How is Lifeway Foods telling its visual story on social media?
Brands, associated with kefir, showcase the sophisticated design of their products in packaging and advocate for a higher quality of existence and a healthier lifestyle on social media. This blog will feature Lifeway Foods, one of the leading kefir brands, and discuss how it uses visual content-based social media such as Instagram and Pinterest for its marketing campaigns.
The Brand Story of Lifeway Foods
Lifeway Foods was founded by Michael Smolyansky in Illinois, the USA, in 1986, with health food and probiotic kefir drinks as its core products. Michael Smolyansky is a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant who happened to see kefir, a new product in its market introduction stage, on a reality food show after moving to the United States.
He first researched kefir in the basement of his home, and the healthy low-calorie drink quickly captivated consumers, so that brought Lifeway Foods to the public. His mother, Ludmila Smolyansky, who ran a business related to Russian and Eastern European food at the time, also provided Michael with a distribution network and operational support.
Today, Lifeway Foods has been taken over by Michael’s daughter, Julie Smolyansky. The Lifeway Foods kefir line is expanding to include organic, low-fat, zero-fat, and various flavors. Based on the Smolyansky family’s Ukrainian background, Lifeway Foods’ specialty is kefir with Ukrainian-style farmer cheese.
Instagram: Constructing a Lifeway Vision of Life
Lifeway Foods has a strong focus on social media marketing, especially platforms like Instagram and Pinterest that feature visual content marketing. The official Instagram account of Lifeway Foods (@lifewaykefir) currently has over 2,600 posts with 55,000 followers and approximately 600 likes per post.
Lifeway Foods’ Instagram channel focuses on three main categories, diet recipes, exercise, and photos incorporating kefir products. Lifeway Foods constantly post visually pleasing pictures of the food with a 200-word description, such as Pesto Egg Toast, all of which are excellent with kefir. Although the subject is the food in these photos, sometimes the Lifeway Foods logo is directly blurred in the background.
Lifeway Foods’ account also regularly posts yoga-related videos. This content reflects the desired customer profile of Lifeway Foods and the brand values. In the post below,
Lifeway highlights the importance of yoga and mindfulness practices in reducing stress. Lifeway did not directly intervene in this post but rather seeped into the content invisibly: yoga can make you less stressed, and so can Lifeway Foods’ kefir.
Pinterest: Lifeway’s Healthy Recipes
In contrast, Lifeway Foods’ content on Pinterest is visually, thematically, and typographically uniform. On Pinterest, Lifeway Foods only posts recipes that link to the official website. If looking closely, Lifeway kefir often appears in the recipes in various ways; for example, in the post below, Lifeway Foods suggests using blueberry-flavored kefir for better taste.
Lifeway Foods has only about 3,800 followers on Pinterest, far less than Instagram’s. Pinterest extends the official website instead of a platform operated independently. Similar posts can be found on the official website, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media of Lifeway. in other words, the content on Pinterest is modified in form from the brand’s other platforms.
Lifeway Foods’ Strategy: Its ‘Seamless’ Marketing Strategy
I would use ‘seamless’ to describe Lifeway Foods’ marketing strategy. On the one hand, the brand tries to penetrate consumers’ lifestyles; on the other hand, it tries to occupy every social media. But Lifeway’s marketing approach was generally successful: because it exploited the characteristics and potential of the different platforms.
“Instagram is trending”
So, Lifeway Foods uses Instagram as a primary platform for marketing to build a community culture focused on health and beauty through diverse content. But it has seeped into other secondary platforms, such as Pinterest, in the most efficient way to attract users to the brand’s primary platform. Lifeway Foods has also achieved a clear distinction between priorities in a kind of seamless marketing.
