10 Tips for TikTok for Food & Drink Brands from the Senior Content Creator of Huel

Written By Victoria Brogie

TikTok has taken the world by storm with over 1 billion active users across the globe. As a food & drink brand, the TikTok platform can seem daunting but there are easy ways for you to engage and create a community. As part of our networking Social Series, we were able to hear from Ben Frisby the Senior Content Director of Huel who’s grown their TikTok following to over 26k followers (and over 143k likes).

Why should you trust Ben?

Ben Frisby is the Senior Content Creator at Huel - the quick, affordable, nutritious plant-based food taking the world by storm. With ready-to-drink offerings, powder, protein bars and more, Huel has a solid social following with over 27k+ followers on TikTok, 320k+ followers on Instagram, and a large “Hueligan” community. Ben Frisby comes from a film-making background and now helps lead their content growing paid and organic social media content strategy.

What are Ben’s Top 10 Tips on creating and using TikTok for a food & drink brand?

1. Use TikTok as part of your bigger marketing plan, not as a standalone. Everything you do on the platform should match your brand voice and tie back to the same USPs you’re using everywhere. Don’t forget your paid and organic tone of voice should also match.

2. Remember: what experience can your brand create? Your social presence shouldn’t only be about your product. Think more about what the product GIVES to people (the FEELINGS it creates). What do your USPs actually mean to someone? Try to build a community where people can share their own experiences and help communicate those feelings.

3. PLAN. Ideas don’t come out of nowhere. You might spend more time making a social calendar, planning and formulating ideas than you spend on editing and filming. That’s okay - it’s how it works.

4. You can re-use or reiterate something, but make sure you add in new content or context. It’s okay post something again, but you need to give it a twist or post it in a different way. When you’re planning your social calendar, set standards for yourself. For example, maybe limit yourself to do 2x USP videos a month, 2x educational videos and 2x testimonial videos….have a plan to go off of.

5. Don’t forget about the consumer and why they are on TikTok. When you’re scrolling and see a brand, stop and think to yourself, is this a good brand? Would I think I’m getting sold to? If this was on my own personal page would I actually watch it?

6. You need people to buy into your brand, so have that “big brand mentality.” You want to make people want you. Make sure you show off how great your brand is and make things feel exciting. If it’s a big product launch or a small product launch - it doesn’t matter. Make it look nice, desirable, and make people care.

7. Use the comments. Help enagement by replying to comments on your posts (especially the controversial ones). Take inspiration for future TikToks based on the questions people are asking you on the platform. Don’t forget to interact with other brands and people by commenting on their posts too.

8. Take advantage of user generated content. There are people in your community who will create content for free or for free products. Think about having 5-6 brand ambassadors who provide content on an ongoing basis and can tell real, actual stories (don’t have a million - it’s hard to manage people). Some advice for choosing brand ambassadors? Make sure you test people before choosing them. Have them send you a video of themselves talking about the product - they could look good but might not be passionate on camera. Another hot tip: College students are CHEAP. ;)

9. Remember TikTok & Instagram are different but you CAN use the same content… just in different ways. Again, keep in mind why people are on the different platforms. Instagram is more about premium content and skews a bit older (vs. TikTok is for the most part 16-25 year olds). If you have a good idea and it’s a good video, it’s totally fine to post on both platforms, but definitely should not be the case for every video.

10. You can use your phone to film. Video quality might seem like a step back, but it’s native to TikTok’s platform. Explore taking advantage of the same event but tailor it to each platform. You might film a product launch with your phone for TikTok and use professional footage on Instagram.

14 TikTok Content Ideas to Get You Started

  • Educational videos about your product or the nutritional contents within it

  • Answering questions people message or ask you via the comments

  • Put a USP up on a screen and link that with trending audio

  • Use trends (but don’t make this your whole brand)

  • Fake (and funny) consumer reactions with text to speech audio

  • User generated content and testimonials

  • Explore hashtags and niche sub-communities

  • Product give-aways

  • Blind office taste-tests

  • Look at relevant TikTok SEO and keywords

  • Take a step back and think about the feelings your product gives you and why

  • Behind the scenes or day-in the life of your office / day

  • Recipes

  • View your TikTok analytics to see where people interacting are coming from - speak to them

Bonus: Other crowd favourites of helpful social media tools from the Bread & Jam Social?

Lumafusion, Capcut free or paid, Later, and Canva. Hubspot also has a great list.

What other help is out there?

Victoria Brogie
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