Published by isobel.regan@dontpanicprojects.com
Published Date 10.07.2024 
At Libertine Burger, our social media channels are our shop window. They’re the tool we use to tempt people to come to one of our shops, stop at one of our trucks, or book us for their event so they can sink their teeth into our award winning-burgers.
We know our food is great, and appeals to everyone from burger-lovers to families, young and old, and people all over the country – even the world. So we want our social channels to reflect that, which is why we invest time, thought, energy and enthusiasm into them.
We create fun, engaging content that showcases the burgers we offer and literally makes everyone from a teenager to a die-hard burger fan, as well as parents, grandparents, general food fans and everyone in between, think: “I want to try that burger”, or “I want to go to that place”.
Being shortlisted for a prestigious UK Social Media Awards blog is proof that the time and effort we have put into our Libertine Burger Instagram channel – which reaches millions of accounts across the world – is working. Of course we don’t do what we do for awards, but to be recognised for our Instagram strategy and the results it has achieved is one hell of a boost.
We employ an in-house content creator who comes up with a whole range of ideas and a plan to create them, and a strategy of when to post them, taking trending styles and music and giving them a Libertine ‘twist’ so they’re unmistakable in showcasing our brand. We use this strategy to create content that showcases what we do and our unique personality as a brand. The content produced for the Libertine Burger account includes a showcase of the burgers it serves, the environment in which they’re served, as well as humour-injected videos that play on current trends, as well as comic moments that resonate with followers and staff-focused videos that take a light-hearted approach to some of the issues that arise in the hospitality sector.
Our strategy is dynamic and responsive, so if one piece of content resonates with burger lovers – suggested by views and interactions within comments – then we build on this by creating similar content but with different foods to further engage this audience and build momentum. This includes combining different items from the menu to create unreal burgers that make people think: ‘I want that’ – a proven tactic judging by the many customers who have visited with their phones in hand saying they want something they’ve seen on an Instagram reel that isn’t listed on our standard menu but can be made on request. Our Instagram account inspires people to come and visit us – then they find something similar, or even better, to tuck into once they’re here.
It all sounds like fun and games, but it takes planning and a fair bit of flexibility to produce quality content in a business that is operating at the same time, especially when that content involves staff members who have other roles. We have a dedicated videographer and content creator who comes up with ideas then plans and storyboards each piece of content and briefs any staff members involved. He then essentially directs and films the content – often in one shot due to limited time before whichever of our three Libertine Burger shops that is involved opens. This is a fairly unique situation, and leaves little room for error, but we seem to have pulled it off.
We’ve always believed in the quality of our product, and we are thrilled that now millions of people across the world get to see it through Instagram. What makes us unique is our consistency for a small business. We value marketing so much and that’s why we’re always shouting about our food and we love people tagging their friends in our reels saying things such as ‘we should go Libertine tonight’ purely driven by a tasty food video we’ve shown them. We’ve far surpassed the results of social media marketing undertaken by businesses a similar size to us – we’ve shown consistent success with not one – but seven – Instagram reels hitting over a million plus views, so people must be seeing something they like, hence Instagram pushing our content to wider audiences.
Given the passion and effort we put into our social media – especially our Instagram account – and the fact we do that with a fairly small team, and involve our staff on a personal level, we’re overjoyed to have been shortlisted in the Social Media Awards. It reflects the huge amount of hard work we put into consistently coming up with creative, fun content that really showcases what we do. Whether we win or not, we’re proud to have got this far and are excited to carry on doing what we do, and sharing Libertine Burger with people across the world via our socials.
