Supercharge your food and drink social media marketing using video

27th April 2018

written by George Hughes

In a fast-moving and crowded industry, food and drink brands need to find efficient, engaging and consistent ways to connect with their customers online, and social media can be one of the best tools to do that. We see many food and drink brands focusing a lot of their time, energy, and resources on social media marketing to build a loyal community of followers who can spread a message about their products. But, if every other food and drink brand is doing the same thing, how do you stand out from the crowd?

One of the tricks to nailing a successful social strategy is to have a consistent stream of posts that encourage regular engagement. Text and picture posts can get great results, but did you know that posts with video have 48% more views (HubSpot) and generate 1200% more shares than text and image content combined? (G2 Crowd).

As a food or drink brand, Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat are great, but Facebook and Instagram should be your bread and butter. Instagram in particular, is highly visual, so it’s great for showing off your products in the best light and acting as your virtual “storefront”. Try to tell the story of your brand and your products with a variety of videos. For example, you can create simple, glossy, 10-second clips of the ingredients that go into your products or a quick time-lapse of a pop-up display being put together in a retail store. Do 1-minute interviews with members of the team or film with your farmers and producers.

Videos on social media add huge credibility to your brand’s identity, especially when informative and educational. Viewers retain 95% of a message after watching it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text (Wirebuzz). Remember, 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound (Instagram), so consider adding motion graphics or subtitles to make them stand out.

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Instagram and Facebook are perhaps one of the most effective ways to create a deeper connection with your customers and engage them on a more personal level. Get somebody in your company to create a Live-stream broadcast taking your audience behind your brand’s scenes and giving them insight into your day-to-day activities. These can be behind the scenes of a shoot, event or product sampling, shots in your office, a team outing or videos in your factory. This type of content will resonate with your audience because it’s personal, honest and will make them feel more involved with your journey. Also, because of the personal style of these videos, 47% of consumers enjoy watching adverts from brands on Instagram and Facebook Story (Animoto).

Think of social media videos as part of a wider ecosystem of content you are creating. Try to drive your audience from one channel to create better engagement with your brand. For example, if you have some great long-form content on YouTube (above 2 minutes) but don’t have many subscribers, create short clips from that content and post it on your Facebook or Instagram page with a link to send viewers across to watch the full video on Youtube. If you are creating blogs or other pieces of written content, you can create short videos summarising the main points from the blog. Post that video on social media and then encourage the viewer to read the full blog on your website by following the link. Not only does this technique help to give your audience lots of content to “gorge on”, but it’s also fantastic for SEO.

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Social media is a great way for food and drink brands to build their own tribe. It works extremely well at engaging audiences with relevant, interesting and exciting content about your brand, and by using video amongst your social media marketing, you can find simpler, easier and more engaging ways to stand out online.

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With Christmas now a distant memory and January finally over, food and drink brands need to focus on their subsequent marketing campaigns, and there are many events and public holidays coming up this spring that food and drink brands can take advantage of.

Recent years have seen tremendous growth in the participation of Veganuary and Dry January. So it’s no surprise that it was a hugely popular time for marketing teams of food and drink brands across the UK. So with spring upon us, what special days are coming up that scream for food and drink video content?

There are a lot of great dates coming up, like St Patrick’s Day,  Easter, and the period building up to Easter like Pancake day and Mother’s Eay. But, it doesn’t just have to be national holidays that inform your video marketing choices; it can also be the changing seasons and the weather.

Spring

Walkers did a mini video on YouTube called “Walkers does Spring” with the slogan “Our crisps are hard to bleat this spring.” This type of video is easy to make and easy to market across all online platforms.

 

Arla created this GIF on Facebook titled “It may not feel like it, but today is the first official day of spring! Who’s looking forward to fresh spring flowers and warmer days?”

It may not feel like it, but today is the first official day of spring! Who’s looking forward to fresh spring flowers and warmer days? #Arla

Posted by Arla on Tuesday, 20 March 2018

 

Creating video content focused on a specific day of the calendar year can be a great way to gain positive exposure for your brand, especially if you run them as video advertisements on social media and target audiences engaging with similar content.

>> Check out our food videography services 

Pancake Day

Hellman’s did a short and simple recipe video for Pancake Day last year, which they marketed via Facebook. The mayonnaise is barely used or referenced, but it is branded, and you can tell that it’s a Hellman’s video.

 

Towering Japanese Fluffy Pancakes; served with crème fraîche, crispy bacon and lashings of maple syrup.

Posted by Hellmann's on Thursday, 8 February 2018

 

Waitrose created a recipe video on Facebook that shows pancakes being made three ways. It’s a really simple video that has no reference to Waitrose products or services, but it’s engaging, relevant and entertaining, so their audience can take something positive away from it, which overall adds value to Waitrose.

 

Enjoy these delicious topping ideas for Pancake Day! Which one is your favourite; mango mojito, maple butter and crispy pancetta or chocolate, banana and hazelnut?Read the recipe: http://bit.ly/2EyGZB1

Posted by Waitrose & Partners on Monday, 12 February 2018

Mother’s Day

Marks and Spencer held a flower arrangement event last year for Mother’s Day, which they filmed and uploaded onto their YouTube channel.

 

Easter

Easter is perhaps the best spring holiday for food or drink brands to take advantage of because it spreads a positive message, is widely celebrated and, is typically a happy, warm and colourful time of the year. Similar to the Waitrose recipe video, you can create Easter-related recipe videos like this one by Lurpak.

Roasted until golden and crispy, Whole Roasted Sea Bream is not your ordinary lunch. Recipe: http://bit.ly/2GjX24j #SeizeTheLongWeekend

Posted by Lurpak on Friday, 16 March 2018

Or, like Marks & Spencers, you could hold an Easter-related event with either your company or customers like an exclusive Easter snack hunt. Film the event and share it with your customers and audiences online to spread a positive and fun message about your brand.

Your videos don’t have to have such a strong reference to holidays or events; it can be as simple as adding the colour yellow or having some daffodils and tulips in the video. Typically, the audience will build their own connection to the event as long as you give them a nudge in the right direction.

>> See films we have created for Aldi, Charlie Bigham’s and Co-op

Asda created this video advert last year for Easter as part of their “Meal Under £2.50 a Head” (which is a series of videos they run on YouTube). There is no actual reference or connection to Easter during the video except for the dancing daffodil in the middle of the table. Yet the video is effective at capturing people’s attention when thinking about Easter.

There are a lot of great videos food and drink brands can be making this Spring season. Using an event like Pancake Day, Easter or Mother’s Day to aid your monthly marketing campaigns is simple, effective and hugely rewarding. It’s one of the fastest ways to drive organic engagement to your brand, get a great return on investments and reach wider audiences during an exciting and busy period. Think about the types of videos you could make and what your audience would like to see from your brand this spring.

Small Films is a London video production company based in Hackney. We support our clients with various videos, from food videography to explainer videos

Food glorious food.. Lots of us love eating it, most of us buy it, some of us like cooking it – and we’re all fascinated by it to one degree or another. It’s no surprise then that the food and drink industry is the biggest manufacturer in the UK today and contributes over 28 billion pounds to the UK economy each year. (BDO).

>> See how we can help you with our food videography services.

Operating in a landscape of fast-changing technologies and increasingly tech-savvy, online-focused consumers, food and drink companies are now having to take a lot on board when considering how best to promote their brands and reach their target markets. A 30 second ‘buy this product’ TV spot supported by some billboard and press advertising no longer cuts the mustard.

Amongst the challenges and uncertainty, one thing is becoming clear, and that is that video as a marketing tool is increasingly becoming unbeatable for generating reach and engagement in the food industry. Video content has been shown to produce the highest levels of engagement of all advertising formats and views of food-related content on YouTube are increasing 170% year on year (Tubular Insights).  Of course, the big global food and drink brands are ahead of the pack with video budgets and strategy, but small brands and start-ups also need to consider video as an essential part of their content marketing efforts in order to be competitive.

And it’s not all food porn and recipe videos. Here are some other great examples of the types of video food and drinks brands are currently producing:

Storytelling/connecting with an audience

Chipotle Mexican Grill – A Love Story.

This sweet, emotion provoking animated short emphasises the brand’s core messages of sustainability and food with integrity, whilst being an entertaining storytelling film in its own right.

 

Educating/informing on health benefits/ingredients
Graze – An introduction to protein.

For a company producing ‘healthy’ alternatives in the snack market, Graze need to share educational information about health and nutrition and show that they have expertise in the market.

 

Recruitment/Communicating behind the scenes company culture
Innocent.

Demonstrating its fun, quirky, independent vibe and customer focus, this film effectively works as a recruitment tool and a way of reinforcing Innocent’s brand values to a wider audience.

 

About us’ video
Hello Fresh. A simple but effective introduction to the company’s service and values.

 

Partnering with influencers/branded content– Captain Morgan Rum partnered with target market influencer, grime star Lady Leshurr on its #livelikeacaptain campaign, promoting its brand through a music video about drinking responsibly.

 

Demonstrating brand transparency/humour.
Absolut Vodka killed two marketing birds with one stone in this amusing video featuring naked Swedish men demonstrating the Absolut Vodka production process –  #vodkawithnothingtohide

>> Check out our blog on the 7 food and drink brands that are nailing TikTok right now. 

6 second pre-roll bumper ads
Oreo thins.

With a speeded up pastiche of a chef plating up Oreo thins in a fancy restaurant style, this video succeeds in grabbing the attention and getting its message across in the blink of an eye – perfect for bumper ads and mobile marketing. Here is a selection of 20 of the best bumper ads.

Small Films’ founder George Hughes spent 15 years producing and directing content for TV broadcast including serious documentary and food and cookery content. For more information about how Small Films can help your food or drink brand with different types of engaging video content, contact us here.

Small Films are food videographers. By combining strategic minds with creative flair we create powerful stories with video that deeply resonate with audiences, supporting our clients to achieve their ambitions in growing their organisation, brand or campaign.