Influencer
Corey Meyer: How A Local Butcher Found Success on Social Media
Who is Corey Meyer?
Corey Meyer has been operating within the Canadian meat industry for 26 years, showcasing his artisan skills and love of local produce. Meyer took over the acclaimed ACME Meat Market in 2008, alongside his wife and team of expert butchers. After building up a positive repertoire within his local area, Meyers decided to produce content for social media.
‘10 or 11 years ago, I just got interested in Instagram so I thought it would be kinda neat if I took pictures of what I do. It really took off and it seemed like there was quite a market for what I was doing. A lot of people go to the grocery store and they just see meat on a plastic tray or a styrofoam tray. So I think a lot of people like to see where it actually comes from.’
Meyer is extremely active on Instagram, building a community of 11.5K followers and nearly 2,000 posts. He also posts a variety of videos that show off the products in more detail.
Creating A Consistent Strategy For Instagram
With such a strong following on the platform, Meyer seems to have found his ideal niche and works hard to upkeep engagement on social media. He goes on to describe how he maintains such an active following on Instagram.
‘Just keeping it simple. Don’t try and reinvent the wheel. I just try to go at it and make it pretty and people seem to enjoy that.’
As ACME Meat Market is based in Alberta, beef is unsurprisingly their best seller. In turn, Meyer tries to diversify his content and market his products in unique and exciting ways.
‘Well, here in Alberta, beef is king so I do tend to post a lot about beef. Plus, I am an influencer for Alberta beef so I do try to push that a little bit. Chicken seems to be kind of boring meat so I hardly ever post anything about chicken unless I’ll maybe sometimes do breakdown videos.’
Meyer also goes into more detail about his role as an influencer for Alberta Beef.
‘They have their own magazine and it’s a quarterly magazine so I contribute an article to that every issue. For social media, they like the photos that I put out and they give me full creative control. They’ll say, ‘This next issue of the magazine is going to be focusing on this type of cut of this type of meat, can you maybe throw out a few pictures of that?’
He also mentions how this partnership has brought success to his business as well as his presence on social media.
‘Ever since I started working with Alberta Beef, I’ve noticed that my follower count has gone up. For the business itself here at ACME, a lot of people will mention ‘I saw this in the magazine or I saw you promote this on Instagram.’ So it does work well for everyone involved.’
Uncovering Brand Deals In A Niche Market
Despite producing content that may be considered to be quite unconventional, Meyer has attracted the attention of many brands, all looking to collaborate alongside his immersive content. He explains the types of brands he works best with.
‘There’s a few different barbecue, like pit masters, that I work with because our businesses go hand in hand. I will work with them and they’ll come to me looking for certain things that they want to put on their pages or put out there. They ask me for advice or what I think would work with what they do and what they want to achieve.’
Meyer also explains how he uses analytics to ensure that his audience is remaining engaged with his content.
‘It’s pretty much just likes and comments. I’ll check the graph that shows what audiences it reached and I’ll kind of get a feel for what people are into based on that.’
Expanding The Future of Business Through Influencer Marketing
Corey Meyer has seen prosperous success both online and within the meat industry. He sees his work on Instagram as an enjoyable hobby and has no plans to stop at any time soon.
‘Personally, I think I’ll do it as long as people want to see what I do. I mean, it’s fun what I do, especially on Instagram so as long as people are tuning in, then I’ll continue to do it.’
Despite gaining 11,000 followers in under a year, Corey Meyer still struggles with creating new content. He explains his largest battle as an influencer.
‘Keeping the content fresh. Coming up with new ideas because there’s only so much you can do with meat. So I try not to redo the same sort of pictures often but sometimes it’s inevitable, it’s going to happen.’
He also explains how he uses certain filters and effects to make his content more appealing to his viewers.
‘I do use filters and that sort of thing for some of my photos but I try to limit them to more of just an aesthetic. I have some pretty nice butcher blocks here that I cut on and there are some filters that can really make the wood look good. But beyond that, I try not to use too many.’
Meyer also describes his contributions to Butchery Team Canada as part of the World Butcher’s Challenge.
‘I am part of Butchery Team Canada which will be competing in the World Championships in September in Sacramento against 16 other countries from around the world. So that’s a pretty big one. I kind of promote that on Instagram as well and I like to get that out there to get some more support behind us. Whenever we get together as a team, at a practice or whatever, I try to put out as many posts as I can without it being boring to the people that follow me.’
Corey Meyer has managed to turn his local meat market into a successful social media platform, attracting a new customer base and a plethora of brand deals. He ends by elucidating how he remains competitive against other local butchers in his area.
‘I don’t want to say I have a monopoly on it but as far as like in Edmonton or Alberta, there’s just sort of a small handful that use Twitter or Instagram to their advantage and I’m one of the lucky ones.’
