The short answer
Show your food and drink being used outside, by real people, in real weather. Mix that with the story behind it and practical help: how to cook it, what to pack it with, where to buy it. Give people a reason to save a post, and a reason to look for you on the shelf.
- Get the product outdoors: on the stove, in the pack, on the hill.
- Tell the maker’s story and show what goes into it.
- Post useful things: recipes, packing lists, how-tos.
- Help shops and events sell you, by sharing stockists and where you’ll be.
The kitchen-counter problem
Most small outdoor food and drink brands make something designed for a hillside and photograph it on a kitchen counter. On a feed full of food, it looks like everything else. The thing that makes you different, that your product belongs outdoors, never makes it into the picture.
Fixing that is the single biggest improvement most brands can make. Our guide to photographing food and drink outdoors with a phone covers how to get the shots. This one covers what to do with them.
Five kinds of post that work
| Kind of post | What it does | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| In use, outdoors | Shows why the product exists | A brew at sunrise, a hot meal under a tarp in the rain |
| The maker and the making | Makes you the people behind the product | This week’s batch, where the beans come from, why you started |
| Useful | Gets saved and shared | Recipes, packing lists, how to cook it on a camping stove |
| Where to buy | Turns interest into sales | New stockists, events you’re at, restocks |
| Your customers | Shows real people choosing you | Reposted trip photos, with permission |
Rotate through them rather than sticking to one. A feed that’s all product shots feels like a catalogue; a feed that’s all lifestyle never tells anyone what you sell.
Make your posts worth saving
Saves and shares are the best sign that a post is working, and useful posts get far more of both than pretty ones. A carousel called “What I pack for a two-day wild camp” featuring your meals, or “Five things to do with our coffee on a stove”, gives people a reason to keep it, and a reason to buy you next time they’re packing.
Plan around the outdoor year
| When | What’s happening | What to post |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | First camps of the year, expedition training | Packing lists, “first trip of the year” meal plans |
| Summer | Festivals, events and long days out | Where to find you, cold drinks in streams, customer photos |
| Autumn | Shorter days, colder mornings | Hot meals and brews, steam on a cold morning |
| Winter | Christmas shopping, planning next year’s trips | Gift ideas and bundles, “trips to plan for next year” |
If you sell through shops and events
Social media still matters when most of your sales happen offline. It’s how people recognise you on a shelf or at a stall, and how shops decide whether you’re worth stocking.
- Tag your stockists when you post about them. They often share it, which puts you in front of their customers.
- Give stockists something to post. A few good photos of your product in use make it easy for a shop to promote you.
- Post before events, not just during them. “Find us at the show this weekend” gives people a reason to come over.
- Ask people to tag you when they spot you in a shop. It’s free proof that you’re out there.
What to measure
Likes are the least useful number. Watch these instead:
- Saves and shares: whether people found a post worth keeping or sending on.
- “Where can I buy this?” messages: direct evidence that a post sold the product.
- Link clicks: people heading to your shop.
- Stockist and event enquiries: the business-to-business side, which is easy to forget.
If you’d rather someone else planned, edited and posted all this, it’s what we do for outdoor food and drink brands.