How #omnomnom and #foodporn can help you
Our last post had general pointers for social media and mentioned why Instagram is one of the best social media platforms for bakeries. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, now is a good time, as we are continuing with pointers on helping you achieve good results without spending advertising dollars. You can read it here.
Every picture you post on social media needs hashtags. These are searchable terms associated with your post. Users can search for a specific hashtag and see every post associated with it, including yours. You can use hashtags such as your city name, as well as descriptors like #bread or #pastry, and the ever popular ones like #omnomnom or #foodporn. (Seriously, look it up, you’ll be hungry in 3 posts or less). Include the item name, and anything else related. Pro Tip: once you have your primary tags, save them so you can copy/paste them to new posts.
Something that may not be quite as obvious as using food-related terms is using local news buzz to help generate views. For example, imagine the local university or basketball team signed a new player and this is getting major coverage by the news outlets. You can use the athlete’s name as a hashtag, as explained in this video. What will happen is, people who are searching his/her name will now come across your post(s) as well. Maybe they’re hungry. Maybe they want something sweet and maybe you just found another customer.
You can also search popular hashtags and reach out to top influencers in the area. Locations in Instagram have Top Posts which should give you an idea of who to reach out to in your city. Send these users a direct message to offer them something for free, like a sandwich, pastry, or a loaf of bread; something to get them into your location. Once in, they will automatically take a picture and post it to their Instagram and this will in turn be seen by all of their followers. Imagine a popular user in the area with thousands of followers.
Now their followers all see and read about your pastry. The acquisition cost and effort is so minimal compared to the potential ROI. (If you don’t have a retail location, think about delivering a basket of goods to these types of users.)
Social media is one marketing tool to connect your business to customers, but the term social is important to remember. The entire idea is to build personal connections to your business and your brand and keep people coming back for more. For example, Pepsi and Coca-Cola build a lifestyle brand with their products, including showcasing clothing, to build a community. Another big-brand, Pillsbury creates short videos to show how to best use their product. Apple uses social media to highlight photos taken by their customers.These brands use their social media platforms to extend and build their brand as more than just products.