Redesigning BentoBox’s social media strategy and visuals
Bringing it all together
One of the first big projects I worked on when I first joined BentoBox was to redesign the look and feel of the content on our social media channels. The general strategy for our main social media channels, Facebook and Instagram, was being revamped by the Marketing team to cover new subjects and focus on different audiences, and it needed a visual facelift to match. While this redesign happened a year (!) ago, we are still finding ways to improve the content we share and how we share it.
It wouldn’t be possible without…
So many people helped shape the social media redesign — I worked very closely with Kayla and AJ on the design side to go over various concepts like post styles and art direction, and got reviews and critique from other colleagues from Design during weekly meetings. Being a marketing project, I also worked with Lara and Hayley from Marketing to brainstorm big ideas for things like new content series or even the best way to launch the redesign.
The nitty-gritty
After a briefing on the type of audiences we were geared towards, as well as the new kinds of content planned out, I started by going on Pinterest to find inspiration. I found a handful of fun inspiration on Pinterest, as well as things on our own site. After going inspo hunting my plan was to work on the look and feel of an existing series on our social media. Once that was approved, I would develop it across all the new series we were going to produce.
I started off by working on an existing series on our Instagram called The Launches, which is a roundup of newly launched customer sites posted every Friday. Lara, our marketing coordinator, had pain points with mobile design software trying to keep the graphics consistent on each slide, so I designed a bunch of different options for an opening slide, a format for the actual websites, and an end slide, cementing it as a regular series with consistent design.
I tried out a bunch of different styles and options before landing on the final design.
Then, it was time to apply that look and feel to new series we were going to feature on our social media. A key audience on our social channels are restaurant owners and their teams, so we wanted to provide lots of ways for viewers to learn more about their favorite restaurants and the people behind them.
- This or That: A fun, templated series asking restaurateurs to choose between options like Breakfast or Dessert
- A Day in the Life: A MadLibs style series asking restaurateurs how their perfect day would unfold
- The Dish: A weekly post on our Instagram feed highlighting a spectacular dish
- The Tab: A series where BentoBox employees provide their favorite restaurant suggestions for different situations such as date night or Taco Tuesday
- People Profiles and Quotes that shed a little more insight on some of our customers
Lastly, we figured out the best order for our daily content — on our Instagram feed, we would highlight dishes and people profiles twice a week and share fun series like A Day in the Life once a week. As BentoBox has done previously, a weekly roundup of new Launches sites would be featured every Friday, and other series like The Tab and This or That went up every other week.
New findings and adjusting the strategy as we go
As all of this great content was going out on our social media, it was imperative that we study what types of posts were gaining a lot of engagement and what were not.
- Revise and refresh content based on pain points and needs
Posts might not be successful or efficient due to the effort that had to be put into them. For example, it became difficult to get answers from restaurateurs about their ideal day for The Day in the Life series, leading us to put that series on pause. On the other hand, we found that we also needed to share more insightful messages from customers, so a quote template was developed. - Make sure to reassess the entire strategy, and pivot quickly as needed
The effects of COVID-19 have brought unprecedented changes to our everyday lives. The restaurant industry as a whole has experienced a seismic shift in how they conduct business, and with those changes came our responsibility to pivot our strategy on social media to communicate appropriately to our audiences. Our Instagram posts capture the spirit/hard work with which these restaurants are operating in this new landscape, and our Facebook page shares useful webinars and tips to help keep restaurants operating safely. - Use your platform to amplify voices and provide valuable resources
When we first started writing about our social media channels, our country was united in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the devastating death of George Floyd, our collective focus as a nation has shifted to recognizing and opposing the longstanding systemic oppression unjustly executed upon Black people in America. Social media has been integral to this movement: for sharing information, providing resources, and, most importantly, amplifying the voices that have not been heard otherwise. Now more than ever, it is critical that we use social media to show solidarity and support positive change, and we are committed to continuing to do so moving forward.
