Everything Brands Need to Know About “Foodie” Influencers
From mukbang YouTubers to the private chefs of TikTok, “foodie” influencers bring a diverse array of flavors to the digital table through their innovative recipes, mouth-watering content, and vibrant storytelling.
If you’re looking to work with these talented food-focused creators, you’ve come to the right place. This is the final part of our 3-part blog series tailored to the food and beverage industry. If you missed Part 1 and 2, catch up here:
- Part 1: 4 Influencer Marketing Best Practices for Food & Beverage Brands
- Part 2: 3 Food Brands Cooking Up Amazing Influencer Marketing Campaigns
In Part 3, we’re telling you everything you need to know about foodie influencers. Of course, each individual influencer has their own preferences, personality, and content style. But if you’re a food and beverage brand looking to tap into the foodie community on social media, here are some general things to keep in mind when partnering with influencers in this niche.
The foodie community is very engaged.
Consumers look to foodie influencers specifically for recipes and recommendations, especially in sub-communities catered to specialized diets, such as vegan, gluten-free, or keto.
Unlike people who follow fashion influencers for styling and inspiration tips, for example, people follow foodie influencers for discovery and direction. In fact, 82% of millennials look online to plan their next meal, and 86% try a new restaurant after seeing food-related content online. This means you’ve already got a very engaged audience looking for food inspiration!
Make it easy for consumers to find your products by providing influencers with affiliate links that lead directly to your checkout site. Creators can include these links in their Instagram Stories, under their YouTube videos, or on their blogs, and offer an exclusive discount for their followers. By doing so, you can not only streamline the path to purchase for consumers, but also accurately track conversions driven by your influencer partners.
Foodie influencers make some of the best content…
When it comes to promoting food, high-quality content means everything. Have you ever seen a photo or video of someone’s meal that makes you literally taste the food through your screen? That’s the type of content that will have both new and returning customers racing to the grocery store to buy your product.
Understanding that this is key to marketing success, many foodie influencers invest in high-quality camera equipment — even if it’s just the latest iPhone — and the best editing software to make sure they get appetite-inducing content of the masterpieces they create in the kitchen. Because the photos and videos they produce are so high-quality, they’re also often the most engaging content on the internet.
… But they also charge more for it.
Our study found that creators in the food industry report earning the most amount of money per month from their brand partnerships.
We hypothesize that foodie influencers charge more for a few reasons. For starters, as previously mentioned, creators in this space often invest in the best equipment to create the highest quality content and should, therefore, be compensated accordingly. Additionally, because the foodie influencer community is smaller than, say, the beauty and fashion communities, there are fewer creators to go around. And since supply is low, demand increases — thus giving foodie influencers the ability to charge brands higher rates.
Foodie influencers require creative control over their content.
Ever heard the phrase, “too many cooks in the kitchen”? You wouldn't go to a restaurant and tell the chef how to season and prepare your meal. Well, the same principle applies to brands working with foodie influencers.
When it comes to creating collaboration terms, make sure that you’re giving foodie influencers enough creative freedom to come up with content (and a fun new recipe!) that resonates. Foodie influencers are very in tune with their audience. They know what recipes will and won’t produce the most engagement on their social media channels. So, leave the creativity up to them. That way, they can incorporate your products into their content in a natural way and cater to their audience’s taste buds.
Check out how foodie creator Angela Miley, better known as @thesecarbsdontcount, seamlessly incorporated Kettle & Fire’s bone broth into this delicious one pot buffalo chicken mac and cheese recipe for all of her carb-loving followers.
