, on the opposite end, it is always better to leave them wanting more rather than becoming part of the online white noise by bombarding your followers with content. The amount a company posts depends on how much good, engaging content they have. Do not post just to post, post to shine a spotlight on your niche through updates, events, partnerships, giveaways or sponsored content. The lesson here is to find a sweet spot ( 1- 5 days of posting every week) and lean into it.
Check out this podcast episode from Savvy Social Podcast, hosted by social media agency owner and mentor Andréa Jones to find out more about keeping engagement up in a time where everyone is seeing a downturn in attention. https://open.spotify.com/episode/7eaO1jxagXGLHGHLyzcW7w?si=kpvFT-vfQd-bMVXQWXXRog
Connect with Josie on LinkedIn
I really enjoyed reading your post! I agree with all three of your main points. Keeping it simple and to the point is really important nowadays, especially with the younger generations who have shorter attention spans. It really all depends on your target audience.
Hi Josie!
These were really great recommendations you made for the food industry in social media. I never really thought about how difficult It must be for products in the food industry to stick out on social media compared to other products, because people either like a certain food or they don’t. These recommendations will definitely help your client create successful content on their social media!
Hi Josie! I really enjoyed reading your post. I find myself scrolling for food videos on instagram reels for hours. Why do I find them so satisfying? I really agree with your main points, short videos of good quality are what tend to catch my eye the most. I think the food and beverage industry could really thrive in this time with short videos being so popular!