Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
350 million photos were uploaded to Facebook, 350 million to Snapchat and
55
million to Instagram. At the same time, 1000 hours of video was uploaded
every minute and
6
billion hours of video is watched every month. Taking
photos is now a major marketing tool.
17
Visitors that take photos share their
photos with their friends and do your marketing for you.
The challenge for many food tourist operators is how do they manage
social media. Polyface Farms in Swoope, Virginia has a blog that attracts
60,000
readers; it is called the 'Hen House' blog. Each day a different
member of the team of seven writes something on the blog. These seven
individuals create a variety of messages and make this a manageable task
for the farm.
Social media marketing is essential to a food tourism venture. The essen-
tial marketing tools required are the following.
Website
The first and most important thing to start with as a marketing tool is a web-
site. Whatever you are communicating online, the website should look su-
perb and it should reflect the business and its values. A few key questions
are enough to check if the website is performing to the level that it should:
•
Can consumers recognize whose website it is even if they do not see the
logo?
•
Is the website updated multiple times per week with relevant informa-
tion?
•
Does the website inspire consumers and provide practical tips that are
valuable to consumers?
•
Is the website an online 'showroom' for your food tourism venture with
relevant product information and products?
If one of the above questions is answered with a 'no', then the business is
missing chances to drive more customers to the company via the web.
In November 2013, 41% of Americans visited a food and cooking website,
up
2
million from the previous month. That represented
86
million visitors
who spent 25 minutes on average on the webpage.
We often see outdated information on websites or pages with a lot of
texts. Based on the above research, all food tourism operators need to focus
on developing the best webpage to promote their business that they can.
A food tourism destination website should inspire potential visitors with
beautiful products, scenery and offerings.
The webpage is the most important shop window and most consumers
look at a food tourism shop window before venturing to the destination.
Use photos of fresh produce and the venue: successful culinary businesses
put a lot of effort into making their business look superb on-site. Take photos or
a YouTube walk around the facility and put them on the website to achieve the
same result online! Do not do it once a year, update photos every month or at
