What’s Inside the California Avocado Social Media Program

The California Avocado Commission’s social media program is a fundamental part of CAC’s demand-building marketing campaign — providing both a widespread reach and the ability to specifically target audiences where California avocados are available. Further, social media platforms engage with consumers and encourage demand. The Commission can track which content is most impactful, review detailed analytics and optimize tactics in real-time.

The California avocado audience is highly active on social media with Facebook, Instagram and TikTok particularly popular. Millennials are the most active demographic on social media with 77% active on the platforms daily. To effectively engage these audiences, CAC crafts clever, creative assets that encourage users to stop scrolling and view, click, like, share or comment on the content. CAC creates two-way conversations by responding in kind, answering questions and providing key messaging about the peak California avocado season, where to find them, the online store locator and local growers’ sustainable farming practices. Combined, the Commission has more than 367,000 fans across Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.

CAC focuses its efforts and investments on the social platforms that provide the strongest impact. Using past analytics, this year, CAC identified Instagram as the platform with the best potential to increase share of investment and raise awareness of the fruit’s availability particularly through videos and influencer partner content. Facebook continues to provide steady consumer engagement around the new ad campaign, store locator and availability of the fruit at local retailers. Together, these channels provided more than 19 million impressions so far this year with 260,000 link clicks, 1.9 million engagements (10% rate) a 46% lower year-over-year cost-per-click and a doubling in click-through rates.

CAC also has unlocked the power of the foodie-forward Pinterest channel to drive traffic to the consumer website. This season, California avocados branding has been featured more prominently to build awareness of the brand and remind consumers that the avocados in the showcased recipes are locally grown. Currently, Pinterest is one of the Commission’s top drivers of impressions and link clicks with posts and ads driving more than 100,000 website sessions and over 8 million impressions.

As for TikTok, CAC continues to grow its influence on this channel by promoting video content and retargeting visitors to the CaliforniaAvocado.com website. This community has shown a steady growth of 31% since the start of the year and generated more than 2 million paid video views to date with the “Now in Season” retail locator ad driving the majority of view and link clicks.

With 76% of social media users reporting making a purchase based on a social post, the Commission’s ability to showcase the fruit and its availability is a powerful means to encourage demand for California avocados. This year CAC has supported retailers with dozens of highly targeted posts and ads. Overall, CAC’s retail social media ad campaigns have provided 155,000 link clicks to retail partner store locators and more than 12 million impressions among shopper audiences.

Leveraging current trends (such as “point-of-view" videos) and meme formats, the Commission delivers relevant content such as the “Grower POV” showcasing growers as they inspect their trees. Eye-catching photos of the fruit and California avocado recipes inspire social media users, driving them to click through to the website, specifically to the store locator, recipes, grower stories and campaign pages. Ultimately, web traffic from social media content encourages and reminds consumers to purchase the fruit.

CAC’s partnerships with social media influencers help build trust and interest in the California Avocados brand. Social media influencer content builds trust and piques interest with targeted audiences. Initial results indicate CAC influencer content ads have outperformed Facebook and Instagram averages, and promoting influencer content from CAC social platforms has provided top results.