Less than a mouthful

Food pics (notorious by another phrase, too) were framed before we turned the camera on ourselves.  Dinner was the OG influencer.

But, there’s less of it now.

Per Brandwatch’s Food and Beverage Trend Report, there are 16% fewer food mentions across social (YoY).

The bad news for those looking for inspo for your next meal: positive mentions fell dramatically, and are down 45%.

There was an increase – likely from the same cohort of sickos seeking the Delta flight footage – ‘disgust’ mentions ticked up 3%.

(maybe the brilliant Liquid Death ‘squid ink’ vid lives in this grouping, tho).

Is the bar for ‘postability’ rising? Maybe. Is there some residual COVID-breakout effect from the prior year? Probably. Do f&b brands need to figure this out? Absolutely.

At the core of this shift is influence, or more closely, the reliance on influence.

Word of mouth is a long-tenured contributor for food and beverage. And, as we’re all inherently consumers, there’s an addressable audience across the spectrum of tastes. 

Those remarkable releases were great fodder for social - which amplified the goodness (or badness).

Unfortunately for brands (tho fortunately for advertisers) this comes at a time when organic continues to lose ground to paid. The decline in social mentions - assuming that organic is well represented in it - is another can emptying.

There’s no right answer here for f&b brands. Rather, helping teams (and executives) understand that the proverbial plate is full - and that expecting the same contribution of social mentions from the same effort and tactics is a flawed strategy. That’s where the numbers should prove helpful to your cause.

Oh, and the top food-related hashtag - and it wasn’t even close - was #vegan. Again, reiterating the punchline to ‘how do you know someone is vegan?’ >> they tell you.

(I say that with lots of love and admiration for my vegan friends, coming from a guy who has tried to make #plantfirst happen over the past few years)