There is simply no denying the prevalence of social media. Did you watch the Oscars this past Sunday? Ellen and her famous gang literally broke twitter with their star-studded selfie. (Thanks to some strategic product placement courtesy of Samsung.) So what does this have to do with frozen yogurt? Everything! Social media is a free, engaging, and informal way to advertise and connect to your customer base.

Let's Yo! Promotes Customer Engagement Through Social Media

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Let's Yo! a frozen yogurt franchise out of New Jersey has taken their social media strategy and has made it the cornerstone of their business. Alongside a healthy menu, customers get to interact with apple ipads that have been embedded into the tables. Not only that, once you begin taking your Let's Yo! frozen yogurt selfies you can watch the store's live feed from their various social media accounts on their flat-screen televisions. This means that your perfect selfie or froyo-gram will show up within seconds of posting.

This fun socially-minded atmosphere is a unique experience for customers as well as a strong branding strategy. It encourages social media engagement therefore leaving the heavy advertising lifting to customers, and social media accounts. It's a very cultivated way to achieve organic marketing for a frozen yogurt franchise. They achieve more social media engagement (i.e more organic advertising) by creating and promoting their social media games and contests.

Social Media For Frozen Yogurt


Now, I'm not saying in order to be a successful business in this day and age you need to go and buy ipads for every table.
But, in case you want to...Cafe Cartel can help you with an affordable ipad POS solution #hint #hint #wink

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But, I am saying that social media is a great tool to take advantage of. And for frozen yogurt shops images and shared pics are a great way to drive customer engagement for your shop. This means Instagram.

Why Instagram For Your Frozen Yogurt Shop?

shutterstock_130204610-e1370614325598.jpgInstagram is a great free tool that has 18 times the engagement rate of Facebook. This means that theres a bigger percentage of people who have Instagram that actually use it, as opposed to Facebook. Instagram is a picture sharing website so users can take pictures, tag their locations, and post them on their friends instagram feeds. This gives you the opportunity to post pictures of your customers, or even employees having fun in your shop. But most likely, you'll be enticing your potential customers with new flavors or a particularly luscious looking froyo masterpiece.

If you don't have it set up yet check out our "how-to" on "Setting up your Frozen Yogurt Shop's Instagram." Once you have all that set-up follow our tips on taking the best froyo pics. A stunning Instagram picture will be that much more enticing to click and share.

How to Take The Best Instagram Photos of Frozen Yogurt

Featuring examples from our friends at; Freeze Yogurt Bar, Orange Leaf Springfield, Yogurt Paradise and Chill Yogurt Cafe.

  • Take pictures with your regular camera app. This allows you to get your perfect shot because most phone cameras now have a built in HDR function but the Instagram app does not. Once you have a good picture you can upload that to Instagram.
  • Go a little wide when taking the photo, since Instagram makes you crop a little out of the photo to fit parameters.
  • Whenever possible use natural lighting instead of flash. Flash can result in shiny unattractive pictures and wash out colors of food. Take your froyo cup to a spot with good lighting or even better outside!
    • Tip within a tip: If possible, position your light behind the camera shining onto the frozen yogurt. This creates enough light to illuminate the subject without over exposing, causing glare.

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Looks like Freeze Yogurt Bar's yogurt was so delicious it's all gone.. Even without the yogurt, there's no denying that natural light turns even an empty cup into a stunning photo.

Don't go too crazy with all the filters. Filters are meant to enhance the subject, not cover it up. Make sure that your filter use is strategic. For example, if I want to brighten up a slightly dark picture I'd use Amaro, Walden or Valencia filters in the Instagram app.

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Orange Leaf Springfield uses their filter very strategically here giving the overall picture a subtle orange tint (the keyword here being, subtle) to add another level of branding in their orange dominated photo.

Use the focus function (wisely.) You can use the blur tool to call attention to your frozen yogurt putting it at the forefront. But if your picture is busy, sometimes the blur tool just puts things out of focus. The blur tool works best when you have one item in the picture you want to call attention to and there isn't too much competition going on in the photo. Know when and where to use it.

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There's no question about what the focus is in this photo. A great example of using the blur tool: minimal background, one subject to focus on.

Do include your brand! Are your cups branded? good. Include your cups in the Instagram pics for that extra advertising boost.

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Yogurt Paradise's cups are fun! So, they let the cups (and logo with tagline) shine in this Instagram photo.

Practice your yogurt swirl. Getting that perfect frozen yogurt swirl, is definitely an added plus in Instagram photos. You also have an abundance of the best frozen yogurt swirlers at your disposal (your employees.)

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Chill Yogurt Cafe has their perfect swirl DOWN. Look how pretty that is.

Do use hashtags. Don't go too crazy with them. Brand a hashtag with your frozen yogurt shops name and encourage customers to use it too! A couple hashtags make your image more viewable on instagram, but just like spam, no one likes too many hashtags.