Gaz Oakley spent four years working in restaurant kitchens in Cardiff as a full-time chef and has just released his debut cook book Vegan 100.
The former chef outlined his top tips on how pubs and their chefs can maximise their use of social media to make it work well for them.
Good quality pictures
Oakley said: “[The secret is] uploading good quality pictures. I got a good camera and made sure backgrounds looked as great as the food.
“Then I constantly shared posts on social media, about three to four times a week. From here, the following started growing and growing.”
He also also outlined how using just one social media channel progressed into another. Oakley added: “Following this, I went to YouTube and it was then that things went wild.
“YouTube is my biggest social channel. I get a lot of people coming from YouTube to my Instagram site now and both are growing fast.”
Free platform
He then advised operators on how and why they should maximise free marketing tools, like social media.
Oakley said: “Social media is a free platform to contact people all over the world. Advice for anyone starting a new business would be to ensure you are on social media straight away.
“By ensuring you start social media from the very beginning, you have a nice solid audience there, meaning the more people you can contact, the more interest you are going to have for your business.
“Social media is great because you’re able to share your ideas and passions with just the click of a button and I wouldn’t be where I am today without it.”