Week 8- Part 1 Expanding your reach on Instagram by using hashtags

      Visual media is a great source for businesses, to show what you offer and share new items. For my business visual media is very important, I share videos and pictures daily of the new desserts and supplies I find/create. It also allows me to connect with other bakers around the world sharing other content like mine. 

I chose 4 different bakers local and non-local

Starting with Bella Bakes:

Bella Bakes Instagram has a following of 114k, with 689 posts. She posts daily content of her desserts, cakes, and occasionally recipes, Instagram seems very effective for her and her business she is constantly gaining followers and clients as well as collaborations with big companies to promote their products. She is always posting videos of her creating the desserts, that gets a lot more attention than her photos do, she uses hashtags like #pastryvideos #pastrylove, and whatever dessert she is creating she will hashtag that as well for example #tart #reels #halloweenmacarons #macarons, she does not hashtag every photo but I realized the photos that do not have hashtags have fewer likes than the ones that do. Her last post was yesterday, a video of her splitting open a gooey chocolate cookie with 1,256 likes. Her comments vary ranging to 20-100 comments per post, Bella is really good at communicating with her followers by responding back to questions in comments and messages.

Next up I selected Jenna Rae Cakes:

Jenna Rae Cakes is a bakery owned by two twin sisters, Instagram has been a great source for them to promote their new items and flavors. They have a following of 195k and 9,969 posts. They post daily on their page and story, right now they are focused on promoting their new cookbook with over 100 recipes (I just ordered mine) they also post what items and flavors will be available in their bakery for that day, today they had cookie dough cupcakes, hot cocoa cupcakes, vanilla bean cupcakes, pumpkin cupcakes, and birthday cake oreo! All of their content gets about the same response, posts ranging from 1,000-6,000 likes. They don't post video content so I think that's a big reason I don't see much difference in likes throughout their posts. They use a large variety of hashtags such as #cakeart #caketrends #cakedesigner #cakedecor and all others that are popular.

Then I went with ZeeCee Cakes:

ZeeCee Cakes is a local baker located in Vista, I met her through hashtags. I would use hashtags like #sdcakes and saw there were a bunch of local bakers around my area that I was able to get in contact with. She has a following of 2,796 followers and 246 posts, she does not post as often nor does she seem to have a posting routine, her last post was Oct 7th. Photos are her main posts, she does not post videos very often but when she does she has a good outcome of attention. She uses hashtags in some photos not all, her hashtag examples are #cake #edibleart #birthdaycake, and #cakesofinstagram, she has a small number of comments in her posts but she is good at responding to the ones who comment.

Last is Honey Bakes Cakery:

Honey Bakes Cakery is another small at home business, with a following of 2,613 and 239 post, her content is all photos of her cakes with likes varying from 100-200 per image. Her hashtags are similar to other bakers I've looked up for example #cakestagram #eatcake #cakedesign and #cakedecorating. Her most recent post was 15 hours ago and others are about 1-2 days apart. She has very few comments on her posts and none show her responding to others. Social media is her main source for advertising what she offers, from what it seems Instagram has been super effective for her.

For my own business I am constantly looking up new trends and hashtags to add to my list, the hashtags I use are #cakedesigner #covidcakes #quarantinebaking #cakeinspo #cakedesigner #cakeartist #cakeideas, and #igcakes.