Dana Cetojevic

INTRODUCTION

This semester has definitely been a semester of ‘research’! Throughout the duration of this semester I have been engaging an auto ethnographic research. I’ve been exploring the median niche of ‘Meat Photography’. I have been engaging in this media niche through the use of the social platform Instagram. Throughout the process of utilising ethnographic methods, I have encountered several epiphanies and remarks within the media niche.

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY

I would like to begin this research report by evaluating the significance social media has had within the world of food. It seems apparent now that whenever you go to a restaurant or cafe, we are quick to whip out our cameras and take a snapshot of our meal and then post on a social media platform. Throughout my experience, knowing that I also take part in this trend. Instagram seems to be the most predominant social platform we use to publish our delicious meal.

I believe this phenomenon of posting on social media platforms has had remarkable impact on marketing implications for restaurants and business owners. I haven’t been able to find much evidence concerning why this practice has such implications, however I strongly believe that food photography has significantly changed the way hospitality owners have been able to grow their businesses through social media.

Whilst doing some background research, I came across this reference to ‘communication and opting for the most effective marketing techniques’.

Anjos, C.J., Marques, S. and Dias, A. (2022) – “restaurants should also communicate adequately and draw the attention of the public, taking advantage of all available means of communication and opting for the most effective marketing techniques”. 

SOCIAL PLATFORM (INSTAGRAM)

These are a couple of Instagram pages that I personally follow and engage with. I specifically looked at these two pages, because they were perfect examples of local venues, that I go to ad dine at. When looking at Instagram pages, I was able to analyse the design of IG and its accessibility as a platform. By design, IG has made it very easy and accessible for small food businesses to reach out to its audiences in several communicative approaches.

• Photography
• Direct Messaging
• Website
• Location
• Follower Count (Community)

MAPPING

I decided to map out my niche and plan out my digital artefact. Establishing what my media niche and was, and the best way for me to establish that is to create a field map. Analysing all the particular components of my niche that I’m going to be researching.

Martin, T “As with all ethnographic recording, maps represent the ethnographer’s interpretation of people, places, and events; mapping is another way to record your unique perspective on how your research participants lead their daily lives”.

As you can see from the map that I created, I gathered A collection of data that I have observed on my chosen niche and social platform. The social platform that I’m going to be using to conduct my research will be Instagram. I find it scribe to be the best social media platform for This project.

DIGITAL ARTEFACT

Upon crafting my digital artefact. After analysing Instagram as a social platform and utilising the ethnographic method of mapping , I was keen to utilise the platform as the foundation for my DA. Instagram perfectly aligned with what media niche I wanted to explore and research.

In preparation for my research on ‘Meat Photography’ I had created a digital artefact. Instagram page called Unbelievable Meat Cuts (@unbelievablemeatcuts). The purpose of this experiment was to establish a persona and integrate myself within the particular community of my niche.

Epiphanies that I had encountered whilst running the page:

The first epiphany that I encountered was the use of ‘hashtags’. Macready, H. (2022) “essentially are a way to group together content around a certain topic, making it easy for people to find content that interests them. As you can see from the image below, I use several hashtags to promote a post”. I had researched what the most trending hashtags for meat were upon this website: https://best-hashtags.com/hashtag/meat/ – The website ‘Best Hashtags’ is a website that’s main focus is to exhibit what the most popular hashtags are around a particular niche, they use an algorithmic strategy to do this. “Our algorithm calculates the best hashtags for you based on historical data”. As seen down below, these were the 30 hashtags I used on every post for my IG page. The most popular used hashtag for food is simply the #food hashtag, with 487M posts.

Results: The results I had were fairly successful, the Hashtags were a successful in reaching audiences with similar themes.

As a result of implementing hashtags, growth on UMC rose to 78 followers. I was able to grow my following in the couple of weeks from when I started this process. Demographics; The common user that I have noticed that interacts with the artefact profile, are members of the meat industry in itself.

AUDIENCE AND THE MEAT COMMUNITY

Through out the process of running my DA, I wanted to establish an effort of interaction with my followers and users. Within the online space, communities are important. They promote engagement. Every active engagement brings users closer to your page. This increases the page visibility on the platform top the targeted niche. The second epiphany that I had was, exploring the world of food photography. Food photography is one of the largest growing cultures on any social network.

The combination of meat and photography is not very common. Whilst exploring the niche and interacting with the communities within my niche, I did not find many profiles that specifically did photography for meat. However what I came to realise, was meat photography What is a common publication from profiles who were not specifically ‘photographers’, but figures/professionals within the community of meat industry, these figures consisted of:

• Butchers
• Butcher Shop Owners
• Cooks/Chefs
• Restaurant Pages
• Cattle Farm Pages
• Food Lover Pages
• BBQ Cooking Pages

Predominantly figures who are associated in the food culture. It was comforting to see my content reach people who are in the industry of food, and butchery.

ETHICAL ANALYSIS AND SENSITIVITY

Whilst continuing my research I Had always had in the back of my mind, ways of approaching of this research and artefact experiment appropriately and sensitively. I am very well aware of the controversial remarks on the meat industry. So when doing this project I wanted to become more familiar with the concept of positive meat distribution.

In a previous blog post I had written a couple of weeks ago, I received a comment from a peer of mine. He had suggested some readings for me about understanding human collaboration with meat.

What was very interesting is, overall, at the core of my digital artefact, Photography’ is technically a method of artistic expression. In relation to this concept from:

Leroy, F. and Praet, I. (2015) “it can be inferred from art history that the creative contributions of meat traditions have been substantial, serving a multitude of religious, magical, and even aesthetical purposes”.

Fortunately I didn’t encounter any backlash to the content I was publishing. However I believe the reason to this was because of the Algorithmic structure to my page. Essentially I was sharing to the common audiences, through my hashtags and interactions with similar users within my niche.

VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anjos, C.J., Marques, S. and Dias, A. (2022) “The impact of Instagram influencer marketing in the restaurant industry,” International Journal of Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Technology, 13(1), pp. 1–20. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4018/ijssmet.297496. – “restaurants should also communicate adequately and draw the attention of the public, taking advantage of all available means of communication and opting for the most effective marketing techniques”.

Macready, H. (2022) How to use Hashtags in 2022: A guide for every network, Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard. Available at: https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-use-hashtags/ (Accessed: October 31, 2022).  – “essentially are a way to group together content around a certain topic, making it easy for people to find content that interests them. As you can see from the image below, I use several hashtags to promote a post”

Discover new hashtags (no date) Best Hashtag. Available at: https://best-hashtags.com/ (Accessed: October 31, 2022). – “Our algorithm calculates the best hashtags for you based on historical data”.

Martin, T. (no date) Ethnographic Mapping, Manifold @CUNY. Available at: https://cuny.manifoldapp.org/read/untitled-fefc096b-ef1c-4e20-9b1f-cce4e33d7bae/section/38541549-7b00-4307-a5b3-c361e5dc6f2b (Accessed: November 31, 2022). – “As with all ethnographic recording, maps represent the ethnographer’s interpretation of people, places, and events; mapping is another way to record your unique perspective on how your research participants lead their daily lives”.

Leroy, F. and Praet, I. (2015) “Meat traditions. the co-evolution of humans and meat,” Appetite, 90, pp. 200–211. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2015.03.014.