No food and drink brand can afford to ignore social media. In fact, it’s not good enough just to ‘do’ social media – you really have to do it well. That means showing up, having a strategy, being consistent and measuring your results.

Social selling can drive great business to your door. Even the biggest retailers know this – 68% of consumers who bought online during lockdown intend to carry on as we get back to ‘normal’. That’s not a market anyone can ignore.

Waitrose says that it’s intending to increase online sales by up to 20% this year, capitalising on this demand for online sales. Waterstones saw a 300% increase in its online sales after changing its entire business model to maintain sales when stores were shut – now that business model is firmly tried and tested, this is a significant new income stream for the brand.

But it doesn’t actually matter how big you are – social selling can work for everyone when it’s properly done. So what do you need to support great social selling?

• A strategy – the most successful brands have a clear social strategy. Just ‘winging it’ isn’t good enough.

• A good team – content doesn’t make itself, so you need great images, video, copy and more to help your content be consistent and compelling. You can do this yourself, but you probably won’t have time to do anything else.

• Supporting marketing – great social selling isn’t just about the posts you put up – it’s about supporting that with paid-for content, website pages and the social experience.

• Engagement – consumers expect to be able to engage with a brand, so that they build a personal connection with it. And that takes someone monitoring accounts, responding to questions and building that relationship.

Brands who have adopted a successful Digital 2 Consumer (D2C) strategy through lockdown have invested in their social teams, spent a lot of time creating good quality, consistent content, built relationships with clients and ensured that the buying experience is as slick as the social one.

So it’s a no-brainer that those businesses who have made the D2C transition successfully have had help along the way. Effective social media strategy and delivery is a combination of skills. Get it right and you’ll add followers, increase engagement, boost interactions and see your sales figures rise.

We all have experience of being sold to on social media – whether it’s Facebook pages, Instagram accounts, Twitter lists or LinkedIn. We know when we see it done well – and we can spot a bad seller a mile off.

That’s why I’m really enjoying working with the creative team at Seed Group, a dedicated and talented social media marketing agency that specialises in food and drink brands. Working closely with these brands to develop image and photography styles, tone of voice and social campaigns, they have achieved some fantastic results – 900% increase in web traffic for one brand, and a 22x return on investment for another.

In fact, the Seed Group team has seen some spectacular results during the past 12 months, and has been instrumental in helping its brands to find a new way to sell. A way that is successful, gives a great ROI and raises their profile.

It’s proof that social media is a powerful channel for food and drink brands – and that it’s a fantastic investment for brands of all sizes who want to exploit the D2C opportunity.

If you’re ready to get your food and drink brand noticed, do talk to me today. We can help you to develop a D2C model that helps you to grab attention, raise your profile and boost sales. Drop me a message here, email hello@titanbrands.co.uk or call 0118 934 0976.