Building a social media community for your business means creating an ever loyal fan base amongst the social media clutter of other brands. Eat Kochi Eat started by Karthik Murali is one such community which has been successful in building a strong and engaging social media community based on their love for food.
Give a brief info about Eat Kochi Eat ?
Eat Kochi Eat is a food content network based in the city of Kochi. We have a community of foodies (which is the largest of it’s kind in Kerala) based in facebook along with other social media pages where we do different kinds of events around food.
What was the inspiration behind forming the community?
Kochi is not my home town. I moved to the city as a part of work in 2012. Everything about the city was new and strange to me. One thing I loved a lot was the different types of food available in the city.
But finding the best restaurants and food was always a challenge. So I thought of starting a group in facebook so that I could interact with hardcore foodies in the city and thereby get to know about the finest restaurants and hidden gems in the city.
Tell us about yourself, your previous jobs/ventures and background?
I am an engineer by degree and marketeer by profession. I started by career in an ad agency. Right now works as the Senior Marketing Manager in an EduTech company called Educrib. The skills I’ve acquired through my career in marketing has helped a lot in operating Eat Kochi Eat.
Does your brand focus on any geographical area? Why do you think that is the best place for you?
Yes. Though Eat Kochi Eat primarily indents to serve the people in and around the city of Kochi, right now the brand has solid reach throughout central Kerala itself. Eat Kochi Eat’s community became an instant hit when the people began to try the food featured in the platform and found good.
Are there similar groups/communities in the same sector as yours? Why is yours different from theirs?
Yes. In the community side there are many groups in Kerala right now. There were many even before we started EKE. But what makes us stand ahead is the kind of strict policies we follow and the types of events we do for our members.
EatKochiEat has got the opportunity to interact with the many giants in the restaurant industry during the past 4 years. We have solid insights on how this industry works in the city and this helps us to avoid spreading misconceptions and fake reviews through our platforms.
Within a short period of time, we have done 30+ major and minor events under the brand. This ranges from food exploration programs like EKE Food Trips, Food walks, EKE Raid, EKE Explore cuisine, EKE BBQ Party, Video series to programs like EKE Talks & Restaurant Experience Programs to motivate the aspiring restaurateurs and chefs in Town.
During food trips, we take foodies in the Kochi to other major cities like Calicut, Coimbatore, Palakkad, Kottayam, Madurai etc just to have the food. While EKE Talks is an interactive session featuring prominent personalities in the F&B Sector. We kicked off it with Mr Thomas Zacharias, one among the top chefs in the country itself. The last edition was with Mr Sumesh Govind, Managing Director of Paragon Group of Restaurants. Never in the state, anybody have done similar programs where people with dreams of setting an eatery gets an opportunity to meet & interact with their role models.
In restaurant experience programs, ekeians(followers of eatkochieat) were taken to successful restaurants to watch & learn how a restaurant is ran.
How many followers you have right now and how did you acquire it?
Right now across facebook and instagram we have 2.5 lakh+ followers. And interestingly more than 60% of them are from Kochi itself. This is the reason why the restaurants and similar entities get instant conversions when featured in Eat Kochi Eat.
How many platforms does your community have its presence in?
We have solid presence in both instagram and facebook in both page and community. We are setting up a youtube channel right now.
What are your plans of expansion in the future?
The immediate plans are all based on the city itself. Few interesting events where both foodies and restaurateurs could make use of are on the pipeline.
Tell us about your team and how did you meet each other?
Our facebook group and page is managed by people whom I met via EatKochiEat’s events. All are hardcore foodies with good knowledge about the industry. At the same time I directly handle the instagram as it needs a lot more personal touch.
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