Moments That Matter: Cooking Up Connections
Find out how pairing messages to address different needs on different days can help engage home cooks and bakers.
Food and everything that goes with it—the cooking, the baking, the dining—is always best when shared with others. And now people are extending that experience online, inviting their friends into every facet of the process, from the prep to the plating to the pièce de résistance.
With over 75% of people in the US reporting eating dinner at home,1 cooking and baking remains an everyday moment in peoples’ lives. In 2013, the average American family spent $4,000 on groceries, or about $330 per month, making food at home the fourth biggest budget priority behind housing, transportation, personal insurance and pensions.2
As part of our “Moments That Matter” series, we set out to explore how people talk on Facebook about cooking and baking and how marketers can best reach those people.
We found that 213 million people globally generated 1.1 billion interactions (posts, comments, likes and shares) about cooking and baking over a 30-day period. On an average day in the US, there are 18 million posts, comments, likes and shares about cooking and baking on Facebook. And 83% of those interactions happen on a mobile device.
Married people interact (post, comment, like and share) about cooking and baking more than single people, and people ages 35 and older tend to overindex on interactions about cooking and baking more than other topics they discuss on Facebook.
One conversation that never gets dropped
The data revealed that, in an average month, people talking about lost phones in the US generate over 51 million posts, comments, likes and shares on Facebook. The volume is not only significant, but it’s also consistent—people are posting regularly, every day of the week. Facebook is, in a sense, “lost phone central.”
What it means for marketers
Mobilize the home cook:
With 83% of cooking and baking interactions happening on a mobile device, creating digestible content that is highly visual and bite-sized can help brands appeal to this mobile-minded audience.
Pair messages with the right days:
People are cooks on the weekdays and gourmets on the weekends. Whether it’s pre-prepared meals and delivery options to get them over the mid-week hump or recipes to inspire the weekend chef, brands can adjust marketing to address different needs on different days.
Engage people as they transition to new life stages:
As people become more established in their personal and professional lives—transitioning from single to married, for instance—they interact more on Facebook around cooking and baking topics. Brands can tailor content and messaging to reach people around these transitions.
Don’t forget breakfast:
Breakfast is not only the first meal of the day, it is also the most-discussed meal on Facebook. Brands can tap into this meme and/or establish use cases that go beyond the morning ritual.
Source unless otherwise specified:Facebook internal data, Mar 5–Apr 5, 2015 (accessed May 2015).
