Social media post ideas for caterers 👩‍🍳

The catering industry is big business, with catering contributing more than £32 billion per year to the UK economy.

If you run your own catering business, then you’ll no doubt be busy preparing food and finding clients to worry about social media, but having a presence is a great way to boost your profile and generate leads.

Below, we’ve put together some social media post ideas for caterers to give you food for thought (excuse the pun) and get ahead of your competitors.

 

Pictures of your food

It’s the most obvious one on this list, but you’d be surprised at how few catering companies take the time to snap a few pictures of their food before they send it out to clients.

Nowadays, iPhone cameras are more than good enough to take professional-looking food photography; just turn off your flash, make sure your food is in focus, and always take your pictures in landscape mode.

You might decide to add some graphics and text to your photographs, such as ‘special offers’ or ‘free cake when you spend £200’, but sharing images on their own is often good enough.

 

Recipe ideas

You’re a food business, so make sure the majority of your social media posts are related to food.

As well as sharing news from the food world (articles on childhood obesity and the sugar tax may not be directly related to your offering, but they’ll encourage people to tweet you), you should share recipes from your own website and from your favourite chefs and caterers.

BBC Good Food, Jamie Oliver, Ocado, Tesco Real Food and The Guardian should be your first port of call, or you could consider recording mini recipe videos for social media that will go down a treat and will likely be shared by your followers, expanding your brand’s reach.

Quirky and unusual recipe videos always go down well, so why not create your own Tasty-style content?

https://twitter.com/tasty/status/1052296623550881792

 

Tie posts into seasonal events

Whether it’s Christmas, the summer holidays, Valentine’s Day or Easter, we can always find an excuse to let our hair down and eat some food, so tie your social media marketing into those events to capture people’s attention.

Planning next Halloween’s content this Halloween will allow you to take lots of photographs and videos, and create custom graphics with pumpkins and cobwebs.

Be experimental, try something new and don’t be afraid to fall flat on your face – the very worst thing that can happen is that nobody likes or interacts with your posts.

 

Statistics and quotes

People love food, and so sharing interesting facts, statistics and quotes could help you generate more interest in your accounts.

Every like, retweet and share helps you to reach more people, and every person is a potential customer, so the more you post on your channels the better.

We have rounded up some great food statistics and quotes that you can steal for your social posts.

1. In the UK, we spent more than £219 billion on food, drink and catering in 2017 – and that figure rises year on year. How much do you spend on your weekly food shop?
2. More than 25 million tonnes of pumpkins, squash and gourds are produced every year.
3. Food demand is expected to increase a whopping 35% by 2030.
4. 80% of a cricket can be eaten, compared to just 55% of a pig and 40% of a cow. But would you be prepared to switch to a cricket diet and cut down on meat consumption?
5. Agriculture provides jobs for 40% of the world’s population. Crazy statistic!
6. An incredible one-third of the world’s food gets lost or is wasted every year.
7. One in four adults got their first job working in a cafe, bar or restaurant.
8. Corporate catering can boost productivity and increase job satisfaction by up to 45%.
9. “If you’re afraid of butter, use cream.” – Julia Child
10. “In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.” – David Auerbach
11. “Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.” – M.F.K. Fisher
12. “I cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it to the food.” – W.C. Fields

 

Testimonials from satisfied clients

The chances are that you have a shedload of satisfied clients who you’ve worked with, so get in touch with a few and ask them to give their thoughts.

You can create your own testimonial posts for social media, which act as social proof and encourage potential leads to get in touch about their own requirements.

You could even turn your testimonials into custom graphics on Canva.

 

Film and television

We’re obsessed with cooking in the UK, and our television schedules are jam-packed with cooking shows and competitions.

Whether it’s The Great British Bake Off or MasterChef, you can probably find a cooking show on television every day of the week – so what better way to promote your business than to piggyback off the shows and tweet along?

Use the hashtags and share your thoughts and ideas, and you’ll naturally attract attention from other people.

Sure, not everyone who watches the show and sees your tweets will want to buy your catering services right away, but they might give you a follow and interact with your content from time to time.

 

 

If you don’t have the time or the patience to manage your social media handles, then let us do the hard work for you.

At 99social, we offer cheap social media management from just £99 per month, perfect for small catering companies like yours.

Get in touch today to find out more.