Are you familiar with the many social media terms that are in use everywhere today?
LoSoPhoMo is a term that was newer to me, but makes good sense once explained.
LoSoPhoMo stands for mobile marketing enhanced by the Location, Social and Photo (via built-in camera) features of Mobile devices.
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Since I started mentioning about some apps for mobile devices this year, I thought that I would go ahead and also mention HOW using mobile devices is expected to play a growing influential role when it comes to the habits of people shopping for food and dining opportunities in 2012.
In a number of the following paragraphs I’ll be paraphrasing Phil Lempert’s prediction and it’s basis and adding a few points of my own. Full credit goes to FoodNutritionScience for the December 26, 2011 article on “2012 Food Trends to Watch.”
Did you know that it is estimated that 30% of currently employed Americans are considered “independents” per se? The prediction is that they want to be sharing more using social media, and that includes sharing food experiences such as through group type “let’s meet & eat” experiences (a take-off on the current trend in that portion of the population to look for “meet up” opportunities of all sorts–a movement that has sprung up post 9/11/2001 so-to-speak and now includes not only independents, but also couples).
Think of the popularity of many apps such as Foursquare, GoWalla, Living Social, and Yelp and you can see where folks are wanting to “meet up” and rather than just shop alone or as a couple, go ahead and shop as a group and possibly even eat out as a group.
People have tended for generations to band together based on socio-economic commonality or because they lived in the same area, supported the same causes, had common hobby interests, etc., so there are lots of formal clubs of old out there that have previously been quite popular.
The newer trend is to just become involved as needed in these informal “meet ups” based on a common interest with no strings attached. Typically these groups don’t have the more formal structure of clubs of old and they also offer the option of people being able to freely flow in and out of them with no stigma attached. That’s a twist on the “tribe” theories that have been promulgated by Seth Godin and others in recent years.
As a matter of fact, entire communities are emerging based on a common theme of a specific interest, which in this case, just happens to be focused on food. People might be interested in specific cuisines or a “clean dining” approach, need to follow a special dietary eating pattern such as gluten-free, or chose to eat vegan, etc. (In his 2012 New Year’s column, NY Times Food Columnist, Mark Bitterman, commented about how half the books that crossed his desk in December 2011 addressed the topic of going gluten-free).
Postulations for LoSoPhoMo include that in the near future there might be “social rewards” available for those groups who chose to not just prepare and eat meals together, but also decide to take their group actions a step further and literally shop together for food items.
Retailers might try to attract these LoSoPhoMo food shoppers by offering steep discounts to their members–and we know that just about everybody likes to get a discount.
Taking this a step further still, “value meal” discounts may be available to these group members who even choose to dine out together based on the number of diners present.
Of course, sometimes mobile devices simply provide the opportunity to “connect” without future diners having ever met in person before and without a promise of any discount.
Using social media avenues today, people who have otherwise never met in person can even arrange months in advance to have reservation times on a cruise ship at sea on a given night on a given sailing to “meet up” in an onboard specialty restaurant such as Qsine for a group dining experience.
Qsine is quickly becoming known as the “fun” informal specialty restaurant with an iPad driven menu and members of a group can all order from a theme featured on it and the table will be served tapas size portions of whatever is ordered–enough for everyone at that table. Those meals of camaraderie can easily last a couple of hours and also allow diners to play with their food–another trend in the restaurant industry. More on that restaurant trend another time.
Just be alert and on the lookout for opportunities that may exist if this food industry trend prediction for LoSoPhoMo comes to pass.