We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Roger Kornegay a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Roger thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I was working as a social media manager and content creator for yelp. When the panic hit and we all went into quarantine, I was laid off from my position leaving me as a creative with no outlet. With a heavy desire to assist the businesses in our community, my wife and I decided that we wanted to do something that would help local businesses keep the doors open while we watched many close because of the pandemic. At the time we were afraid to eat at restaurants and no one was coming out to support local businesses like they wanted. We wanted to find a way to drive people out of their homes and to come out and support these businesses that we all loved so much. With that being said we birthed the Instagram Raleigh FoodTrap and began to do what we knew best, marketing and promoting! As I heard the timing for this was divine and it couldn’t have been planned any better, a small part of me does wish that we had started this journey earlier as we probably would be further along. Starting this journey earlier I would have looked a lot different as the businesses that we would have promoted would have been different, our messaging would’ve been different and probably our style and approach. I feel that everything happens for a reason and where we are right now is where we are supposed to be.

Roger, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

A marketing major from North Carolina Wesleyan University, I’ve always had a passion for using my skills to assist others. My favorite clients are ones who know absolutely nothing about marketing and look to me for all the answers. I’ve been a creative who loves digital art, cameras, videography and war for all of my life. Being able to combine all of my skills where Raleigh food trap is able to market some of the area’s amazing businesses is a dream come true. I started my journey working as a social media manager and a content creator for Yelp. After losing my position, but not losing my desire to help local businesses, my wife and I teamed up together to build a platform that you see today. Raleigh FoodTrap is a proxy three years old and it has since turned into a full-blown social media management and contact creation company. Within these past three years we have been so fortunate to connect with many small business owners throughout our community. Many of them have seen what we’ve done with our platform and have reached out asking us to do the same for theirs. We are currently running social media for 19 businesses in the area and are still growing. We have to pride ourselves on becoming the go to social media management company in our area making it super affordable for small businesses to have a contact creator and social media management team at their hand. When you look at other food blogs or social media management accounts on social media, do you normally see the same thing and that food being promoted of the same kind. We try to do this differently from others by incorporating food and fun. We also love featuring foods that many social media food bloggers wouldn’t. Month you may see us promoting salads, in the next you may see us promoting donut hamburgers. We try just to offer suggestions from all types of food, all walks of life and all types of cultures. I am most proud of the progress that we have made in less than three years. We have worked with some amazing brands, been featured in amazing articles, have the opportunity to provide our service to others and much more.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

The best thing society, or let me say followers I could do to support is to engage. When you see a post go up from your favorite Instagram account or TikTok account, take the moment to engage with that post. This even goes for platforms like YouTube as well. Just a simple subscribe, a small like or just a comment goes a long way whenever influencers like us are being considered for partnerships. I would even encourage you to go the step further and actually partake in what is being displayed. We wouldn’t be telling you about it if it wasn’t worth the hype.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being creative in your experience?

The most rewarding component of the opportunity of being an influencer is seeing the aftermath. We’ve worked with small business owners here locally that were literally getting ready to close their doors because they were no longer making profit. After a post goes up on our wall they are now being confronted with a crowd of eager new customers wanting their product. We’ve seen this way too many times and we love the power that we harness. That makes it such a rewarding experience when we encounter a small business that really needs the exposure.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.foodtrapmedia.com
• Instagram: @raleighfoodtrap
• Facebook: @raleighfoodtrap
• Other: TikTok – @raleighfoodtrap