Have you heard of the Freakshake trend? Freakshakes refer to huge milkshakes loaded with ice-cream, cream and flavored sauces. But they also include unlikely ingredients. Think donuts, cake, biscuits, brownies and other sweet delights. Freakshakes have become huge in the food service industry.
Small restaurateurs should consider capitalizing on the freakshake trend. Put this deliciously popular type of milkshake or dessert on your menu?
What is a Freakshake?
Want to create a Freakshake for your small restaurant? Fill a large glass jug with a luxury milkshake. Make this with ice cream and chocolate, strawberry or another flavored sauce. Then pile up goodies that look as delicious, striking and ‘sinful’ as possible.
These goodies include cake, donuts, waffles, marshmallows, fruit, chocolate and more. Then throw a handful of sweets on top for good measure.
Want to know how far the freakshake phenomenon has gone. Well, some restaurants even offer savory freakshakes. And they include ingredients like cheese and pulled pork replacing donuts and waffles.
Where Did Freakshakes Originate?
This high calorific dessert supposedly originated in Australia in 2015. A café in Canberra seems the likely creator of the drink.
The savvy café owners in Canberra designed the freakshake for a very specific purpose. They were created to be “so ridiculous and over-the-top that people just had to take a photo of it before they ate it.”
Thanks to the sharing power of social media, these oversized, ultra-sweet milkshakes quickly became a global sensation, with cafes, restaurants and customers delighting in sharing their freakshakes to followers, and the more flamboyant, striking and gastronomically sinful, the better.
Freakshakes and Instagram
These brightly-colored edible creations are made to be photographed and shared around the world on social media, with the photo-sharing portal Instagram being a favorite channel for restaurants and freakshake-happy customers to share their freakshake images.
A mere search of #freakshake on Instagram brings up more than 50,000 posts, each trying to outdo each other on the flamboyant stakes.
Rather than being pictured toasting with a glass of bubbly or a pint of beer, social media users are posting pictures of themselves raising their freakshake glasses, accompanied with their location in the world and often the name of the establishment that has served them the delicious freakshake.
The Opportunities of Freakshake Marketing
It’s not uncommon for the biggest, boldest and most daring of freakshake posts to go viral. The trend to share images of outstanding freakshakes on social media presents a wealth of marketing opportunities for restauranteurs, cafes and ice-cream shops.
Serving over-the-top freakshakes to your customers will encourage them to share the mouth-watering milkshake/dessert that lies before them on social media, meaning your creation is shared around the world and could event go viral.
Boost Your Restaurant’s SEO
Research shows that around 126,000 Googles searches are made for ‘freakshake’, meaning if your website, online menu, social media profiles and other digital entities includes the word ‘freakshake’, your rankings on search engines like Google could significantly improve, helping you pull in more customers as a result of your freakshake marketing.
As well as being a powerful marketing force for ice-cream businesses, cafes, restaurants and bars around the world, the great thing about freakshakes is they’re not difficult, too timely or expensive to make.
All you need is plenty of ice-cream, cream, sweet sauce, sticky sweet treats, sugar, sweets and whatever other deliciously sinful treats tickle your fancy, thrown in with some creativity and daringness and you’ll have a masterful culinary creation your customers will love you for.
Given the popularity, trendiness and potent promotional potential of freakshakes, ask yourself – is a freakshake something your business can afford to ignore?
Image: Depositphotos.com