The community where people come for the food and stay for the conversation. BakeSpace was launched in 2006 as the internet’s first food social network and recipe swap. This is an amazing tool for not only people in the food industry but for bakers everywhere. There is something for everyone from pastry chefs to beginner bakers. BakeSpace might sound like its just for bakers but the site is host to all kinds of content from cake to cookies to BBQ, to dinners, to appetizers.
The target audience for the channel is very broad. If I had to narrow it down I would say the main audience is females age 30-40. These are the woman who are married with families that do the bulk of the cooking for their husbands and children.
BakeSpace is a social media channel that allows you to find, post and swap recipes with people all over the internet. Something really exciting about this platform is that it allows users to have the opportunity to create, publish and sell their very own cookbook.
Users can also seek out “kitchen mentors”. Mentors are separated into categories based on what they excel in cooking. As you can see below there is a wide variety of cooking styles and tons of “mentors” to choose from. Mentors can provide tips, tricks, and personalized attention to users seeing assistance in the areas where they may not be as skilled.
As I spent about two hours browsing this platform last night, I started to get really excited about it. I like to look at different recipes and I enjoy eating…now cooking, not so much but I found quite a few recipes that I got excited about. I think people tend to get in a recipe rut and cook the same things over and over again so this channel and the endless options for assistance and opinions that go with it is really great. While I think the channel is very interesting, USA Today even said “The closest thing to a Facebook-like food site is BakeSpace” but I don’t think that it can compete with channels like all recipes or I know Pinterest isn’t an industry specific channel but that is the “go-to” for many people when it comes to recipes.
The baking/cooking industry has already started to incorporate proximity marketing to engage with their customer. This article from Mobile Marketing discusses how “users of the CheckPoints app, which provides rewards for shopping-related activities, will receive push notifications when they are in-store encouraging them to swipe for an easy dinner solution and drive them to the location of Hidden Valley and Soy Vay products in the store. Users are also delivered an interstitial encouraging them to look up recipes” .
BakeSpace could also get in on proximity marketing by allowing stores and baking brands to essentially check in as people do on Facebook when they are at certain grocery stores, specialty food stores or baking stores in turn for receiving a coupon or some incentive to keep checking in or mentioning the brand since every one there is obviously into cooking.
Because everyone eats, there is so many ways this channel can work along side other channels. The BakeSpace channel has a presence on the major channels like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. They also have buttons to share recipes to those same platforms. Users can share recipes and post pictures of their creations and reference the channel with either a @BakeSpace or #BakeSpace creation.
BakeSpace is definitely a cool place to hang out if you love to cook, bake or even if you need ideas. You can browse recipes, ask for advice or even create and sell your own cookbook. Its all food all time which is something you cant get with many other platforms with out all the other”stuff”. Check it out!
kassi ogles 