Social media for foodservice – getting the post right

By now you should have had a look why and how managing social media for a foodservice brand is different to a retail food brands. Now let’s look at what makes a good post for a foodservice brand using the most common platform, Facebook.

Here’s a post we saw online recently (we’ve modified it slightly to protect the brand)

“Add some flavour to salads on your menu this summer with our fantastic XYZ product.”

In this example, the foodservice brand in question is doing a couple of things right:

–       Keeping the post short and simple
–       Keeping the post relevant (in this case, to the season of year)

But besides that, the post is a bit lifeless, making us ask a few questions:

1. Who is their audience?

Do they know whom they’re speaking to? Is it their distributors, staff, friends of staff, chefs, end consumers or interested watchers-on?

2. Who do they want their audience to be?

Do they know they can employ a few tricks to choose their Facebook audience?

We have a few suggestions to bring this post to life, assuming the ideal audience for a foodservice brand is distributors and chefs:

Open up the conversation: Less of “do this” and more of  “what do you think of this?” or “Have you considered this?”

Tone down the sales pitch: Facebook is a community and there are already enough ads down the sides of newsfeeds. Try a bit of sharing instead, and since the ideal audience is chefs and distributors, inspiration is always a good idea. A post more like:

“How’s this for a salad – charred cauliflower and red quinoa with tahini dressing. What’s your favourite non-green salad?

If you’re liking this one, check out the recipe here: Bit.ly…”

It’s a bit longer than the first version but there’s a few key things in here that make it work SO much more: 1. Using a visually grabbing image 2. Asking a question 3. Providing inspiration and 4. Sharing information. That wasn’t so hard to shake up now, was it!?

If you’d like to find more out about how Red Candy can help you make the most of your social media accounts, or even help you set up new ones with the right strategy in place, give us a call on (07) 3122 0950. Cheers!