Research conducted by industry social media expert Digital Blonde found that chefs are very social media savvy with 92.5% using it for personal use and 84.9% using it for work purposes. Twitter was the most used social network in the workplace (72.3%), followed by Facebook (66.7%) and LinkedIn (60.6%).
Social media plays an important part in a chefs’ day with more than half of respondents (52.9%) saying they check social media five or more times a day, with 28.6% checking it more than 10 times.
Chefs recognise the need for training on social media with 65.6% admitting they would like to attend a course and 63.1% believing it should actually form part of a chef’s college training.
Author of the report, Karen Fewell from Digital Blonde commented: “The research has highlighted how much chefs are using social media for work and I hope businesses recognise the fantastic marketers they’ve got in their kitchens.
“However, very few chefs said they were using social media software which highlights even more of an opportunity for the industry. With the right social media tools and training, businesses could see even more benefit from their chef’s social activity.”
Networking with others in the industry (74.7%) was the main cause of chefs logging into social media. Other top reasons were to post pictures of dishes they have cooked (72.6%), to hear about industry events (69%) and to catch up on industry news (67.6%). Chefs are most likely to follow other chefs, industry news sites and recipe sites when using social media.
Highlighting a huge business opportunity, nine out of 10 chefs agree that social media is a great way to increase footfall to an establishment.
Sarah Gray, marketing manager at Mars Foodservice, said: “We are delighted with the response to Social Chef and there are so many more fascinating facts to come out of the research. Make sure you read the complete report which is also full of quotes from some big names using social media. Thank you to all the chefs who completed the survey and well done to Andrew Lewis, chef de partie at Reed Hall for the University of Exeter, who was the winner of our iPad.”
Craft Guild CEO Martin Bates added: “We were delighted when Mars Foodservice, one of our business partners, asked us to get involved in its Social Chef survey. Not only has it given us some really good insight for our own social media strategy, but we are confident the results will help our members and the wider industry too.”
For a copy of the report tweet @marsFS_UK, @craft_guild or @digitalblonde or by emailing marsfoodservice@proactivecompetitions.co.uk