How a local farm shop is driving business by telling their story on social media

We're going to see how Hales Fruit Farm is driving business by telling their story on social media. If you have any questions, please use the blue button inside maybe as it connects you to us all 24 7. And we love to help. So let's have a look at how they do this. So Hales Fruit Farm is located in the Cotswolds. It now offers a tea room, farm shop, fishing and camping facilities, as well as inviting people to pick their own, which is something they've done since the 1950s. They've got an audience of over 5,000 in total across social media. But it's really Instagram where they have upped their game since lockdown and it's actually tripled the amount of social media content it produces and the engagement on that content too. Taking a look at their feed, what jumps out immediately is the sense of what the business does, but also who the team are and what they're up to. So events that they're attending, like this post just tells you what the team are actually doing. They've tagged in the event, they've included relevant hashtags. So great use of hashtags there and it just gives you a sense of behind the scenes, you know, what's happening at the business that you wouldn't necessarily see if you bought from them online or went into the store. But if you keep looking, you know, you can see there's their restaurant, other produce that they actually offer, products that they offer some great eye catching images, but I mean, here's another one which they've posted on Apple Day and they've posted a picture of some apples. But it's a simple image, it's a simple post, but again, it's an eye catching image. The apples look delicious, but they've included relevant hashtags, they've posted on a relevant day that's obviously relevant to what they do as a business and it's a great approach and you can see they've promoted what's going on at the farm. So the pumpkin patch that ran at Halloween, but also lots of images of the store, of what the team are actually up to, of the products. I mean, some fantastic eye catching images and you can see they consistently get good engagement on these through using great images, telling the story, tagging in relevant businesses and using relevant hashtags. I mean, through lockdown they were communicating things like Takeaway Tuesday and Fish and Chip Friday, which is something they've continued since the lockdowns. But they regularly engage with other businesses, they tag in suppliers, local pubs, events that they're at, but also make sure that they respond to comments and mentions. And that's really important is to obviously spend that equal amount of time engaging as you do posting. But they effectively keep people updated, they keep people informed, but they keep people engaged through telling their story on social media and talking about what's going on. It's a simple social media approach, but it's very, very effective and it works extremely well. And I think they really do give us some key learnings from looking at their feed. And I'm going to say what we can learn is first of all, tell your story, help your audience, meet you, meet your team through photos and through videos with those images. You know, use close up images that show off the produce that you offer, but maybe tell the story of the produce as well. So you know, where's it come from, who's grown it, if there's a bit of a story with those products or produce, you know, tell that through your feeds because that's the sort of thing that people are actually interested in. But when you do post, be consistent. You know, post regularly, but also tag in other businesses, if you stock their products or other businesses or feeds that that's relevant to that post and definitely include relevant hashtags because those connect your post to that particular topic on social media. So if people are looking for conversations about Apple Day, your post will actually appear. And that's really important too. So let me show you how maybe can help. So here in the maybe Content Calendar, what you can do here is you can actually schedule your content ahead. So you can obviously have a look at what your content looks like and does it give the look and feel that you're looking to achieve? And that's just here. This is across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. So across multiple feeds, when you're scheduling this content, obviously you can tag in relevant businesses. From here you can include relevant hashtags too. But what you can also do is if there's another feed or brand that you aspire to achieve the same sort of look and feel to their feeds, you can actually have a look at their feed and compare yours to theirs. So obviously you can see if you're achieving the look that you actually want to actually get from your social media feeds too. So it really helps you check that look and feel. But obviously also saves you time because clearly you can spend a block of time scheduling your content ahead for the week or for two weeks. And that obviously means you're not trying to post then real time every day, which obviously is a big, big time saver, so I hope that's been useful. If you have any questions, use the blue chat button inside maybe as it connects you to us all 24 7. If you'd like to know more about any of the things talked about on this video, like hashtags or images, use the search below and you can find videos on these topics and I'll see you on another video.