Marketing and Influence in the Food, Restaurant, and Hospitality Industry
There's no question the pandemic had and is still having a tremendous impact on the restaurant industry. In fact, as today’s guest points out, when you look at the history of how and why people use restaurants, the experience has changed. Rev Ciancio is a food and hospitality industry influencer. Yep … in the B2B space. He speaks at food and beverage industry conferences. He is a marketing and tech evangelist for the food business. He’s often engaged to consult with restaurants on developing their tech stack and customer acquisition approach. But Rev is also quite the b2c influencer as well. He runs the channel @funwithfries on Instagram. It has 334,000 followers. For what is essentially french fry porn. Literally .. pictures of orders of french fries, mostly user-generated content he repurposes. Seems frivolous and silly, right? Well he has a long-standing relationship with a french fry wholesaler because of that account. His industry credentials give him true influence in a specific niche. His flare for creating engaging content gives him the consumer following. So, Rev has the best of both worlds as an influencer and content creator. I caught up with him recently to talk about the food industry and its post-pandemic challenges. How he manages influencer marketing for his own local restaurant. What technology and marketing channels and approaches are smart for restaurants to acquire customers and beyond. He gives some great insight for both brands an influencers in the first part of the conversation about how to divide your content smartly around various networks. Really good advice here, so pay attention. Don’t forget to drop Winfluence a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. Also, if you’d like a deep dive on an influencer marketing topic every so often, subscribe to my email newsletter at jason.online/subscribe. I send it every 4-6 weeks and go deep on a topic to make your influence marketing smarter. Want to make a future episode of Winfluence awesome? Ask your question about influence or influence marketing that you want my answer to or take on. Send me an email to [email protected]. If you’re feeling adventurous, record a voice memo on your phone and email me that file. I’ll let you ask the question right here on the show using the recording. Regardless of how you ask it, I may use your comment on a future episode or your question to inspire a show topic. If I do, I’ll send you a signed copy of Winfluence the book as a thank you! Today's episode is presented by Tagger, the complete influencer marketing platform. Get a demo to see if Tagger is right for you at jason.online/tagger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices