As artists know, the act of creating art takes years and years of practice. There’s no substitute for practicing your craft repeatedly in order to get better at it. Neurological studies of top jazz musicians show regions in their brains are activated quicker than the same regions in the brains of amateur players when they both perform improvised solos. In other words, the pros get into their creative zone faster than the amateurs, who presumably have improvised fewer times than star jazzers. Again, the takeaway is there’s no substitute for constant practicing. Less is known about the benefits of watching someone else create art or reading about how a piece of art is created. Apparently those who follow food influencers either aspire to cook the way these chef-bloggers do or find reading about how food is prepared is the next best thing to eating. At the very least it involves far fewer calories.
As we look at the Q1 2018 social posts of Food influencers we see a disruption of the familiar trend where fewer pieces of content posted yield more consumer engagement. Food influencers generated 153 million consumer actions across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram during Q1’ 18, a 15% drop year over year, according to data provided to PR News exclusively by Shareablee. Content posted also fell, but consumer actions per post increased slightly (0.4%). Consumer actions with influencers’ videos increased 16% year over year as videos posted also grew. Facebook and Twitter saw a 35% and 19% drop in consumer engagement with Food posts, respectively, says Shareablee’s Ron Lee. Instagram, though, followed the pattern noted above. It registered 7% growth in consumer engagement despite a 19% drop in content posted. The British Arrived and stayedBritish chef Jamie Oliver maintains his dominance in the top spot with 13 million consumer actions (down 34% vs the previous year’s Q1). Content posted also was down, Lee says. Oliver’s video production, though, rose 28%, leading to a 74% growth in video views. The chef also held the highest Instagram engagement figure at 11 million consumer actions. Oliver’s British compatriot Gordon Ramsay also maintains his spot at #2 with 12 million consumer actions. Ramsay posted 42% fewer pieces of content year over year and his consumer engagement was down 12% overall. On the other hand video content posted rose 5%, leading to a 133% increase in consumer engagement with videos, Lee says. Ramsay also led the category in Twitter engagement at 3 million consumer actions.
