The growing influence of social media in the food industry

It’s lunch time you’ve found the perfect place to eat, your food has finally arrived and it looks great, which means one thing, you can’t help yourself, time to take a picture and post it online. We’ve all see it and probably all done it, this recent phenomena seems to have taken over the internet and it seems impossible to scroll down your social media feeds without seeing at least 1 filter heavy image of someones beautifully crafted lunch.

Using social media to show food is a great way to show off to others, and through the use of angles and filters a regular sandwich could suddenly become the most appealing sandwich in the known universe. Not only is this a perfect way for people to show off to their friends, it is immensely influential and is something that many restaurants and cafes are now picking up on as a way to promote their own products. 

One of the most popular hashtags currently on Instagram is ‘Food.’ People love to search for images of food and often genuinely enjoy looking to gain inspiration of what to cook or where to eat. Adding hashtags to an image means it can be found easier and many people in the food industry now add relevant hashtags so that their food can be found better. 

 A restaurants reputation lies in the hands of the consumer and always has done, however with the development of social media there are even more ways of reviewing somewhere. Gone are the days of checking Yelp or Tripadvisor for a review, now someone will more than likely head to Instagram or Facebook first to find pictures and reviews before even considering looking at the menu.

 
The rise of social media has done wonders for the food industry and is really helping to create a whole new kind of marketing that the industry hasn’t really experienced before, it’s fun, it’s different and it’s something that looks likely to grow even more in 2016.