Aquaculture America 2023

February 23 - 26, 2023

New Orleans, Louisiana USA

COMMUNICATING SEAFOOD ONLINE IN A TIKTOK ERA

The seafood industry is changing. Today, millennials and Gen Z have the largest buying power in the market. This younger demographic is environmentally conscious, tech savvy, and convenience minded. They want information about their seafood that hasn’t always been available to them and they want it on platforms where we haven’t always made it available.

If we want to reach this important group of seafood customers, then we need to meet them where they’re at - social media.

Today, TikTok and Instagram aren’t just for pre-teens doing trendy dances. 47% of TikTok’s 1 billion users are between 20 and 40 years old - which also happens to be the fastest growing demographic of seafood consumers. And more and more people are turning to these social media platforms for credible information.

There is a need for reliable information on these platforms. Social media content is widely unregulated, making it a breeding ground for fake news and misinformation. The only way to combat misinformation online is to fight back with credible information. If scientists and industry leaders in the seafood space don’t flood timelines with the real story, the only narrative that will dominate online is one that isn’t true.

The food industry is currently experiencing a once in a generation transition where consumers are actively shifting to their eating habits towards lower impact diets. Right now, for many, a lower impact diet means going vegan or plant based. Most consumers skip right over seafood because they don’t even know it’s an option. Because we haven’t told them it is.

The prior conventional wisdom that consumers thought of fish and seafood as the “healthy choice” is not as prevalent among younger consumers. We need to change that, but this window of opportunity won’t be open forever, so we need to act now.

If we can intercept these young consumers during their transition to lower impact eating, we can grow our sustainable blue food system, support ocean literacy, and transform diets for good.

In this session, I’ll talk about how seafood marketing has to change to respond to the growing demand from young consumers and share effective strategies for communicating your seafood stories online.