Social Media Trends: Fooding

A social media trend is indeed to produce something for everyone.  From runners to aspiring filmmakers, there is a social media niche for every hobby and interest out there.  Furthermore, it's almost as if not to be plugged in to at least one of the many social media sites about your topic of choice is unbearably detrimental.  Social media is becoming the leading way people stay in touch with one another - which is understandable to a point, since globalization and the ability to travel rapidly all over the world has lead many to make friendships across state and country lines.  How else, for example, are an Australian and a Seattleite supposed to keep their relationship steady?For those who make friends around food or over drinks, there is a (at least one) social media site.  Socialmediawebsites.com lists longtable.com as one of the top social media sites in terms of popularity.  Food can be a very relational thing; it is an almost sacred way many people connect with one another.  Cultural differences surrounding food aside, America happens to be a melting pot of cuisine - there's something for everyone in this arena, too.  Longtable.com's aim to connect the beautiful act of sharing a meal together with making new friends is one way this site stands out among other less clear social media sites that seems to try to cater to everyone. This, however, just middies the message, and thus, the marketing.  Longtable's homepage is refreshingly plain: a rich green background presenting a single question to invite users into this particular niche community (that of the 'foodie'): What are you serving?

Longtable, then, is essentially a recipe sharing social media site that encourages more than the simple swap of cooking procedures: that users go beyond this and actually befriend those with whom they are trading secrets of the cooking trade.  Forge friendships by sharing favorite meals, places to eat, chefs and, when your relationship status warrants it of course, that ever-important 'secret ingredient.'  Longtable's secret ingredient seems to be this: encourage people to take the next step in an already easy-to-connect- field: people, for the most part, enjoy food; 'breaking bread' together is, as mentioned, very communal.  Longtable's better business strategy is merely to put two necessary aspects (food and friends) of human existence together in a more explicit way than as naturally experienced on a daily basis.

To go any further with Longtable, you must log in or create an account.  This could be seen as withholding, or it could be a brilliant business tactic.  First, the calm home page does not immediately bombard first-time visitors with information they may not have been seeking.  Second, the site offers a morsel of information just big enough to spark a potential user's interest.  Third, the site invites the potential user to learn more by actually joining the site and, as it were, ordering a main dish.  Because the site is free, the only 'commitment' the user needs to make is to a username.  Longtable is one example of a clean, easy way to do business better.