I recently got the opportunity to interview the marketing team behind the popular Italian foods brand, Botticelli Foods.
This company is a powerhouse for all things Italian food, selling their specialty products all around the country, directly from their production facilities throughout the Mediterranean.
In fact, they are the only important Italian specialty supplier that offers 100% Italian produced products.
Here, I got to chat with the marketing team about social strategy, creating content, social media trends, and their favorite recipes using Botticelli products.
Mia and Michaela from the boutique marketing firm, the Amici Group, are the eyes behind all things social media strategy, working closely with Leona, the genius behind graphic design, and Cassandra, the manager of regional sales and social media marketing.
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Thank you all so much for meeting with me! How long have you been working with Botticelli for?
Mia: Botticelli wanted to work with my mom, who has a cooking account, so we got the ball rolling and started working together through her.
The Amici Group itself started because my dad has a restaurant in Long Island, and I had been running his social media accounts since I was in college. From there, my dad’s friends started asking for help, so Michaela and I would link up, and eventually, we turned this into a business.
Cassandra: I’ve been working for Botticelli for about 4 years, since 2018, doing regional sales and running aspects of our social media marketing. I handle the largest retail aspect, and I run all of our marketing and branding here.
I have known this brand for a long time. I have watched it grow from a regional olive oil company to a national brand, dealing with food service, too. Through this, we service all of Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens, etc.
Leona: I started at the beginning of 2022, one year out of college. I applied to the company and essentially wrote my way in. Anything and everything graphic design has to go through me; from labels, to social media marketing images, etc. I assist in tying our branding into our social media posts, and I work with the Amici Group to get them all cohesive and uniform.
To all of you, what are the advantages of working for a family run business?
Cassandra: Coming from corporate, there are a lot of hoops that you have to jump through, and layers of politics and seniority. With our company, it’s the opposite. It’s great. If I need anything, I call our CEO, and we can get it done and make decisions fairly quickly. It’s family—one big happy family.
Mia: To Cassandra’s point, we also try to portray this in our social media accounts as well. We want to make it known that by buying from the brand, you’re working for the family. That’s why a lot of the time, we will show moms and daughters cooking together, using our products.
Leona: Working for a family company, you grow to love and expect a lot of the homey feeling. When you start working in that environment and experiencing that firsthand, you want it to shine through to your brand as a whole. That is a whole part of what we do here.
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Do you all cook yourselves? How did you get your start in Italian cooking?
Cassandra: I am as Irish and blonde as the day is long, but my family does cook. I have lots of cousins, but it’s not like this immersive culture that you get thrown into. The guys in the office are just all huge foodies.They’re so passionate about what they do, but the immersion there is next level.
Leona: I’m Greek, but a lot of our morals align. When I was being interviewed, the last thing I was told was, “you have to love food to work here,” and of course I do! There’s benefits of knowing how to cook, knowing the best way to cook with the products we sell, and being able to translate products and recipes.
Mia: I’m Italian, my dad has owned one of the most successful restaurants on Long Island since I was born. We made my mom’s cooking page during Covid for people who were afraid to dine out. All we talk about is food. Same with Michaela, she is Italian and bakes olive oil cakes.
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What is your favorite kind of content to create?
Mia: I come up with ideas all day long, and will bring them to Leona. My favorite part is the process of creating a recipe and seeing an end result. I love working with my mom, who makes a lot of Botticelli recipes, and seeing her create what I grew up with.
Cassandra: I love watching all of the lifestyle stuff that we put out there, especially the family aspect. I have kids myself, so for me, I love getting them in the kitchen and having them try everything. What we create on social media, I’ll create with my kids at home and get them involved, too.
Leona: I love this, because it helps us keep the tradition of cooking alive. It’s something that you can pass down for generations. I like thinking of new ideas and concepts, challenging everyone, and coming up with better ideas and better ways to show how products work.
What kind of content is performing the best for your brand right now? Which kinds of pictures/videos are getting the most outreach?
Mia: Any of my mom’s recipes, where we’re using the olive oil and the balsamic, get the highest views on Instagram, and anything where the chefs are shown cooking with their olive oil in the kitchen performs the best on TikTok.
Leona: We are trying to achieve a balance between having high value posts, but also showing who we are as a brand, so everything primarily looks beautiful across the board.
@botticellifoods We hadda do it! Let us know how we did @Hank 😍😍😍 #sandwich #foodtok #italianfood #chickencutlets #pesto #evoo #fyp ♬ Sunroof – Nicky Youre & dazy
What do you predict for social media trends in this upcoming year?
Mia: Instagram is trying to become more and more like TikTok. We’ll be seeing a lot more informative content going viral. We’ll also see content changing from classic Instagram aesthetic, to knowledgeable and informative TikTok things.
Leona: I don’t think recipe videos will ever go away. People LOVE that, and we just love being able to show it. More people got the cooking bug during Covid. The recipe aspect of everything won’t ever go away, but maybe down the line it’ll transform into more of a virtual recipe book rather than a quick video.
What is one thing that every food brand should be doing on social media right now?
Mia: Sharing how to use the ingredients! So in short recipe videos, it’s teaching the audience how to buy and use your product.
Leona: That’s so important. For example, olive oil. If you don’t show how to use olive oil properly in your dish, how will your customers know the right way to use it? Not many people think to share those details to their consumer base.
@botticellifoods Who else loves this dish!? #linguini #pastatiktok #foodtiktok #fyp ♬ As – Stevie Wonder
Do you have any secret tricks or hacks that you think will make a post perform well?
Mia: We always make sure that we are using trending audio, using the “arrow” vs the music note, no matter what. A trick we’ve picked up on from articles is choosing a trending audio between 3k and 5k uses, because it has a higher chance of riding the viral train. We also make our reels collaborative whenever we can, with short and sweet copy, especially with reels. This helps with showcasing the overall message of the video.
What makes Botticelli different or stand out from all of the rest?
Cassandra: From the retail side, we are 100% Italian made. Grown, produced, and packed in Italy, and brought to the U.S. Not many other brands can say that. They can say Italian style or Italian recipe, but the products aren’t all Italian products. We grow our own ingredients in Southern Italy. That’s a differentiator for us.
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And finally, what’s one recipe with your product that you think everyone should be making?
Mia: My mom’s lemon chicken recipe, which is posted as a reel that you can see. She made this on her own page and everyone was so obsessed, so we recreated it with our destination series olive oil. It’s so easy to make, everyone loves it.
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Cassandra: Olive oil chocolate chip cake! I have made it more times than I care to admit.
Leona: The pancakes! We made a chocolate chip pancake at some point, and since then, I haven’t bought a box of pancakes.. It’s so easy to make them from scratch, and substituting for olive oil is life changing. This was inspired by Jose Andreas.
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Michaela: Chocolate olive oil cake!
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Check out Botticelli Foods on their website, or follow them on Instagram & TikTok: @botticellifoods.
