Social Media Strategy for Food, Beverage & CPG Brands
Culinary Media Experience & Brand Credentials
Fanny Slater is a Food Network winner, published cookbook author, and social media strategist for food, beverage, and CPG brands.
She won Rachael Ray’s Great American Cookbook Competition and published her cookbook, Orange, Lavender & Figs, under the Atria imprint of Simon & Schuster. Fanny co-hosted the Food Network series The Kitchen Sink, appeared as a guest on The Kitchen, and co-hosted more than a dozen episodes of The Best Thing I Ever Ate on Cooking Channel.
Off-screen, Fanny creates video content and recipe development for brands like Marbull Wagyu, Hero Jerky, Don Sazon Seasonings, and has worked as a social media advisor, strategist, and paid media buyer for brands like Lid Licking BBQ Sauce, NewGem, Maninis, Vesta, Green Valley, Recovery Elevator, and Noble Tangerines.
THE PROBLEM
Does this sound like you?
You posted three times this week. You have no idea if it’s working.
Your content looks fine, but it doesn’t feel like your brand.
You need a strategy that supports where the business is going, not just fills a content calendar.
Here’s an idea: you run the business, and I’ll run your social media marketing.
Work with an experienced strategist and social media creator.
WHY CLIENTS HIRE ME
- They have limited time to post consistently on social media.
- Their content feels scattered.
- They need an experienced social media strategy to help them achieve their goals.
When you hire an experienced social media strategist, you benefit from the experience and wisdom gained from working with other clients, and you get social media designed for your target audience. You have a full to-do list. Let me take this off your plate.
What I Do
Marketing Services
Tailored social media management, content creation, and growth strategies designed to elevate your brand’s digital presence.
01
Strategy
Social media strategy, brand messaging, growth consulting.
Content
Short-form video, content direction, creative development.
03
Performance
Meta ads strategy, paid campaign consulting, DM automation.
Proof of Work
Selected Case Studies & Results
The following examples represent a selection of recent client work across food, retail, e-commerce, and community-focused brands. Each engagement required a different combination of strategy, content creation, paid media, analytics, and audience development. In every case, Fanny’s role was to connect the dots between brand awareness, customer engagement, and measurable business growth.
Lid Licking BBQ Sauce
Engagement: Two-year ongoing relationship
Role: Social Media Strategist & Content Creator
WHERE THEY STARTED
Lid Licking Sauce came to Fanny at launch with no social media presence, no audience, and no retail footprint. The objective was to build brand awareness, create community engagement, and support the brand’s growth from the startup stage to placement in retail stores across North Carolina.
“When we started, we had no stores and no real social presence. Two years later, we are heading into 200 locations, and our community continues to grow. Fanny understood our brand from day one and never stopped pushing to help us grow.”
— Tim Mathews, Lid Licking Sauce
Read Full Case Study & Strategy
WHAT WE DID
- Built and managed the full social media strategy across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok from the ground up
- Developed a content strategy that balanced recipe- and product-focused content with community storytelling, helping establish “Philanthropy Is Our Secret Ingredient” as a recognizable part of the brand narrative
- Used ongoing performance analysis to identify the content themes that were connecting with people
- Supported retail pitches, tasting events, local partnerships, and store launches through coordinated social campaigns
- Created 30 custom recipes, photography, and copy for their website
- Created added storytelling for their website about the founder and his wife
RESULTS
- Helped grow the brand from zero retail locations to more than 120 stores over two years, with an additional 80 Harris Teeter locations coming in July 2025, bringing the total footprint to 200 stores
- Generated more than 234,000 video views across Facebook and Instagram in the past 12 months
- Grew TikTok to more than 1,000 followers and generated more than 40,000 TikTok video views within the first several months of launching the channel
- Increased TikTok video views by 99% and reach by 122% within the first month of implementing a dedicated strategy
- Produced multiple pieces of content that drove thousands of views and strong engagement, even with a relatively small audience
What this taught us: The content that performed best was rarely the one that screamed: “buy our sauce.” Customer stories, founder-led content, community involvement, retail partnerships, and brand storytelling consistently outperformed direct promotional posts. Those insights became the foundation for a repeatable content framework that guided everything we built moving forward.
Otto’s Naturals
Engagement: Two-year ongoing relationship
Role: Social Media Strategy, Influencer Marketing, Community Engagement, DM Automation & Paid Media
~60,000 Followers | Engagement up 27%
WHERE THEY STARTED
Otto’s Naturals was an established gluten-free baking brand with approximately 60,000 followers and a real problem: almost no one was engaging with their content. The audience was there. The interest was there. But the content strategy was not connecting, and the brand had stalled on social media despite having a loyal customer base.
“We had a big audience and almost nothing to show for it. Fanny completely rethought how we were showing up, and within a few months we were seeing engagement numbers we had never seen before.”
— Sadie Olsen, Founder, Otto’s Naturals
Read Full Case Study & Strategy
WHAT WE DID
- Shifted the content strategy away from recipe-first posting toward content designed specifically to perform on social media
- Expanded creator and influencer collaborations to bring new voices and audiences to the brand
- Implemented DM automation campaigns to create more direct, personal connections with followers
- Built repeatable content frameworks centered on audience behavior, customer pain points, and lifestyle relevance
WHAT HAPPENED
- Top-performing content achieved engagement rates as high as 27%, a dramatic improvement for a brand that had been struggling to connect
- Multiple posts consistently hit engagement rates above 15%, well above industry standards and averages for a brand of this size
- DM automation campaigns significantly increased direct audience interaction and created new pathways for community building
- Expanded creator participation brought fresh energy to the brand and helped introduce Otto’s to new audiences
- Established repeatable content systems that the brand could apply consistently across future campaigns
What this taught us: When you shift from content centered on the product itself to content centered on the customer, interest peaks. Instead of leading with recipe titles and ingredients, we focused on cravings, occasions, pain points, and the experiences people were trying to create. That audience-first approach consistently generated stronger engagement and became the foundation for future content strategy.
NewGem Foods
Engagement: 6 Months and ongoing
Role: Social Media Strategist & Paid Media Manager, Content Creator
Generated 274,000 views across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok in the first 3 months
WHERE THEY STARTED
NewGem Foods came to Fanny with social media accounts that had been dormant for years. There was no consistent content, no advertising structure, and no reporting in place. The brand had an innovative product and retail ambitions but no social media foundation to support them.
“In four months, Fanny built what we probably should have had for years. The traffic numbers alone were a wake-up call. We are just getting started, and I already feel like we have a real engine behind us.”
— Mathew de Bord, NewGem Foods
Read Full Case Study & Strategy
WHAT WE DID
- Built and launched a consistent organic content presence across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok from scratch
- Developed and managed the brand’s first structured paid advertising program, supporting Amazon sales, retail promotions, and in-store demo events
- Created TikTok from essentially zero into a functioning content channel
- Built reporting systems and campaign performance tracking to support ongoing decision-making
- Now shifting strategy toward more sales-focused paid advertising to directly support revenue growth and retail expansion
RESULTS
- Generated nearly 274,000 organic and paid content views across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok in the first three months
- Generated more than 2,000 Amazon clicks through a dedicated Gluten-Free Awareness Month campaign
- Supported retail promotions and in-store demo initiatives through targeted advertising
- 5x increase in Facebook referral traffic, reported directly by the founder
- 2x increase in Instagram referral traffic, reported directly by the founder
- Significant growth in new-to-store visitors following coordinated social and advertising efforts
What this taught us: When the starting point is zero infrastructure and a dormant presence, moving fast matters. The priority was not just growing metrics. It was building the foundation: content systems, a paid media program, and the reporting to know what is working. NewGem now has all three, and the results reflect it.
Let’s get your social media cooking
Connect with Fanny so you can take social media off your plate and focus on the 32 other jobs it takes to grow your business.
Serving Food & CPG Brands Nationwide.
From local startups to national retail shelves, helping brands across the U.S. build high-converting social media engines.