Taaj Francois is quick to spot a trend.

When he opened his first men’s boutique seven years ago, it was the women who shopped.

So, he switched the business model.

“Women are all over the fashion scene. Guys shop once or twice in a year. If a style changed, they were a lot slower to pick up the trend than women were,” said Mr Francois.

When Ink Virgin’s Instagram page was populated more with food than of fashion, he switched models again.

The 24-year-old created NYC Dessert last March. The account now has more than 30,000 followers. “It happened naturally. Instagram is a visual platform and food and fashion are very visual. I was always the last person to start eating — it drove everyone crazy,” he said of his habit of capturing food.

“Restaurants started reaching out. They’d say: ‘We saw you posted something. It got a lot of interaction. We like what you do. We like the photography. Do you mind stopping by for a free meal?’”

He’s in the midst of creating a “food content studio which bridges restaurants and hospitality brands with social media”.

“When I noticed I was really capable of taking an account and basically pushing the traffic from my networks and my personal page to their account to build it in two or three months, that’s when I started to see the potential,” he said.

“The demand started to get too high. People were asking me to post, post, post post. I couldn’t do it all.”

Soon offers started pouring in to ensure posts were prioritised.

“When it started I don’t know what really was the special sauce. I noticed I had an eye for food photography. I never went to school for it. It’s not like there was a magic trick going on in the background.

“I think the followers came from focusing on a particular niche.

“I was very surprised. Every time it goes up by 1,000, it’s like wow.”

A chat group of 200 “food influencers” helps further his reach. The Insights feature on Instagram now tracks demographics, which posts have reached more people and on which days, what their gender is and when most of his followers are online.

Most of his followers are female.

His friend, the lawyer Barclay Simmons, encouraged him to monetise the business. Mr Francois has since created content for more than 100 restaurants.

The pair are now collaborating on an app for Bermuda’s food lovers.

“Other companies will say, we could run your social media platform, but all they’re really doing is taking pictures and posting them.

“The difference with us is we already have a huge network of people we can put your stuff in front of. And you’re going to get feedback within a week,” he promised.

Mr Francois has ten handles. One, @lobsterroll, has 250,000 hash tags.

A company offered to buy it for $3,000, but he’s holding on to it.

“You sell lobster rolls; that’s 250,000 people who have shown interest in lobster rolls,” he explained.

He said one of the biggest hurdles he faces is getting businesses to understand how important social media is.

“They will pay for advertising, they will take my content and use it in traditional media and maybe put it online, but not use the expertise behind it.

“A company will show me their new website that they spent $5,000 on.

“I ask, ‘Are you on social media? Are you on Instagram? How are you driving that traffic?’” They tell him it’s a “fad”.

“Instagram has 500 million users,” he said.

“It’s not only that — it’s the fact that 75 per cent of them are daily active users. And there’s no language barrier.

“If you can’t find your market in 500 million users, then I don’t know what you’re selling.”

The platform’s reach has provided freedom for him.

“I did the brick and mortar thing and I loved it, but online I can be anywhere,” he said. “I love to travel. If I’m running ten accounts, that only requires a strong wi-fi connection. It won’t tie me down to one location.”

Mr Francois may be feasting on his success but he is also keen to use his new-found knowledge about the industry to give back.

He says restaurants throw out 85 per cent of their food, meals that could be put to better use.

“It actually costs restaurants more to give the food to someone than it is to throw away.

“There’s perfectly good food that’s dumped. I want to put a system together where people who are in need can stop by and pick up perfectly good food that would have gone into the incinerator.

He estimated there are 145 restaurants in Bermuda. “It’s a smaller market, so it should be easier to figure something like that out,” he said.

• Instagram: @nycdessert / @inkvirgin