Is Social Media the Key to Keeping Cafe Culture Alive Post-Lockdown?

Image courtesy Elk Espresso

Social media has truly infiltrated all aspects of our lives since its inception in the early 2000s; its introduction has subsequently affected everything, from the way we perceive our own place in the world to where we decide to spend our money. Few could have known the absolute impact it would have on all of us. Thus, it’s no shock that this has created a new mould for our beloved cafe culture in the U.K.

Instagram in particular has boomed in popularity of recent years, becoming integral advertising of many privately owned and home-grown businesses - especially cafes. In some cases, as with popular brunch spots Farm Girl (@farmgirlcafe, 89.1k followers) and EL&N Cafe (@elan_cafe, 422k followers), driving business from the app has become their key to success. Cafes have curated cult followings based of their ability to look amazing as backdrops for photographs, crafting their food and drinks to similarly fit the aesthetic their customer craves. Additionally, the rise of the ‘influencer’ has been capitalised on by business’, knowing they can garner a lot more traffic by inviting the right people with larger followings to visit their cafes, subsequently having them post about their ‘amazing experience’.

Image courtesy Farm Girl

London based coffee company Grind (you’ve probably seen their signature pastel pink compostable coffee pods all over your social media) used this to their advantage when beginning their company, “we've been using Instagram to document/advertise our aesthetic interiors, we quickly realised these were a massive selling point as influencer marketing started to rise”. 

And Instagram didn’t just help their business to boom, it effected how Grind marketed their products and cafes too “social media has definitely dictated elements of our in-site design, and it definitely dictated how aesthetic or desirable our packaging and product needed to be to stay current and viral online”. The platform gave them the opportunity to build a cult following, turning into exponential growth (@grind with 155k followers on Instagram), thus driving more traffic to their online websites as well as their physical cafes/stores. And freelance Social Media Manager Carolinne Oliviera agrees, “everyday more and more customers are searching on Instagram before they make a purchase or visit a restaurant” . She went on to detail “if the place has an appealing social presence, good pictures and important information on their profiles, all this works together to drive customers to the shops”.

The positive effects of social media on cafe culture isn’t just limited to the U.K. either, when speaking to Elk Espresso (@elkespresso, 28k followers on Instagram) founder Andrew Whiting from the Gold Coast in Australia, he remembered that “one time in the early stages of Instagram, I posted a photo of some freshly baked peanut butter brownie cookies, we had an influx of people coming in to buy them as they saw it on Instagram. For the next week people kept asking for them as they saw it on our feed. That made me realise how many people sit on social media and the power of it”. Andrew noted how his use of social media has changed “with the landscape of Instagram ever changing, its focus is now back onto content that connects to a community and promotes engagement. So thats what I do now on Instagram. It’s no longer about posting and praying people like it, you need to be intentional to connect with your followers, so they connect back”.

But at what cost has the rise of social media come to the running of these independents?

Andrew recognises the negative effects social media can have on a business, “I personally hate social media and what it’s doing to our society. It’s robbing people of being present to the person infront of them or the moment they’re in. I see countless people come to Elk and order via photos just so they can get the perfect pic for their feed. It’s kinda taken away what I create”. He wants “people to come for the complete Elk experience, not just a perfect shot”.

And with the pressure of producing high quality, beautiful food and drink that can be photographed all day, we’ve seen a shift in the requirements cafes have when hiring. What used to be a sector that was easy enough to get your first job in, has become saturated with people who are over-qualified, ramping up the prerequisites needed to enter the field. This has in turn created a much larger hurdle for those in their younger years, with less experience, to overcome.

The desire for cafes to come across as aesthetically pleasing on social media and keep up traffic through this avenue has put a strain on searching for front of house staff who additionally have varied qualifications - from visual merchandising to coffee making - skills that can assist in driving customers into brick and mortar establishments through a social platform. Unsurprisingly, hiring people with vibrant past working experiences consequently shuts off opportunities for those just entering the working world - creating a gap for people needing experience to land their first job; something most teenagers or young workers won’t have had the chance to accrue yet. This leaves them wondering, as most of us have at some point, how do I even get experience when everyone wants to me to have it prior to being hired? 

You just need to scroll on LinkedIn or Indeed for a few minutes to get a feel for what employers are now asking for; with some even requiring portfolios showing latte art competency. Consequently this is leading to the gentrification of the field; in turn separating out those who are unable to afford the steep prices of coffee training and putting together portfolios, for example. Furthermore, the job crisis of the last decade coupled with the recession we’re heading into due to the coronavirus crisis will no doubt flood the already congested hospitality sector with even more applicants desperate to find work, setting the bar higher and higher for those wishing to enter the field.

Some have noted that this may lead to a more European approach to the sector, seeing hospitality as less of a part-time job and more of a career route that people spend their life in. This could guide the field to professionalisation, potentially enforcing better working standards, steeper regulation in the industry and even higher minimum wages, benefitting the roughly 2.4 million people in the U.K. with jobs in sector, according to statistics from ONS. 

Image courtesy Boutique London

Grind has also faced some unforeseen effects of their huge following on social media, “people think we're this big brand with a huge marketing team but to tell you the truth there's still only 20 or so of us that run the operation. We're immensely proud of that but it can often feel like customers think we're huge and corporate like Nespresso, or Nestle”. With the smoke and mirrors that can appear hand-in-hand with the ‘online world’, it’s easy to see this being a problem. Prior to speaking to them, I too assumed there was a much bigger team behind the coffee powerhouse; highlighting just how deceptive social media can be. But social media has also afforded the company unexpected benefits, “as with anything on social media, it's all about perceived worth and especially with Instagram, a lot of the metrics and goals are themed around the vanity”. In spite of this, the image based focus that social media attracts has allowed Grind to appeal to crowdfunders in a contemporary way, allowing their company to expand “we're able to sell our success much better with a following to back it up”.

On a personal note, I have often found myself turning to social media to find places to eat, and those which stand out tend to be the ones who you can tell have put more effort into their ‘feeds’. Most of us are guilty of checking a restaurant or cafes socials before deciding to eat there, highlighting how integral it is for companies to take advantage of the field; especially during a time where getting people to venture out of their homes is becoming harder and harder. And Carolinne agrees,“I started in the coffee shop niche last year around when the pandemic started. It was at a time when the streets became empty and that social media, especially Instagram, became crucial for small businesses. It's the first place customers look up for information and pictures when choosing where to order food from”.

It’s easy to tell that the independents who put effort into their social media are able to attract large crowds and therefor profit from their follower basis. This creates regular customers in addition to cultivating themselves as tourist hotspots through even more stereotypically quieter times of year, as is the case with West London favourite Granger & Co.

There are obvious benefits of cafes and restaurants utilising Instagram and that can’t be negated in any discussion about its impact on the sector, “apart from during lockdown, someone who is coming to visit the city can easily find cafes and/or restaurants close to where they are staying and it allows them to see the real food pictures posted by other customers” explains Carolinne, and she does have a point - social media does undoubtedly boost capital for these independents.

When looking to a post lockdown future, Grind hopes to “look into community building and organic advocacy. Hopefully, when we can re-open fully, post-coronavirus, we'd be keen to build most 'instagramable experiences' within our London locations”. With this in mind, it doesn’t seem that the importance social media holds will be going anywhere soon. 

Wether you are someone who is invested in Instagram in its full capacity or hardly use it at all, there’s no escaping that the platform has bulldozed its way into everyone’s lives. As new platforms like TikTok enter the market, it seems that image-based media isn’t going anywhere soon; as long as it’s prevalent, it will be utilised and capitalised off by business’ big and small, simultaneously reaping and sowing its advantages and disadvantages.