Food influencers, and how to partner with them on delicious influencer marketing successes
Food influencers have become one of the most popular and important subsets of the content creator universe of late. The reasons for their success perhaps stem from a combination of things. Namely the natural human passion for coveting pornographically exciting edibles, and the ability of social media to rattle an endless menu of imagery past our ravenous eyeballs at a rate of dozens a second. The feeds of content creators who can make indulgent food look like art make for very easy grazing as we get the train to work, already thinking about lunch.
With food influencers proving such a persistently popular bunch, and now branching out to flex their skills across every video and image-sharing platform online, the options for forging successful commercial partnerships with them are vast. But how best to work on a branded content partnership with a food influencer? And do you even need to be a food brand to do that kind of influencer marketing successfully? Let us explain it all.
What is a food influencer?
FitWaffle’s relentlessly decadent and highly creative desserts have made her content a huge hit over multiple platforms.
A food influencer is any online content creator with a large and/or loyal social following who specialises in food-based content. If that sounds like a pretty wide remit, that’s because it is. But fear not, we’ll break it all down further over the course of this article. Typically working on as an Instagram influencer, YouTube influencer, TikTok influencer, or a combination of all three, a food influencer’s output can cover a similarly eclectic set of styles and subject matters, from recipes, to product testing, to creative cooking (and eating) challenges, to restaurant recommendations, and technique lessons.
Able to reach a global audience, or serve super-specific local niches and communities, food influencers can be incredibly scalable partnership resources when it comes to reaching specific audiences with brand messaging, a trait amplified in no small part by the sheer universality of their subject matter.
Food influencers on Instagram might be the lead archetype, but the field is much bigger than that
Food influencers on Instagram are often the first ones people think of when the field comes up in conversation. And there are historical reasons for that. Food influencers as a concept have long been synonymous with the highly visual, stylised, and heavily produced format of Instagram photography. The first bite is, after all, with the eyes, and the instinctive excitement of great-looking food is something that can be easily communicated in just a two-second glance at a well-shot image. Straightforward ‘food porn’ lends itself well to the Insta feed. But that certainly isn’t the limit of the food influencer’s potential.
Babish’s blend of refined culinary technique, accessible presentation, and pop-culture cookery has built a huge YouTube following.
While many brands still think Instagram-first for their influencer marketing campaigns, limiting yourself to one platform only limits your reach, holding back the creative scope and diminishing the multiple means of audience connection that you could make use of. Many food influencers have transitioned very successfully to the more energised, creatively freeform, highly interactive short-form video format of TikTok over the last year, adapting the quick-fix visual appeal of Instagram food into something more dynamic for the platform’s highly engaged, community-minded, younger audience.
And then there’s YouTube, an area so potent for food content that we’ve written a whole article on it. The dominant social video platform’s open-ended running times, boundless creative options, and scope for TV-quality production, brand building, and series growth (all with in-built community functionality) mean that food influencer YouTube is a landscape with huge power that many food and drink brands are yet to make the most of.
Food influencer marketing: How should you approach it?
That’s the food influencer foundations established. So how should you actually construct a food influencer marketing campaign? We have in-depth guides to partnership building, platforms, and content wisdom throughout the Fourth Floor blog (relevant to both food influencer marketing partnerships, and the creation of your brand’s own social content). But whatever the granular considerations, the first - and last - things to keep in mind are authenticity and purpose.
This successful campaign for Mr. Lee’s Noodles links its product, creative partners, and audience via authentic lifestyle connections.
As with any influencer marketing campaign, food influencer marketing thrives when the brand and the influencer gel in a natural, organic, unforced way. That means finding content creators to work with whose subject matter, outlook, ethics, and tone blend smoothly with your own, and whose audience are already likely to be receptive to your product, messaging, and values. Once you’ve found that match - an all-important matter that a good influencer marketing agency can help with, naturally - it’s ‘just’ a case of working out the content.
Fortunately, with food influencer content, the options are immense. Food is a powerful, emotive, universal constant for everyone, fundamentally embedded into the fabric of every person’s life, every single day. Food is part of people’s personal stories. Find your way into those stories, and relate that combined narrative through engaging, affecting, sharable food influencer content, and you have a swift and effective way into your chosen audience’s hearts and minds.
Maybe you find an exciting and unexpected way to insert your product as a surprising creative ingredient in a stand-out recipe series. Perhaps you organise a special live food influencer event, taking the theatre of a good restaurant night out up to the next level, and amplifying the word of mouth coverage with food influencer attendance. Perhaps your non-food brand or product has a cool thematic link with some aspect of food and drink culture, allowing a surprising creative tie-in activation or location-based activity. The joy of food is a universal one, so if you can align yourself with its primal, salivating delights in the right way, you can win the goodwill and excitement of pretty much anyone.
@fitwaffle MALTESERS TIFFIN RECIPE! Measurements are on fitwafflekitchen I G #recipe #fitwaffle #foryou #learnontiktok
♬ original sound - fitwaffle
The world of online content creation offers boundless potential for brands to get involved in innovative and exciting ways.
Or you can always work on a larger, human level, finding a food influencer whose personal values and relationship with food and the wider industry dovetail with your own company identity. That’s a great way to come together to tell bigger stories, around both your own brand and the wider, human interest world of food at large.
Whichever angle you want to take, a strong, collaborative relationship with the right food influencer and the right influencer marketing agency can lead you to all kinds of brand new and highly effective ways to spread awareness and build loyalty, creating a great and tasty time for yourself and your growing audience at the same time.