Tips To Become A Top Notch Food Influencer
If you (somehow) haven’t noticed, trendy food influencers have taken over the social media content in your feed, and they’re here to stay. The industry is growing at a rapid pace because, well, who doesn’t want to scroll through Instagram and see a mouthwatering bowl of mac and cheese, or a spread of sugary glazed donuts? If you are passionate about displaying your love of food to the world, here are some helpful suggestions to get your foodie account up and running.
It all starts with passion. Passion turns into active posting, two or three times a day, which turns into a loyal fan base that will follow you wherever you go. However, in order to please your fans instead of boring them to death, you need to switch up your social media content. Successful influencers vary both the type of food they post, such as desserts, drinks, breakfast, lunch, or dinner items, and the type of restaurants featured on a page. Even though it’s tempting, be sure not to post too many pictures of ice cream in a row in order to build a loyal following and keep them engaged.
Although a picture is worth 1,000 words, a funny and witty caption to complement your photo is where you can establish the character of your account. Be creative, and add a pun or two to give your picture some life. Also, as a bonus tip, encouraging people to tag their friends and family in the caption is a helpful tactic to increase social media engagement and drive traffic. IMPORTANT TO NOTE: if you are posting someone else’s original photo, be sure to give them photo credit in your caption!
Under every post (in the comments section) include a variety of hashtags so your food account becomes accessible to a broad range of people! In order to increase social media engagement, these hashtags should range from very broad, such as #foodie, #delicious, #bestfood, and #tasty, which are directed to larger searches, to individualized items such as #acaibowl, #bestmacandcheese, #comfortchinesefood, and #avocadolovers, which are directed to more specific searches. Don’t be shy with the hashtags when starting out your account, the more the better!
In the left or right-hand corner of each post, be sure to tag other food accounts similar to yours. Sometimes this results in a “post for post” business deal, in which both accounts benefit with an increased following. Also, tagging other accounts is an easy way to increase your personal following. If you are posting a photo of avocado toast, make sure to tag restaurants and accounts that would find this appealing. You never know, they may repost your photo, or reach out for a partnership.
You’re proud of your work, so why not show it off? Advertise yourself to local and large-scale restaurants and businesses to grow your platform and get the word out about your account. The more people in the food industry that know your account exists, the better off you are.
One useful aspect of Instagram that may go unnoticed on food accounts is the Instagram Stories feature. Here, influencers can create social media content in the form of polls. This tool lets users ask their fans questions such as which late night snack they prefer, or preference on a restaurant. Most of the time these are just for fun, however, it is a great way to increase social media engagement with your fan base and understand what your fans are looking to see.
Many times people will leave comments about the type of food they want to see, and whether or not they like the current post being displayed. Listen to them. The more you listen to your audience, the higher your social media optimization becomes. It’s important to understand your audience. If you are a healthy food blogger, your followers don’t want to see a series of pictures of deep fried oreo bites. However, it may be best to stay away from leafy green salads if your theme if the best comfort food around. Good luck, and eat away!
What is your favorite food account to follow? Tweet us @socialfly and let us know!
