‘Pizzatography’ Instagram account fuelled by pizza passion

Justin Tanada, a sales trainer from Hamilton, Ont., loves pizza so much that he started an Instagram account dedicated to it. Known as Pizzatography the profile features photos and videos of pizza from all over the world.

Since its inception in November 2017, the account has racked up 27,800 followers.

While working full time in sales, Tanada decided he wanted to get into digital marketing. In his own time he studied up on how to gain a lot of followers on social media and how to gain the exposure for people to start following you organically.

Inspired by a friend, Tanada started an Instagram account dedicated to water called Justhydrate because he wanted to prove to people he could create a social media feed that is successful. Fuelled by his love for food, especially pizza, he soon decided to start Pizzatography. When the pizza-devoted account surpassed his first account within a few weeks of creating it he decided to focus on it.

On a typical day, Tanada wakes up and checks his social media feeds and immediately starts interacting. If you want to be successful online Tanada suggests you use social media management tools to schedule posts so that posting is automated and no longer necessarily such a mundane task.

“Scheduling posts helps make your life easier,” Tanada said.

Examples of social media management tools that allow you to schedule posts ahead of time are Buffer, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and Social Sprout.

By scheduling posts, you therefore have more time to focus on engagement.

“If there is free time, like other people’s stuff and leave comments. But don’t use tools for commenting,” Tanada cautioned. “Be genuine.”

His last suggestion is to build an online community, particularly ones within chat groups.

“Find the right people to interact with based on niches in food communities,” he said. “Join them or make your own.”

Anyone can have pizza featured on Pizzatography. All you have to do is send Tanada a direct message (DM) or tag him (@pizzatography) in your photos on Instagram. In the past he has worked with local pizzerias running contests and promotions through his page. He said this is an effective way to bring more people to pizzerias and to put a pizzeria further on the map.

Pizza has always been a big slice of Tanada’s life. Growing up, he was known as “pizza boy” because his dad bought him pizza for lunch almost every day. In fact he was so crazy about pizza, his first ever email address was Pizzaboy100@hotmail.com.

In the near future Tanada wants to expand his brand by writing a book and consult with businesses on how to grow on social media to make it more profitable.