Posting interactive do-it-yourself videos on Instagram is just one of many ways Megan McMaster has chosen to grow her online charcuterie business.
“I got into it because we love hosting, we love entertaining people and this was a really easy way to give everyone a bunch of options and a great way to entertain,” said the founder of Peckish Winnipeg.
She created Peckish Winnipeg early last year, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Everyone was staying in so I was getting lots of orders, lots of date nights at home, you couldn’t really have parties or anything like that so it was really focused on smaller boards.”
Thanks to high demand for her services, McMaster appears to have no concern when it comes to keeping her business afloat once the province fully reopens.
“Valentine’s Day and Super Bowl falling on the weekend made it a really hectic one,” she chuckled.
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“It just continues to blow me away every weekend and every holiday, we’re just increasing and increasing. I hope that continues and we’re really excited about that.”
Callia Flowers — another Winnipeg-based Instagram business — launched well before the beginning of the pandemic.
Now they’re fulfilling thousands of orders per week.
“Lucky for us, flowers are extremely Instagrammable!” said Catherine Metrycki, Callia’s founder.
“We really invested in spending time and many hours building out a social media presence that allows us to connect with customers.”
Just like any new business, they’ve come across some challenges along the way.
“In these temperatures, flowers will freeze in less than 30 seconds outside, so we have a whole other range of issues that come with delivering flowers that people aren’t expecting.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CX13uhlrzoX/
“A lot of that is because of the online and delivery nature of our business.”
Despite some minor speed bumps, experts are not at all surprised when it comes to the explosion of social media startups.
“Many of these entrepreneurs are younger. They’re seeing the power of social media, they know how it works, they’ve been customers and they’ve already bought products online,” says Sandeep Arora, the chair of the marketing department at the Asper School of Business.
Arora says he expects the market involving social media business to get even more competitive in the coming years.
“It’s less complicated, it’s much faster and it’s much cheaper.”
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