Chefs & Pinterest? Oui Chef!

With the visual and emotive nature of food it is no surprise that food bloggers have become a core user group of Pinterest. Food has become one of the largest and most active categories in terms of pins and repins.

Food lovers were actually among the first on Pinterest as they saw the benefits of pinning instead of clipping recipes. These foodies are using Pinterest boards in very collaborative ways from planning dinner parties to creating their own virtual cookbooks.

Pinterests terms of use prohibit commercial use of the site, however the lack of enforcement means chefs are jumping on board to visually curate their brands. There are numerous opportunities for chefs and restaurants to leverage this new social network. Coming from a fine dinning background I am very passionate about getting the word out about the level of commitment that goes into the day to day of a restaurant, from the kitchen porter to the sommelier. I strongly believe real chefs need stronger representation of their vision and their process, particularly online. So I have put together a few tips and best practice points to help anyone join the new growing Pinterest community.

1. Make Sure your 'Pinnable'

Pinterest is rooted in visual (and soon video) content; therefore you must ensure your site has high quality images people will want to pin and share. Each recipe, article or statement needs a companion image, or you wont get pinned. Installing a “pin it” buttons on images and a “follow me” badge on your site will allow you to build momentum, especially if you are doing any promotional work as a chef such as events or TV appearances, as search volumes always increase during promotional times for a brand name. Be wary to promote your Pinterest across your other channels such as your site, Facebook, twitter, etc. Content is always king, this means to ensure you have key words in the description of your pin to ensure you appear for terms you want to be associated with. Don’t forget to recognize users who pin you by visiting pinterest.com/source/yoursitehere.com to see where your pins are showing up. Note: Flash-based websites are not pinnable.

2. Tell Your Story

Pinterest was specifically designed for visual storytelling. It is a great opportunity to visually show the staged process of creating a dish, a complex component of a dish or even to map the journey of an ingredient making its way to the farm to the table. Take advantage of this and really share your story of how your dish or menu was conceptualised and created. Note video will be the process of next pinnable medium for Pinterest, I believe this medium will take priority for chefs and my advice for video is to keep content simple, clean and easy to follow. Quick tip: Ensure the file name of your video is relevant to what you want to be found for when users are searching (this also applies to your images as well)

3. Curate Your Core Values

Create boards that showcase what your brand represents, do not simply make the focus about selling your products or your offering. Pull in the elements that inspire you as a chef or a food brand. Art, music, architecture, as an ex chef I was always inspired by my surroundings particularly nature. These are images that can be collaborated to your pinterests wall to show the values you represent and your process to arrive at your final product.

4. Value Rich Content

In the online world content is king. Therefore create helpful advice and useful ideas that users would find valuable, such as timely recipes for holidays, seasonal menu ideas, how-to for cooking techniques, kitchen equipment and resources. Most content should originate from your site. This will allow serve as another social media referral source for traffic to your website. Quick Tip: Add “pin it” buttons to all online recipes to make it easier for readers to pin to Pinterest.

5. Collaborate with Your Colleagues

Create collaborative boards that allow external pinners to contribute. It’s a way to show your associations and to further cement your core values. For instance, fine dinning chefs have strong communities and connections from working in kitchens together as they develop through the rankings. Invite the chefs which you work well with that share your ideologies or who’s style and philosophy of food meshes well with that of yours. This will create great buzz with the food community, allowing you to develop natural growth for your brand with the right audience. Quick Tip: Collaborate with influential food bloggers to get them talking about you and your work, engage them with solid content (insert recipe here)

6. Leverage Offline Activity

Use Pinterest to bring your offline activity from the restaurant and kitchen to life with photos and video footage. As we all know food and dining are very emotive, particularly with the rise of the foodie crowd. Everyone wants to be a part of the experience you have created in the kitchen, but you only have so much room, so make this audience feel like they are a part of the experience by bring it to them online. Photos from events, of the people, the brigade and of course the food, these images are a great way to generate buzz with a very targeted audience who are excited to engage you and spread the word.

Happy Pinning!