• by Maryanne Conlin , April 18, 2012

Those of us who work in food tend to segment our target markets into various niches. While, for most of my clients “mom” is the primary target market, foodies play a big role as influencers. It used to be somewhat easy to reach these foodies, as targeting news writers for a few large publications in New York pretty much covered it. 

Now, of course, foodies are everywhere, cooking and blogging, creating videos and boards on Pinterest, starting communities, developing podcasts and putting up Facebook pages. With the rise of the online foodie comes opportunity and, of course, mind-boggling choices. 

Like most communities on the web, foodies have their own tight-knit groups and have recently realized the value of monetizing their work. I welcome this! (I have always been a supporter of paying the social media-savvy to work with a brand … never could see why we shouldn’t … everyone needs to get paid by someone.) But besides that, it opens up the opportunity for my clients to more narrowly target their optimal consumers … which is, of course, the big advantage of digital marketing.

Where once food brands had choices of large, full-service vendors to provide the tools of online outreach: blogger outreach/blog ads/Twitter parties/social media posts, etc. or small niche players, now I am finding more and more professional services targeting exactly my foodie consumer – moms or hipsters or savvy gourmets. This comes as a great relief.

As a strategist, I work with brands and vendors to implement various digital strategies. With more opportunities to work directly with foodies, I am able to develop tighter programs with less effort and provide better service to my clients. The increased interaction between foodies on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest makes it easier to find peeps to follow. The increased professionalism shown by now-experienced food bloggers makes planning a campaign easier and much more creative as foodies provide their own ideas. The entrepreneurial foodies now providing all sorts of digital marketing programs complement my own efforts and provide more niche brands a more efficient way to spend marketing dollars. Kudos to the digital foodies for improving food marketing on the web!