NYC fruit influencer: Here’s how to market your company on social media

Angela Scarfia’s 25-second educational video on the ice cream bean fruit earned 283,700 views, 58,000 likes and 764 comments on TikTok.

“This weird-looking fruit actually tastes like vanilla ice cream. It’s a legume. Yes, beans are botanically a fruit,” she started off saying, holding the item in her hand in front of a bright pink background.

Scarfia, a New York City-based exotic fruit influencer and leadership developer, led a live, online workshop Feb. 18, where she explained how to market your brand and company on social media — more important than ever during the pandemic, when in-person interaction is discouraged for health and safety.

Fifty-two people attended the workshop, hosted by Equal Exchange, a Fair Trade-certified cooperative business headquartered in West Bridgewater, Mass.

That ice cream bean video was simple, useful, colorful and fun: “A quick, 20-second video can teach so much,” she said.

Founded in 1986, Equal Exchange is a mission-based company that’s 100% employee-owned and employee-governed on a democratic one-person, one-share, one-vote basis. Today, Equal Exchange distributes organic bananas, avocados, cocoa, coffee, tea, sugar and chocolate bars produced by farmer cooperatives in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the U.S.

Promoting your produce through simple, educational videos on what different items are and how to eat them is one good marketing strategy, she said.

“I was never exposed to these fruits growing up and neither was my community,” said Scarfia, who grew up in Rochester, N.Y., before moving to the big city. “People want to see how you grow your food. It’s cool.”

If your company doesn’t have resources to create a full-time social media manager role, pick one platform and do it well, she said.

Instagram is likely the best social media platform for fresh produce, she said, because it’s all about the aesthetics of pretty photos and videos, where colorful fruits and vegetables can shine. Also, unlike TikTok and Twitter, you can practically write an essay if you want. There’s no word limit.

“Who are you? What is your purpose? What are your goals and reason for operating? Sometimes that is the reason a person shops at your store or picks your avocado or banana,” Scarfia said. “When you start narrowing down these things, that’s really your brand identity.”

Whatever you do, do not forget to include tags — @companyname — and also popular, trending and company-created hashtags — like #avocadotoast.

“People click on the tags and then go to that store or buy that brand. I always try to tag the producer and the store. It is free marketing, and it goes directly to your customer,” she said.

Scarfia distributed a tip sheet for her top four social media platforms, with what kinds of activities work best on each:

• Instagram: Creative recipes, trending recipes, education on varieties and health facts;
• TikTok: Recipes, stories with meaning and impact, common things people never knew, staying on trends and life hacks;
• Twitter: Retweeting others, sharing blog posts, sharing news articles or links, promoting events, tweeting facts; and
• Facebook: Building relationships with customers, keeping as a business page, sharing news articles or links, promoting events and promoting opportunities for community.

Boost engagement by creating hashtags and share them in your brick-and-mortar stores, in your community, on profiles, on packaging, on fliers and in giveaways.

“Make sure your content aligns with what’s happening in the world,” Scarfia said. “I follow as many fruit companies, farmers and organizations as possible. The more I know about them, the more they know about me and the better for the community.”