Some brand marketers might see a cultural phenomenon and ask: “What’s up with that?”
Tasty saw an untapped platform last year and asked, instead: “WhatsApp with that?”
Since May 2024, the BuzzFeed-owned recipe publisher has been on the Meta-owned messaging app, and in less than a year has amassed more than 1 million followers, according to the company. By converting its primarily video-based content into text- and photo-based posts, the brand is now reaching a new audience—an essential tactic at a time when TikTok’s fate is still up in the air, David Bertozzi, Tasty’s deputy director of social and creators, told us.
“If you’re a video publisher in particular, you have to have a diversified approach,” Bertozzi said. “You can’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
Getting chatty
In years past, brands like Hellmann’s, Absolut, and e-comm brand Kikuu have activated on WhatsApp, mainly through a program called WhatsApp for Business. These brands have used the platform to engage with customers, run sweepstakes, and even operate a custom workflow that directs users to click on product pages on their website.
Publishers like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and BBC News have also embraced the platform to distribute articles and coverage to readers.
When Tasty got on WhatsApp, it was at the suggestion of the brand’s Meta representative, Bertozzi said, since the messaging app hadn’t been on his radar. At the start, Bertozzi’s team simply created the brand’s channel and focused on securing verification. “Maybe I’ll just make our Meta rep happy,” he said. “And in the best-case scenario, we actually see some performance success from it too.”
That performance success came primarily from an international audience. Of Tasty’s 1 million WhatsApp followers, 97% are from outside the US, Tasty’s largest share of non-US users compared to platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, Bertozzi said. The largely international audience means the team has made some adjustments to content, like converting measurements to metric units.
“If you have limitations to selling just to a US audience, [WhatsApp] might not make a lot of sense,” Bertozzi said. “But if you have the capacity to go global in your marketing approach, then that would probably actually be a really interesting destination to look at.”
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Tasty posts around two pieces of content on WhatsApp daily, focused on turning videos into recipe recommendations with links back to the Tasty app and website, where the recipes are in written form. Focusing on written copy instead of video has been “almost like an extracurricular project” for Bertozzi’s team, he said, and something that consumers might not necessarily expect.
“With everything being all text, it becomes a place where we can really craft a brand voice that people would want to follow,” Bertozzi said. It’s not just in-app content that allows for a brand-voice opportunity—even push notifications can be an area for strategic communication.
“If you’re getting push notifications, it’s even more crucial that you’re not being intrusive to someone’s life, that they feel like they’re getting a message that could almost feel like it’s from a friend, or something that would be entertaining to see on their phone,” Bertozzi said.
Many eggs, many baskets
WhatsApp isn’t the only platform where Tasty is active. In addition to Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook Reels, Bertozzi said Tasty is actively eyeing Threads and Bluesky, two spaces he considers have similar opportunities to WhatsApp.
“These are platforms that are really great places to look at link traffic in particular,” he said. It’s something that can be more complicated on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which do not allow for links in captions. (Facebook Reels, Bertozzi noted, does allow for direct links in captions.)
Video will remain important for Tasty, but Bertozzi still sees an advantage to nonvideo platforms, even if Tasty is video-first.
“I really try to emphasize that we should reformat our expectation of driving link traffic from Instagram or from TikTok, because it’s just so much more challenging. Users don’t want to leave the platform,” he said. “You’re much more likely to be able to experience that within the platforms where you can see a link, tap it immediately, and browse that content on the spot.”