In an era where we spend most of our lives online, it makes a big sense to put our businesses online too. Digital marketing is a very important segment of every business’s marketing. Although traditional marketing also has a place among the marketing strategies of businesses, nothing can quite so easily and immediately reach customers as digital marketing. Increasing brand awareness is just one more of the positive effects that digital marketing has.
According to a survey that Clutch did last year, the top six channels for digital marketing are social media, websites, emails, display/banner ads, mobile apps, and content marketing. They surveyed 501 digital marketers across the United States to come to these findings.
These rules apply to any industry out there, as well as the food industry. Using hashtags to promote businesses and increase brand awareness is a very well-known strategy for improving your digital marketing. However, as with everything in life, there is a right way and a wrong way to use them. And from the Clutch survey, reaching out through social media platforms makes total sense.
As one great example from the food industry that played out a scenario very strategically, Morton’s Steakhouse can be pointed out. A customer by the name of Peter Shankman jokingly tweeted to the restaurant’s Twitter profile that he would like somebody to bring him a porterhouse steak when his plane lands at the Newark Airport. When he arrived there, a server from Morton’s Steakhouse was waiting for him with his steak! The story blew up on the social media and outside of it bringing the restaurant plenty of good press! Listening to your customers, and providing a personalized experience for them might be what you need to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
Food Industry Hashtags
If you are in the food industry and you want to get your way around the most used hashtags, let’s dig deeper. Social media is definitely changing the way restaurants and other food-related businesses interact with their customers. Using hashtags in this context means reaching a larger audience and introducing them to the way your businesses does its work. Some of the most popular food-related hashtags are the following:
- #foodie
- #foodporn
- #foodstagram
- #wine
- #vegan
- #pizza
- #sushi
- #dessert
These hashtags are some of the most basic ones and they are a good place to start especially if you are trying to advance your business on Instagram since hashtags like these ones are mostly used there. Using these types of generic hashtags can be very helpful with reaching new audiences, but be careful not to overdo it.
Some Good Examples
Ideally, you will come up with a very creative and interesting hashtag for your business that will engage the customers and make them even more interested in whatever it is that you’re offering. This is not an easy task at all. Some interesting examples include:
- Pieology Pizzeria with their hashtag #MyPieology. The customers of the pizzeria get the chance to be featured on the pizzeria’s social media pages. Pieology Pizzeria is constantly updating their profiles and sharing photos of their customers. All that the people have to do is take a picture with the pizza and use the hashtag. It works, and it’s essentially free marketing for the pizzeria!
- DiGiorno Pizza with their hashtag #DiGiorNOYOUDIDNT. With this hashtag, the pizzeria wanted to reach out to new audiences on social media and targeted the NFL fans who are known for talking trash to one another on Twitter every Sunday. The employees started to participate in this smack talk using the hashtag on Twitter. It did get around a lot, and made quite the impression!
- Entenmann’s with their hashtag #NotGuilty. This is a different story. In 2011 the company Twitter the hashtag and asked their customers to use it when eating the sweets of the company. However, the hashtag was already trending at that time in regards to the Casey Anthony trial and the death of her two-year-old daughter. This meant bad press for Entenmann’s. They deleted the tweet and apologized, which meant they know how to detox from the bad move that they did.
From the above examples, we can conclude that hashtags, when used properly, can be a fun and engaging strategy that will make your customers get in touch with you more and appreciate your brand more. However, you have to be very careful in the way you construct the hashtags, the message that you’re promoting, and the environment your business is in. Even small mistakes can cost your business a lot in terms of bad press, losing loyal customers and in some cases worse scenarios than those. Make your hashtag as controversial as you can so it differentiates your brand from your competitors.
Author Bio:
Mary Walton is a professional editor, content strategist and a part of NCSM team. Apart from writing, Mary is passionate about hiking and gaming. Feel free to contact her via Facebook.
