How A Bakery Should Use Instagram To Market Their Business Online

In today's episode we talk about: 

• The importance of creating daily videos. We talk about what type of videos as well.
• Using Instagram Stories to create 'how to', 'tips', 'contests' and 'polls'.
• Creating a theme in your feed.
• Follow food and local hashtags to ENGAGE!

Aaron: [00:00:16] Hey,guys. Thanks for jumping in and giving us your ear. I heard that on anotherpodcast. Christian's dancing in the background, and I like that. Giving us yourear. So whether you're out on a run or riding your bike or working, and I'veheard a lot of people listening to podcasts on the desktops now while they'reworking which is cool. So either way, we really appreciate you for subscribing,downloading, and listening to the podcast. We hope that we are adding some realvalue to you guys, and we have a really cool episode for you. And it is forbakeries. So you know, anybody in the pastry industry, this is for you. How abakery should use Instagram to market their business online, and this is goingto make me probably pretty hungry. We're recording this in December. So we havea lot of sweets and treats and stuff in the office. So we may snack on themlater, but today we're going to cover creating videos daily. Very importantthere. Using stories to create how-tos, tips, contests, even polls. Creating atheme in hashtag, and then staying consistent with your Instagram posting. Andthen following food and local hashtags to jump in on conversations with otherbusinesses or other people who are your potential audience in that area.

Christian: [00:01:33] Yeah.I mean, we're basically covering- This is almost like an Instagram 101 if youthink about it.

Aaron: [00:01:42] Yeah.Maybe 102. They should probably have 101, get the Instagram profile.

Christian: [00:01:46] We're-This is 102, you know, how to really get it cranking and going. So the veryfirst thing here - and this is something we've noticed and other marketers havenoticed - is creating videos on Instagram gives you a lot more exposure thanjust regular pictures or photographs. So creating daily videos, it's a greatway for a bakery to, you know, really shine on Instagram, and it shouldn't bereally hard to create these videos. I mean, Instagram gives you a lot of tools.For example, they have the hyperloop. They have-

Aaron: [00:02:24] Stopzoom. That's like- I feel like that's made for food when you zoom in on food.

Christian: [00:02:29] Yeah.They have the stop animation one. So these are all just things inside ofInstagram where you can create videos.

Aaron: [00:02:35] Live.I mean.

Christian: [00:02:36] Yeah,you can make a live video, but for example, like just as a bakery if you makebread, you know, the rising bread. Like that could be like one of thoseanimations that goes back and forth.

Aaron: [00:02:47] Boomerangs.

Christian: [00:02:47] Yeah,boomerangs. So you have a lot of creative stuff that you can do with videos,and if your bakery, like there's so much visually that you can capture withvideo that is going to make everyone hungry really.

Aaron: [00:03:01] Ithink before we jump even farther into this the bakers are typically the oneswho love making the food but get to capture it. So this is just anincentivizing way for us to tell you, you make great food and you bake greatfood, but you have to document it. Otherwise, people aren't going to know aboutit, and we want to see it. I mean, that's one of the- I think it's what? Thehighest trending thing on Instagram besides like fitness is looking at food?

Christian: [00:03:31] Yeah,absolutely. And yeah, the other thing with videos is, you know, making- I mean,you were talking about making the food, but making food Instagram-ready. I usedhand quotations.

Aaron: [00:03:45] Idon't think they saw that.

Christian: [00:03:47] No.They probably didn't see it.

Aaron: [00:03:48] Oh,they didn't? Okay.

Christian: [00:03:49] Buta lot of people are using this, and we went to- Megan and I went to a tacoplace here in Dallas, and the only reason why we went to that taco place wasbecause their photos and videos that they were doing on Instagram were likeamazing. Like the food looked awesome, and they may have used like somegimmicky stuff here and there. But it's still- I mean, it draws in, and it madeus go to that location and try their food.

Aaron: [00:04:17] Sowe want to support local business. What was the name of this location?

Christian: [00:04:20] OMGTacos.

Aaron: [00:04:21] OMG?

Christian: [00:04:22] Tacos,and very cool thing. They use- They sprinkle Hot Cheetos in some of theirtacos.

Aaron: [00:04:34] Wow.

Christian: [00:04:34] Yeah.But the thing is- Okay, so yeah. That kind of a surprise to you, but that waskind of more like a gimmicky thing because you can't really taste it that much.But regardless it was pretty cool, and it gives you a little bit of flavor inthere.

Aaron: [00:04:47] Yeah,potentially, but the fact that they used it and probably had a placement of thebag in the background or something.

Christian: [00:04:53] Yeah.So as a bakery, I mean, you can do a lot of things with like cereals or- Andusing this with like donuts where they do crazy things with donuts.

Aaron: [00:05:01] Yes.Hurts Donuts and then Rise Donuts in Allen. Both did that.

Christian: [00:05:04] Soyou know, creating these Instagram videos and photos and, you know, using somecreativity with your food will definitely get you really good engagement onyour photos or videos.

Aaron: [00:05:19] Soone other thing here is to use stories to create how-to. So you know thosesimple baking tricks. We all of the Tasty videos, and that may be somethingthat you could do with like stop animation or you could do with a live video.And I consider a live video on there to be like part of the stories feature,but how-tos, tips for it. Like hey, you should probably not put the oven to 500degrees because you're going to burn something. I don't know. Don't take forgranted what you know because a lot of other people don't know the answer toit. If you like oh, that's completely obvious, you know, not to put chocolate withthis much salt or, you know, I don't know. So I'm just trying to think of anexample, but don't take it for granted. So give us those good tips on how tocook something, and you can do contests. I love the idea of a contest to winsomething for free like one of those OMG Tacos or for like a bakery like hey,give away a cupcake. What does that cost you? Like 50 cents. You can give awaya dozen of them. Cost you a couple of dollars to give away to grow yourfollowers, and then you also have an Instagram ability to do polls. So you canfind out what people want. So they can help you pick like flavor of the week.Then you make the flavor of the week, and then you could do a contest for it togive it away and just kind of build up excitement around it. I feel like I needto start a bakery now.

Christian: [00:06:46] Yeah.I know. But yeah. Going back to that point, basically what we're telling youhere is to use Instagram stories. That's something that a lot of businesses arenot necessarily using that much, but is something very important. And Aaronbasically gave you a bunch of tips on- You know, you can do tips. You can dohow-tos. You can do contests. You can do polls, and really connect with youraudience using stories.

Aaron: [00:07:07] Right.And do it frequently. I mean, there's so many stories that you can- There'sonly so many stories you can look at. So if you're not doing it frequently- andI think we've mentioned this on a previous episode where you need to beconsistent. Whether you do it at least a couple times a day, but you can't justgo and do it once a week and expect for results to just happen. That's notgoing to work.

Christian: [00:07:27] Yeah.And speaking of being consistent, it's also very important to be consistent onyour regular timeline. Is that- Is it timeline? Or your feed on Instagram, andmaybe even using a theme. When we talk about themes, and I think we've talkedabout this on our video show that we have on Facebook called Tip for Tip. Youcan check it out. Go to Facebook.com/bitbranding. But you can see that we'vetalked about a little bit about Instagram themes, and when we talk aboutthemes, we're talking about it could be as simple as using the same filter onyour photographs or videos to keep that consistent look all throughout yourfeed. Right now we have a theme where we do an educational post, a quote, andthen a picture and/or video. So I feel like those are two different kind ofthemes. You can have a theme where, you know, your aesthetics look the same, oryou can have a theme where you sort of figure out what type of post you want todo. And you consistently do those, you know, throughout the week.

Aaron: [00:08:31] AndI feel like- I say that a lot. I feel like. I like going to profiles andscrolling through there, and it's a lot easier on the eyes. So you end upreading a lot more or consuming a lot more of the person's content when you getover to like their profile on their feed. So it will keep them longer, and itwill make it easier for you to kind of keep things uniform with the type ofposts that you know you need to put out.

Christian: [00:08:56] Yeah.So we kind of jump around and skipped a little bit, but I think this last onewe should talk about locations and hashtags, both in your regular feed and thestories which is very important.

Aaron: [00:09:12] Solocation is very important for Instagram because unless you're an e-commercebakery or, you know, you do sell online, which I don't know about very manybakeries that do that. Maybe they do. I don't know how those travel, but mostof the bakeries that I go to are local. So using local hashtags that are notbakery-themed or outside- So for example, we're in Allen, Texas. Using thehashtag Allen, Texas or Allen, TX would be very beneficial for you, but to alsouse like Allen foodie or foodies in the area or food plunge, very popular.Using those bigger ones as well, but making sure you choose a location. You canactually go to the Instagram feed and up the top search something and thensearch for locations. So if you know about something- Another business that'snear you, you can search for people in that area and then get in onconversations for that location, and they're going to automatically- It's kindof crazy. They will go over to your profile and see who's commenting andtalking to them, and they know that they've been in that area so they will comeover to your profile as well.

Christian: [00:10:20] Yeah.So like Aaron said, location tagging, both stories and your regular pictures orvideos, is very important because it will expand your reach.

Aaron: [00:10:31] Right.When you use the locations tag on Instagram stories, you have the ability to befound on like the main story. So for example, if Christian and I Instagramstory right now and we tagged Allen, Texas, it will get pushed to the Allenstory, and then there's all the people who were in Allen are going to see thatfeed and can see that story. And they'll click through and be able to watch ourvideo. So you do expand your reach that way. So instead of reaching- Say youreached normally 100 people. You could reach 200 or 300 or 400. We did one inPlano, and it jumped from like 50 or 60 people seeing it to like six or sevenhundred. It was very crazy. So those are just a lot of new people, and all ittakes is a click of the button.

Christian: [00:11:16] Yep.Do you have anything else?

Aaron: [00:11:19] Idon't. Take a lot of picture-

Christian: [00:11:22] Oh.

Aaron: [00:11:22] Yes?

Christian: [00:11:22] Engagement.

Aaron: [00:11:23] Okay.

Christian: [00:11:24] Didwe talk about engagement?

Aaron: [00:11:24] No,not really.

Christian: [00:11:25] SoI mean, this is another great thing about Instagram and social media is thatengagement is basically the number one thing to growing you're following onInstagram and growing your reach on Instagram, and that is engaging. Inengaging we're talking about not just liking because liking everyone can do.Just tap it. That's it. Easy, done, out of the way. We're talking about communicatingand commenting on different videos, and I mean, you can use our last tip whichwas the location hashtag and find other people nearby you and comment on them.Just leave them honest, you know, comments on whatever they're posting. Ifthey're posting about their cat, say that's a lovely cat.

Aaron: [00:12:06] Right.And not something that's so generic where it says wow, that was a great post.Or thanks for sharing that with me.

Christian: [00:12:12] Youdo see those a lot.

Aaron: [00:12:13] Andthose people need to be- There's a special place for those people. We will justleave it at that. Something I was testing out on my personal profile, and it'san ability you have now. This is recorded in December. Probably about a monthago, you can respond to other people's stories. So go out and follow people.Watch their stories, and you can respond with pictures and videos inside oftheir stories and have conversations. And you can go back and forth. Thatprivate message tool is very, very beneficial for you. All you need isliterally some just real advocates for your brand. That's why influencers areso popular, but real advocates for your brand. And you have a conversation withthem, you're already going to be setting yourself apart. For example, I'vetalked to multiple companies, and they actually responded to me. And I was likeoh, well, I'm going to go buy some of your products because, you know, you'recool. You actually responded to me, and so many businesses don't do that.They'll look at it, and they'll just not respond. Like why would I respond tomy customers? That doesn't make sense. So engagement. Huge.

Christian: [00:13:12] Yep.

Aaron: [00:13:13] Allright. So thank you again. We mentioned this at the beginning of the podcast.Thank you, guys, for allowing us to take up some of your time, and hopefullyyou had some value out of this. If you are a baker, pastry chef, or anybody inthe food industry, this podcast is for you, and if you know somebody who ownsthis type of business or is thinking about starting one, make sure to show themthis podcast. And you can do that very easily on your phone by clicking - onthe iPhone anyway - the bottom right three dots. Click that share button. Shareit with a friend. Put it on your Facebook profile. Put it on Instagram. Tag us.If you share this, we have some- Something cool we could give away to you. I'mnot going to reveal it on the podcast because it's going to be later so we maynot have much of them, but we will send you something very cool if you downloadthis podcast, share it, and then tag us and make sure that we know about it. Wewill reach out to you directly and mail you something very cool. And a shoutout to the people over in Japan. So that's going to be a far shipping, but.

Christian: [00:14:15] Hey,if you do it, we'll ship it.

Aaron: [00:14:16] Yeah,we will. I don't know about the taxes or anything, but anyway. So we will talkto you guys next week.

Christian: [00:14:24] Seeya.