3 Secrets to Selling Your Food Product Using Social Media

3 Secrets to Selling Your Food Product Using Social Media

Social media is a blessing and a curse, and trying to sell a product using this fickle beast can be quite challenging for a food brand. 

It isn’t impossible, but you need to remember the three keys and goals of using social media for a business, the entire purpose is for your audience to KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST you. If your content isn’t building toward one of those purposes, then you’re not setting the right goals to hit your business goals overall through social media. 

No matter which social media platform you’re using, getting people to purchase your food brand products through social media posts is about consistently showing up to establish a connection that turns into a relationship between you and your audience. That’s the basics of sales in general, but when you’re trying to do that on a large scale with people you aren’t actually meeting and talking to, it is challenging. 

With a food brand, you’re not selling food itself, everyone has to eat in order to live so that is not your “problem solver”, it has to be more personal and more focused. Why does your audience need YOUR product, what problem does it specifically solve? Why should they pick YOUR food brand over another one, maybe one they have seen on commercials during a football game or reality TV show? 

How do you get your audience to KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST you?

This is a topic you will hear from many people in the social media world, almost every training talks about this to some degree, they may use different verbiage, but they are all talking about it because it's true. 

KNOW

Your audience has to know you. Who you are, your name, how to recognize your food brand, what you stand for, why you’re different than every other food brand. You need to woo them, win them over, and show them who your food brand is. 

This is why knowing your brand yourself is so important and having a brand guide that outlines every part of your brand for all the members of your various teams to always be on the same page and make the same statements. A food brand, like any other brand, has to be consistent in how it wants the customer to feel, what is important to them, how they solve a problem, what they want to communicate, how they communicate, and clearly focusing on the target demographic of their product. 

This means the language you use, the feelings that your “voice” expresses, the emotions you touch on during your communications, if you’re timeless, classic, trendy, vintage, or some other style set. You have to know who your target market is so that you can make sure your food brand matches with what they are drawn to. 

LIKE

In order to get someone to buy your food brand product, they have to like you and what you’re telling them. (You’ll notice all three of these secrets are very connected and they depend on each other and weave into each other) Usually, they will follow you on social media if they like you, or they might have tried to enter a contest you were partnered in so they started following you to win a prize. How do you know if they like you? Merely following your accounts doesn’t mean they actually like you. 

You have to interact with them, get them to engage with your content, get their attention and then hold onto it and keep the connection going. This game continues even after they make a purchase because one purchase isn’t enough and it will leave a bad taste in their mouth if you only interact until they buy. If you want to give off used car salesman vibes then ignore them once they purchase. If you want to give off standout food brand vibes with fantastic customer-focused goals then keep wooing them long after the initial purchase. Get them to continue liking you and sharing your food brand with their friends and family. 

If you see a movie over the weekend that you liked what do you do? When you go to work or school or see your friends during the week you tell them all about it and make sure they know the title so they can watch it and enjoy the experience as well. The same is true of great food products, we tell everyone we can how great it was, whether it is pasta, cheese, wine, an electric pressure cooker, or a cookie scoop that doesn’t leave a mess. We are a species built and thriving on connections, so make sure your audience likes you and connects with you consistently on social media.

TRUST

Normally, you would talk about trust as the cornerstone of just about every relationship, but when you’re building up to the trust; you have to know and like what you’re going to trust first, right? If you don’t know what it’s all about, and like what it’s all about, you won’t give it a chance to be trusted will you? 

Once your audience knows everything it can about your food brand and then decides that they like your food brand, you have to earn their trust. They will not hand over money they worked hard for to buy your food product until they trust that is worth that hard-earned money. Even just a few dollars, you’re competing with food brands they already trust, so you need to establish this important piece of the relationship first through your social media presence. 

How you establish trust is with honesty and consistency. There’s a lot of lies and bending the truth that goes on in a lot of marketing these days. Take a look at any packaging that says “new and improved” or “30% more than XYZ brand” and you’ll see that these gimmicks work, but they aren’t honest and they don’t build trust. 

You have to show up honestly and consistently because they are going to be seeing food brands all over the place, everywhere they look and listen there are food brands trying to gain the KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST factor too, so you have to be there every chance you get. 

Use real product reviews from real customers, produce the facts about your food product to help them understand why they can trust you. Make sure that at every opportunity your customer service is spot on and makes them feel heard and understood, whether that is a direct message through a social media app, an email, or a phone call. Those small interactions will make or break your food brand for that customer, and what gets more attention than a rave review? A crushing negative review and it will spread faster than the positive one, by ten times. 

Be honest about what is in your food product, help your audience by educating them on what that means and how it can help them, and do it in a positive way. Smear campaigns do not garner trust, make sure you focus on your food brand and don’t worry about the ones you’re competing with. Stay true to who you are and what you’re delivering, and most importantly, stay focused on earning the trust of your audience so they become customers instead of followers. 

Social media is full of things that are put on the internet to invoke negative feelings in order to lead toward a solution to those feelings. There are horrible reviews and experiences posted everywhere and they get shared more than the positives do. A customer is more likely to complain and leave a bad review on social media or websites than they are when a product meets expectations and gives them a positive feeling. Your job in marketing a food brand on social media is to overcome all that and make sure the entire experience with your company is positive and worthy of their time. 

By educating your future customers on the merits of your product, and honestly telling them what is in your product and how it can help them or improve their food experience through genuine and brand centered consistent marketing and interactions, you will establish the KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST attributes that are necessary to get them to spend money with your food brand.