Food and its relationship with Social Media

If you were to google the definition of the phrase “social media influencer” You would find something like “Social media influencers are digital creators with expertise in a specific niche”. There are thousands of them in the food world alone, including chefs, food writers, food scientists, food producers, growers, registered dieticians, nutritionists, or just anyone with an opinion on food or nutrition. However, self-proclaimed “experts” may not all be all that. The problem is that opinion is not always grounded in fact. So, is social media useful for the food world? And can you believe everything you read / see / hear?

Well…Yes & No!

Yes, social media is a very powerful tool for talking about food and marketing your foods as well as reaching out to your audience.

No – you definitely cannot believe everything. To paraphrase Edgar Allen Poe, only believe half of what you read and none of what you see / hear!

Consumers increasingly get their news and information online, not on TV or in newspapers, and much of this is from social media sites. So, food producers would ignore social media at their peril. The question then is, not should food producers use social media for communicating with their customers, as it is clear that they should, but rather, how to provide understandable, believable, credible information in an easily accessible and trustworthy way.

The thing is that consumers expect food producers to use social media now, whatever their channel of choice (which should of course be the same channel their customers are using, according to their preference). As of June 2024, there were 4,063,400 users of Facebook in Ireland, accounting for 79.5% of the total population. Overall, women were more likely to use Facebook than men. Additionally, Facebook found popularity with users aged 25 to 34 years, who made up 24.1% of its user base. Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger are owned by Meta which, love it or loathe it, is a Social Media giant! In 2023, there were an estimated 415 million X/Twitter users worldwide also, and on top of that there is Pinterest, TikTok...

Below is a typical breakdown of social media usage by age range:

  • 18-29 years – Snapchat (41%), TikTok (35%), Instagram (32%)
  • 30-39 years – LinkedIn (34%), X/Twitter (34%), Snapchat (33%), Instagram (32%)
  • 40-49 years – LinkedIn (25%), Facebook (22%), X/Twitter (21%)
  • 50-59 years – Facebook (29%), LinkedIn (24%), Pinterest (24%)

In Ireland, the Central Statistics Office reports that the average age of mothers giving birth is 33 years. So mothers of young children are 30-40 years old. They are on LinkedIn (34%), X/Twitter (34%), Snapchat (33%), Instagram (32%). That is where influencers for this demographic operate and food producers, food businesses, growers, dieticians and nutritionists can be found spreading their messages.

Just because someone says something, doesn’t make it true, and developing a relationship between food producers and consumers must be based on trust and sound knowledge. Yes, it’s up to the consumer to be discerning, to question and interrogate the information that is being broadcast, but they don’t always have the means or time or willingness to do so. So, more importantly, it’s the responsibility of so-called “influencers” and social media managers to make sure that the information they share is true, and to call out anything that is not.

For more, trusted information: