How did food go digital?

2019 is the year of the Mixed Grills it's so close I can taste it! Whilst writing this article I've just demolished a man size dish of pure meat and side of fries with a refreshing beer imported from Prague! In "The Merry Go-Round" West Bromwich.

Over the past 5 years we've noticed a trend in food bloggers increasingly more active promoting restaurants and other food brands bringing light to all the illustrious places to dine such as; Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsy, Nusr-et, Opheem and so on.

More and more restaurants recognize that the environment, dish presentation and social interactions all impact customers experiences of a meal. Today when interacting with a waiter, customers embrace an immersive experience at the restaurant, taking in multiple touch-points of the restaurant’s cuisine, atmosphere and attention to branding and decor. But that experience is lost when customers order food to their homes.

In the future, food delivery apps like Just Eat, UberEats and Easy Food will rise to the same depths of interacting with a thoughtful waiter about what to eat, what food pairs well and what's really the best dessert on the menu.

Restaurants will leverage this interaction with the customers outside of the restaurant by creating thoughtful takeaway dish presentations and packaging, so customers can experience more of the restaurant’s brand outside of the brick-and-mortar store.

However, it's the brands that use social media platforms like; Twitter and Instagram to maintain the relationship of their customers that will dominate the market and grow.

More and more brands are looking to influencer marketing to gain that competitive edge as you can see from Marks and Spencers #MyMarksFave campaign with celebs: Paddy Mcguiness, Rochelle Humes, Amanda Holden and Emma Willis. There's also the Chicken Connoisseur who's rise to stardom came from doing reviews of chicken shops around London. Now he's gained over 600k subscribers on Youtube with his own program on the BBC.

Here's how you can set-up your own influencer campaign to attract a new audience.

First identify what's your offer to the influencer and to the consumer. What do you have that they want or need?

Also before we go any further let's make this clear, if you're running a restaurant or cafe or even in the catering business, you need to be on Instagram.

Next step is my absolute favorite, "Creating a mood board". A decent mood board is a type of collage consisting of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition. It can be based upon a set topic or can be any material chosen at random. A food board can be used to convey a general idea or feel about a particular topic "Vegan munch, Gluten free and ready, meat fest and etc.. Check out the Tribe app which is what influencers use to sign up to big campaigns.

Once your mood board is complete and give influencers clear instructions on what you want to see from them then it's up to them to use their creativity at home or at your restaurant to create amazing and captivating videos, images, blog reviews, etc. All you'll then need to do is choose the ones that tie in with your brand and has an audience that you would like to attract.

What about the size of their following you say? In my experience Micro-Influencers with following from 10k-100k is ideal as they're hungry for the work "Forgive the bun" and have a real burning passion for what they do.

Also you can check out their engagement and look out for the ones that respond to the comments or is always active on their account/s

I hope that's shed some light on influencer marketing little, there's yet so much more to learn. Please comment below if you've had any experience with working with influencers or an influencer yourself. I would like know about what campaigns you've worked on or currently working on at the moment. Any questions comment below.