In this tutorial, social‑media advisor Polly Barnfield, OBE, visits Strachan’s in Brewery, the largest independent newsagent in Scotland, to illustrate how businesses can boost social‑media engagement by sharing local, non‑product content. She highlights a top‑performing post—a sunrise photo taken by a team member in Inverurie—that generated over 100 likes, comments, and shares despite having nothing to do with the store’s merchandise. Barnfield explains why comments and shares matter more than likes for algorithmic visibility, and she breaks down the engagement metrics of several posts. She then provides a step‑by‑step workflow for sourcing local photography: using a content‑calendar tool to search for local photographers, reviewing images for relevance, reposting them on Facebook or Instagram, tagging the photographer, and pairing the visual with subtle brand messaging (e.g., pairing a landscape with a coffee). Throughout, she stresses the importance of celebrating the local community, wildlife, and events to build authentic connections. The video ends with a call‑to‑action inviting viewers to click a blue button for 24/7 support.
Chapters
Today we're in Aberdeenshire and we're looking at how not everything has to be about your business to create engagement on social media. This is Strachan's in Brewery and it's the largest independent news agent in Scotland. And as you can see from their Facebook, they sell everything from toys to birthday balloons, they have a gorgeous ice cream bar and then they also do luxury gifting, which they talk about frequently on their social media, as you can see. So they're really engaged. They do posts most days and some of their most engaged posts tends to be around Lego and some of the big brands. However, you'll see that some of their top posts are actually absolutely nothing to do with their business whatsoever. And that's what we're going to look at today. So this is one of their top posts and they've got a few of these. And this is literally the sunrise in Inverurie this morning. So this is one of the members of the team on a walk around the area and taking a stunning photo of, of the sunrise as it comes up over the hills and the trees. I mean, anybody that was looking through that, you know, through their Facebook on of a morning, look at this and think, wow, how stunning is that? You know, we live in such a beautiful place. Anyone that hasn't visited it yet would look at that and think, wow, what an incredible view. But this is entirely, I guess it's really interesting for a business because it's entirely down to them celebrating where they live and the beauty of it. So you'll see that, you know, in the actual comments themselves. She says, I went around Keith hall and then, then back home and it was a pleasure to be out. So, you know, she's written that down, she's put some little kisses in it, you know, to keep it really, I guess, sort of, you know, light and very much, you know, like sort of, you know, amateur photographer, you know, it's just, it just happened to be, you know, this gorgeous picture that I took on my walk. And I guess so many businesses do this and that we watch on a daily basis and they do this by looking for photographers in their area and reposting some of their beautiful nature as well. And for us, we think that it's really, really important to celebrate your local, your local area and the local town and what's going on in it. So even if it is like this, this is another post. So this got 107 likes versus, you know, 11 even on that level one. And this one, as we started with, got 109, a couple and four shares. Now, to be able to even get four shares, that is four people that have chosen to like your post so much that they've shared it on their own feeds. Now, that's big. And it might be that, you know, the local newspaper shares it because it's really good. The local amateur photography club, for example, decide to share it. It doesn't matter who shares. It's the fact that they've. They've seen it on your feed and they've liked it enough to A, make a comment and B, share it. It's very easy to get likes. It's really difficult to make comments, to get comments. And comments is what you need in order to keep coming up on people's Facebook pages and coming up in their feeds. So for us, it's making sure that you know what's going on in your local area. You celebrate the wildlife, you celebrate. You know that the kind of big milestones are happening. You celebrate any events that are coming up, as well as doing this kind of thing and doing your natural sort of products and services. Because guess what, guys, if it works and increases your engagement, you really need to do more of it. Now, if you want to see how you could maybe find some inspiring photography in your local area, then what you can do is you can go to the maybe platform and you can go to content and go to content calendar, and that shows you all of your content for that particular week. Now, all I've done here is I put in photography, but you would obviously put in a local photographer, and so you can literally choose anybody. So I'll just randomly choose this photographer here. You can choose a photographer and you would obviously find one in your local area first. And it might be that, you know, you Google them or you find them already and then look. So here is some absolutely stunning photography that I could choose to share myself, and then it might be that I go back a week to get even more. So if this is of your local area, then what I would want to do is to view the post, take a look at it, and decide, is this something that, you know that would work for us? Is this something that you could repost? And then literally all you need to do is repost it to your Facebook or your Instagram, make sure that you tag in the photographer, and then use it for whatever it is. Maybe something like, you know, a view like this would look even better with one of our coffees, or something along the lines of that. Now, if you've got any questions at all, as ever please click on the little blue button. It connects you to us 24 7. We love to help.
