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Nostalgia is the wanting of who we once were. Consumers tend to be very sensitive to their past memories. Food bloggers recreating past foods can create emotional connections with their audiences, which makes their viewers more likely to interact with their content and make their recipes.
@eatingbirdfood integrating a healthy take
The target audience of many food blogs is people searching for healthier recipes. Brittany Mullins of Eating Bird Food uses familiar foods from many people’s childhood to connect with her audience.
People like to connect with something that appeals to their values (being healthy) and with nostalgia. Utilize your communities’ pre-existing values when you create new content. This will help you interweave your content into both your communities’ present, past and future by evoking memories that can are also part of the future.
- Food is part of our memories, using this knowledge can help food bloggers connect with their audience’s past
- Creating healthier options helps you integrate the memory and the present
- The goal should be to connect with your audiences’ “goal” (being healthy) so you become part of the audience’s future as well.
Nostalgic wording is helpful for targeting your audience
Targeting health-conscious individuals that grew up in the ’80s or ’90s attracts a wide audience. You can probe what your specific audience is notaglic for by asking questions on stories. You could even ask “what food did you eat as a child that you want to be recreated healthier?”
Your audience will reveal their age and demographics just by the kinds of food they are nostalgic for. Ask this or that polls or just use the comment sections to figure out what kinds foods your community is nostalgic for.
@halfbakedharvest Use Memories to Engage with Your Community
In Tieghan Gerard’s Healthier One Pot Hamburger Helper, she ends the post with a question: did you grow up eating hamburger helper. Gerard had over 2,000 replies to this question and her post, which is a higher than average response for Gerard.
People can automatically relate to Gerard’s food creation and they know what it will/should taste like.
Her community is already engaged because they recognized food that might be nostalgic for. In fact, Gerard makes the food because her brother requested it, likely because he was nostalgic for it.
All in all, using nostalgia is one way to interact and engage with your community and find ways to create more engaging content.
Halle Brown 