Leveraging Christmas in your place

So today for our webinar, we are going to be looking at sort of starting Christmas, but basically I'm not going to go into like full festivities yet because I think Amy and I were just discussing that quite a lot of retailers have decided to kind of focus more on Christmas or post Halloween really. But what I thought would do is look at the ones that are looking at it and how we can kind of start getting geared up in terms of leveraging it in your place and also just within your business as well.

Amazing. Okay, let's do this.

So we're going to cover quite a lot actually, but I've kind of managed to summarize it in a few key points. So we're going to look at the events in your place because actually there's quite a lot of them going on. And whether you are a business or whether you are a shopping centre council or whether you're running events, there's lots to be involved with. And I want to just have a look at some ideas on how you can get involved in that and use social to promote that causes huge over the festive period and I think in particular after the last couple of years and in particular now actually when people are struggling again. So looking at how you can appeal to a broader audience by getting more involved in causes that you believe in and then using the tools that social media has to offer to help you get more creative with the offer that you actually have. There's loads of different tools that are all free as part of the suite, I guess, of the different social media channels. And I just wanted to touch on a couple of those today to look at how you can get a bit more festive on the lead up to Christmas.

Amazing.

So for those of you who haven't seen it, this is maybe dashboard. So in here you will see the top bit of the dashboard is where your content is. So that's where all your content is that you've posted. And you can schedule in your content directly. You can reply back to comments, you can reply back to anyone who's been talking about you in their posts to create that engagement. And then on engagement you can increase your reach by joining in more conversations, AKA talking to more people who have been basically who've been talking about you before. So anyone who's engaged with you before, if they've done a post, it automatically shows on that feed and you can start re engaging with them, you can manage your ads. But the biggest part of the dashboard is actually being able to compare. So it's been able to look at your stuff on the left. So your best post in the last week across all of your channels and compare that with a competitor or indeed somebody that you admire, that you want to learn a lot from. And it's everything from all your social stats, their stats, to who's influencing their conversation, right through to the hashtags that they use. So it's just a really, really good tool. So if you've not grabbed your account yet, please go on and grab it and then we'll get started. So Glasgow City Council, so this is my hometown and that's not why I've chosen it, I promise. But Glasgow City Council, their engagement went through the roof. Now this, it might not seem an awful lot in terms of four to seven engagements, 21 comments and 22 shares, but when we actually go into actually is so their sort of general engagement, they might get maybe like, like a few likes, a few comments, but in fact it's gone up even since I shared that yesterday. Wow. So it's gone up a lot. So this is the Santa Dash and they have promoted it. So if anybody has seen a Santa Dash before, I actually took part in one last year and I'm taking part in one this year with the local charity. Basically everybody dresses up in festive wonderment, usually a Santa in some way, shape or form, and then you do usually either like a 2k, 5k or a 10k and all look completely ridiculous. And usually it's to raise money for charity. So Glasgow City Council have got one back, they've put it here that it's for back for 20, 22, new year, new route, a new Santa suit. And then it's making them making sure that, you know in the caption that it's the family run, it's taking place when it's taking place, it's a great day, good way to be involved in charity. And then they're given the link there to register for it and then they've done some hashtags. So why I think it went through the roof for is that. So this went out 15th of October, so quite recently. And I think there's an awful lot of, let's face it, there's an awful lot of doom and gloom at the moment, isn't there? All we see in the news, everything that everybody's having to deal with at the moment is about money and bills and there's just a lot of scariness going on, I think. So I think for people, one of the best ways that people generally feel good about themselves and can connect with people in their community is by doing something for charity and it's something that you don't have to pay for. It's something that's not going to cost you anything, but something that ultimately will help raise, raise good funds for other people. You can do it with family and it can just be something really wholesome that everybody gets involved in. And I think that now more than ever, people really respond to that and will really understand that. And I think how they've done it is really well. I think their image is the sort of, you know, that's the thing that captures your eye straight away. You know exactly when it is, you know exactly what they're doing. You know, there is for family, they put how much it is, it's exactly what you would expect on the tin. So if running is not your bag, you might not be interested, but if you are up for a bit of fun, you would click on it and want to know and then they put all the details that you need in the, in the actual posts itself. Again, what I would have suggested was they have done, they have tagged in the Beatson cancer charity. I would have maybe said a little bit more in the caption about the charity just so that people understood, you know, if you didn't know what the cancer charity was, maybe a little bit more about that. But all in all, I think it's a really, really good post and I think that it got the engagement it got because it's timely in terms of thinking about obviously festive, you know, getting ready for Christmas, but without spending money. This is about actually giving back. It is about connection. So it is an event that is taking place that is about connection, which most people have really struggled with over the last couple of years. And because of obviously the what's going on in the world, it just means that people can all kind of connect to something that's really good funn and give back. And it's a family thing. So, you know, kids can do it, everyone can do it, the dog can do it, you know, that kind of thing. So I think that any business in the, in this area, any business in Glasgow should be thinking, right, okay, what can I do with something like this? You know, that's had 50 engagements now, 22 comments and 24 shares. How maybe I would have a look at the previous event and look at how many hundreds of people took part. Because usually, as you know, they're big events, these things. How can I support it? Is there a sponsorship opportunity where I can get involved? Or actually is It a really good opportunity for a team day out, for your team to get together, all of you and all of you getting involved, all of you actually taking part in the Santa Dash. So you're actually supporting a charity together, but, you know, you're maybe doing a bit of fundraising, you can share it on your socials and it's just a really good way for you to support a charity, support what's going on in a state, in a place, and also do something with your team altogether. So I think that it shows when a business gets behind something like this and it's not just giving money to something, that it's actually taking part in some way. People love it and people get involved. It's something that I've done myself quite a lot of the time. I'm actually doing a charity mile challenge at the moment, 100 miles over October. And when you do something like that, even though I'm doing it sort of from a business perspective, people have been so complimentary and people have dug deep and given, even if it's a pound, they'll do it because they know that you're putting in the mileage and you're doing it for charity. So when a team gets involved in something like this on, when you're putting it out on social media, it is just the real way of showing the humans behind the business, not just some faceless business or, you know, whether it's part of the council or whether it's a shopping center or whether, you know, you're a local baker, it doesn't matter. It's about doing something that a makes everyone else feel good because they can support you, even if they can't physically take part in the dash. But it means that you're supporting something within your area and it means that you're giving back to the community and people respect that and like that. And your engagement will only get higher as well on social media. So from a social media perspective, taking part in this means that, you know, by commenting and saying, guess what team, I don't know, Louise's Bakery, are all taking part in this. We can't wait. You tag in your team, all of those people then go in and then they get. They get engaged in the post, they share the post. It's increasing the reach for Glasgow City Council, which they're going to love. They're secretion the engagement, which they're going to love. It's more people that go into their feed. But guess what? Anybody that's commenting and anyone that's getting involved in that Conversation suddenly sees Louise's Bakery and goes, oh, never seen that bakery before, what's that? And then they come back to you. So it's only, it's almost just like a kind of ever evolving loop. The more you engage, the more you get involved, whether it's physically, digitally and whatever way it is, the more it comes back to you. It's all about, you know, it's that whole thing, what you give, what you put out there, you get back. But I mean, it's quite literally how social media works, it's quite literally how digital works. So there should be no better way and more easy way, to be honest, of getting involved in something like this in your community. So I know my local area is doing a Santa Dash. There'll be plenty of places that are doing events, they'll be doing Halloween ones, they'll be doing stuff, you know, on the lead up to Christmas. So maybe have a bit of a look, watch your local council pages, look at your local hashtag, see what's going on in your local area and then chat to your teams about how you might be able to get involved in it. Because honestly, what you give, you will receive back sort of tenfold.

Lovely stuff. Yeah. I think these are great ways for teams to bond with each other as well. Do something good as a team, make great social content and also what an awesome thing to do to kind of give back to the communities that you are doing business in.

And there's just so many ways, you know, like once you've said that you're taking part in something, think about the content. If you're struggling for content, right. It is, I don't know, you doing your stories where you've put on your running trainers and you're doing, you're doing a couch to 5K because you've never done a 5K in your life and you're trying to learn how to do it. So over the coming weeks, you know you're going to be posting, this is me, I'm running to the, to the office today instead of, you know, instead of getting the bus because of X, Y and Z, it might be you out with the dog, it might be you and your team all doing a leaderboard to see who's going to be the fastest, you know, whatever it might be or, you know, it might even be talking about your products. If you are food related, it might be, you know, that what do you need for sustenance before or what can be your naughty tree after doing the Santa Dash? There's so many ways that you can frame content around what's going on. So it's thinking about, you know, in terms of bigger picture. Although you're doing this and it's lovely for charity and it's great to get involved in whatever's going on with your local council, it's really good to get involved with what's going on in your local area. It will connect with people on a hundred different ways and it will solve your content issues as well. So it is a, it's a win, win for everybody.

That's what we like.

We like to keep it simple, don't we?

We do. So we're heading back down south now to exit.

I know I can't. I can't even deal, honestly, like this. I don't even know if I can speak around this picture because it's just too cute. Who doesn't love a little festive doggie? So with this. So this is a lovely, lovely post by Exeter Council and it's all around a Christmas dog market, which basically makes me want to go to Exeter because I've got dog and I mean, I'm obsessed. So it's a Christmas doggy market that's coming up and their engagement has increased, honestly, a huge amount. And this is for lots of reasons. So a the picture, right, I think it's just a stock image, but honestly, like, your heart melts. Look at its little eyes and it's wrapped up in its Christmas lights, probably accidentally when it tries to run away with them, but it's super, super cute. And any dog lover, any animal lover would look at that picture and their heart would melt. So we all know that posting anything to do with animals on social media works. It doesn't matter what kind of business you are, it works, it always works. So if you can capture someone's attention through little memes or anything to do with animals and it's something doggy related in particular, people go nuts for it. So honestly, it's all about the image. And you can get really, really good stock photography. Even on Canva, you get it for free and you can get loads of free images. So you don't have to go out there and try and, you know, like, reinvent the wheel. There's stuff out there that you can use and that's exactly what these guys have done. So it capture cat, you write in the fields, I guess is what I always call it, you know. Right, there you go. Oh, it's lovely. So that's exactly what social media should do. I say, get you in the funnies or get you in the field, so make you, make you laugh and make you want to share it because it's hilarious. Or get you in the fields where it is sort of, you know, it hits you on an emotional level, whether it's sad, whether it's happy, whatever it might be. So the image is everything and so it draws you in and then you've got the detail. So on. It basically says on the run up to the festive season, it isn't just for our families, our four legged friends can share in the Christmas excitement of Christmas with the doggy market. It says when it is they've tagged in the place that it is and then it's saying what kind of thing you can get there, AKA a collar or a lead or super comfy beds or some entertaining toys. There's lots of different stalls and then they're saying even more detail about the types of, you know, whether it's food that they can get with it to keep dogs happy. There's even a special doggie cafe where pets and owners can enjoy refreshments together. And then they've done a link to all the information about it where people can, can basically go and like figure out, you know, booking times and all this kind of stuff. But I absolutely love it because they've just done the right things. They've given most of the detail that anybody would need, maybe apart from the times that might have been handy. But again the link in. So if you really want to know about it, you could go in, but I would always put, I would rather put extra information just in a little bullet point. That said, it was Saturday the 10th from 10 to 4 or whatever it was, I would rather do that, but that's up to you. Even a bit of parking might be handy if you need to take the car, but it's just, basically it's just about thinking about from a customer service perspective what customers need to know and if the less legwork customers have to do the better because people are time poor and they don't want to be hunting for information. So those were two little things, but generally it's such a good post because of that. It tells you what you can expect and I think adding the fact that there's a little doggy cafe and things like that where you know, you can sit with your dog, that's something that a lot of pet owners are always looking out for, like dog friendly cafes and pubs and restaurants and things like. So having that information there is absolutely brilliant because it means that you're not having to go far from it now, other ways that you can get engaged with that. So if you are a stall holder, I would 100% tag myself in there. I would 100% and be sharing that and tagging in extra council tagging in the shopping, in the. I'm assuming that's the shopping center. The shopping center. And putting that link there and saying, come along down. We're selling X at this time, doing this, you know, like basically, you know, really make the most of the fact that that's got tons of engagement and it's. So put that stuff in there, like tag yourself into the content. If you are a business within the wider area that in any way sells anything to do with dogs, if you're a dog trainer, if you're a dog first aid or if you are a dog walker, if you are a groomer, whatever it might be, if that's your service, you 100% want to be getting engaged in that conversation. You've got a bunch of dog lovers who are all loving the fact that there's a doggy, doggy market coming up. So even if you're not taking part in the doggy market, you can still get involved in the conversation and still lead people back to you. We always say it's like a digital business card. And that goes back to what we're constantly saying about if you get engaged with popular posts within your local area, it is like leaving a digital signpost or a digital business card back to you. So if it's your market and it doesn't have to be as specific as dogs, but, you know, if it was an animal market and you're, you know, dog trainer or whatever, I would 100% get involved in that con. People are suddenly then sifting through the comments and every time somebody comments, you get a notification to say that there's been another comment that someone else has been tagged in. It will start coming up on your feeds as well. So the more people get engaged with it, the more people see it. So you suddenly might come up to 50 people, but actually then that turns into 100 people, 200 people by the time the post gets more engagement. So just think about keeping an eye on these kind of things. So even if you don't take part in the actual event, you can capitalize on that digitally by coming, you know, by basically, you know, signposting loads of new people from social media back to you that are basically your prime market. And if you're an online seller of anything, you don't have to be part of Exeter, if you're an online seller, there'd be no reason not to get involved in that conversation and say, this sounds amazing and it's just your links, you know, that kind of thing. It's just. And even if you don't put your links in, even just having your name, if it was, you know, I don't know, pause and play training or whatever it was, people suddenly go, oh, what's pause and play training? And then they click on it and come back to you. So it's just a really good example of something that's going on in a local community, that even if you're not technically part of that local community, you could still get involved with in some way, shape or form. But it's thinking about then after that. So what could Exeter City Council do with that content? They could take tons of cute little pictures of the dogs there. They could be on their stories, they can be making reels on the day of, you know, like, the dogs getting dressed up and all their accessories. They could be taking, you know, little snapshots of the dogs and their owners at the doggie cafe. They could be taking testimonials and case studies and that can be used for content rest of the year round, you know, like little throwbacks and things like that. So that's what's great about these events, that they don't just do one job, they do lots of different jobs. So constantly make sure you're keeping an eye on what is going on in your local area, because even if you're not running it or can't directly get involved in it, there's stuff that you can do off the back of it.

Absolutely. I'm loving this.

I know, I know. If only my one was that well behaved. And then on that. So have you ever. Because we talk about the different areas of tools and I was thinking about this in terms of how to get more involved in what the community's doing, what the councils are doing, what the businesses are doing. And there's a tool. Go on. Maybe you go into place Insights and within there there's an area and there's the sections say. I mean, here it's carefully. Right, so say you put in that. It would then be all of the hashtags that are being used in that area by businesses. And it is. It's a tool that we've used with quite a lot of councils and place managers to kind of look at, well, what kind of conversations are the businesses generating? This isn't necessarily what your customers are talking about. These are the big, big conversations that all the businesses are getting involved in. So for me, I'd be looking at it and going, right, okay. I mean, obviously Cardiff's coming up there for Cardiff Carefully is coming up for carefully, but it might. So you know, in Wales that those seem like natural ones. But then if it was World Mental Health Day, if you're. If lots of businesses are getting involved in that conversation, then probably lots of customers and potential people who would be coming back to you are getting involved in that conversation. Why not start looking at the hashtag, following the hashtag, it's then looking at those kind of things and basically the bigger. The bigger the conversation, the more people talking about it, the bigger the hashtag is on the graph. Now, it's something that we don't talk an awful lot about, so I just wanted to go in there and mention that those are kind of tools that we use quite a lot with, as I say, place managers, local authorities. But there's no reason why, as a business, I would want to know what the big conversations were in my area. So just worth, like having a look at the different tools that we've got available when you hop onto your maybe platform.

Absolutely. And if you're wondering what those two tables are at the bottom. So on the left you've got. Carefully, on the right you've got Cardiff. You can also see the businesses who are generating the most social media engagements at a place level as well. So really useful to look and learn from those businesses in your place and see who's doing social really well to generate engagement. And then obviously you can add them, follow them, compare yourself to them, engage with them. The idea is that, you know, if you're in carefully, you're going to share customers with other businesses in your place. So some great, really useful tools for what? For getting an understanding of what conversations are driving social media and who is driving that conversation in your place. So you'll find that underneath the listening tab when you're logged into maybe. And then choose Place Insights.

Awesome. Right, so back to what we've been talking about. So dobbies. So we've talked about a couple of councils and then I want to talk about a big brand as well. So. And this again. So whilst we're saying this about Christmas, this is about Christmas in terms of the lead up to the festivities, but it's looking at all the different aspects of Christmas and all the different things that we can be talking about and leveraging off the back of Christmas. So dobbies have been publicizing their festive Decorations. So when you go into like, their, like Dobby's Facebook and their Instagram, things like that, it's full of, you know, beautifully lit Christmas decorations and Christmas trees and, you know, trying to get people to purchase. But this post got quite a lot of engagement and that's because they decided to go down more of the sort of sustainable, ethical route with this. So here you can see that they've said that they're donating 300 sustainably grown real Christmas trees to community groups. And then what they've asked you to do is to nominate your community. So basically to nominate your community group. So who do you think should get the real life Christmas tree this year as a donation from Want Dobbies? And then they put TC supply. See the website for details. And then I think why something like this is really good is because it's them thinking about, right, okay, they sell, you know, hundreds of different kinds of trees. A lot of them won't be sustainable, a lot of them will be plastic, a lot of them, you know, like, will be throw away, you know, and that kind of thing. And so to counteract that, they will have to make sure that they've got their CSR sorted. They'll need to know, make sure that they have a commitment to the environment as well. Now, any business, this isn't just Dobbies, any business will have to do this kind of thing anyway, because, you know, it's part of. It's part of everyone's policies these days. It's what we all have to think about is our, you know, like, impact on the environment. It's what a lot of councils are having to focus on in terms of businesses and giving away grants and all that kind of thing. So with Dobbies, they picked this awesome image of the. Of all of the trees being grown all together and they've said that they're sustainably grown. They haven't gone into too much detail, but you'll see that there was 69 engagements, 26 comments and 39 shares. And I think what's really nice about it is they've kept it all about the image and they've kept it about what it is they're doing. So it's just, this is what. This is what it looks like and this is what we're doing. We're donating 300 sustainably grown real Christmas trees to community groups and then they're asking people to do a thing. So for me, it's thinking about, what can you take from this now? Can you nominate a local community group and put As a business, say, you know, we at, I don't know, X Coffee shop would like to nominate this local community group because they come in and use our facilities all the time and they are awesome at what they do because of X, Y and Z. They really, really help people. Right. So that's, I mean, a small way that you can get involved in a national conversation, which is what this is, it's a national conversation. So it's a small way you can get involved, but in a bigger way. How can you take what dobbies have done and think about your own sort of impact, if you like, on whether it's your local community or whether it is your own kind of carbon footprint or whatever it might be, you know, and thinking about what you already do and how you can look at doing something going that little bit of an extra mile over the festive period. So whether it is that you've got a deal where people, I don't know, if they bring in their own coffee cup, they get 50p off. Could you do something extra with that over Christmas? Where, I don't know, they get a thing or they, you know, they get X amount of stamps and they get a free coffee or whatever it might be. If it is actually you've invested in a whole load of sustainable, you know, reusable sort of, you know, I don't know, it might be cutlery, it might be plates, whatever it might be. Go on and talk about that and talk about how your commitment over the festive period is to, is to cut down your waste by X amount, for example. So if you know that you normally get, get rid of this and now you've introduced this, what will be the difference? People are interested in that. People want to know what the difference is. If you sell, I don't know, like special wrapping paper, if you know, that's environmentally friendly, that's, you know, recyclable and recycled, talk about it. So think about, you know, like what people are interested in, which is ultimately, you know, the impact of the environment, things being ethical, sustainable, things being a bit more green. That also relates to businesses, businesses being more green, businesses having some kind of social responsibility and ethical, environmental sort of policies and things like that. So I would just urge you to kind of take, I guess, what dobbies have done, look at the rest of their social media and think, right, okay, you know, they are still selling their products. It's not that they're not. They're still really promoting, you know, their, their lights and their beautiful trees and all this kind of stuff. But they're also doing a thing back for the environment. And also on that note, if you are going to do something, if there's any way that you can take what dobbies have done and do some kind of nomination where, you know, people have got to tag in a friend that receives a thing or, I don't know, it might be, you know, a lot of local newspapers do like a community hero for you. It might be. It might be something along the lines of that if you start. If you tend to have customers that are mums, might be, I don't know, nominate your mum for X, Y and Z over Christmas. Just getting people to do a thing where somebody. When it's not about them winning, it's about someone else winning or someone else receiving something, you will get so much more engagement from that than what you even do for competitions, because people love giving back, people love to see people smiling, people love to see people win, if you like. So anytime you can do something like this, definitely try it because you will honestly get so much more from it and more connection. And again, it goes back to showing that human side of the business and that you care about your community, you care about your environment and you care about other things at Christmas other than a bunch of presents, basically. So, yeah, I just thought I'd show that because again, it's just like something slightly different. Yeah.

And I think it's a really important point. It's a way of talking about a cause in a different way.

Yeah.

You know, some people, some businesses are looking, you know, they're kind of doing two things. They're doing that environmental cause, but also by giving it to local community groups and asking people to nominate. So I think. Yeah, again, a really strong page, really visually striking post as well, because you kind of wouldn't guess that they're Christmas trees until you see it close up.

Yeah.

So an absolutely fab one from dobbies. Where are they based?

What? Their head office. I have no idea where they're based. I just know there's hundreds of them all over the uk, but I'm not sure where they're. Yeah, yeah. So they've got garden centers all over the UK and they've done a lot of. Done a lot of things where they've taken on. So they sell online as well, but they've done a lot of things where they've taken. They've done partnerships with like, you know, the independent garden centers and they've kind of partnered up with them. So they've done a lot of that kind of stuff.

I think it's as well as like saying that that makes a lot of sense, like, because they're operating obviously like a national business, but they're still giving back to the communities that they. That they have centres in.

Exactly. And I think that's what's interesting about that, is that I think a lot of businesses are quite scared to get involved. When we say, we say get involved in a national conversation, if you were to look at like a big Primark conversation with thousands and thousands of comments, you get a bit freaked out. Whereas something like this, where, you know they've got local outlets, if you've got Adobes in your local area, you would feel a bit more comfortable with nominating a local community group for it. So, yeah, I agree with you on that.

Fantastic.

And then on that. So Dobbies are really strong in their content. As I said, if you go into their feeds, they are present all the time. They do tons of different types of content and a lot of it is, you know, them showing, I guess, how you can get. Giving you inspiration on how you can create like sort of festive, festive interiors at home, I guess. But you also could manage your content equally as effectively as them. And so a lot of people, I think, aren't using the scheduling tool as much and I think it's just so much easier than trying to do everything on Meta Business Suite, because here you can do it across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well. So you can do everything all in one. And you basically, this is your content calendar, so this is everything that you would have already, either if you're looking at last week, it's already everything you've already posted, or if you're looking at the week ahead, you would basically, where it says add in post, you literally can add it in. As long as you've got your channels all linked up, you add them in and then you can quite literally do a copy paste job in there, add in your image or add in your video. And then as Amy mentioned the other week, I'm not sure what the date is on this, but on Instagram, soon through maybe you'll be able to start tagging in your products as well if you sell online, which will be invaluable for people. So just remember that when you're thinking about, you know, like, oh, I've got to schedule my content, how do I do it across all these channels? It literally is there. It's all there in one place for you.

Absolutely. And as well as that, you can also choose which, if you're running ads, you can choose which posts, which posts, sorry, you would like to boost. And if something that makes this content calendar a little bit different from the others. If you look at the top right, you'll see a line there which is compare your calendar to. And then a big blue change button. What we enable you to do is to compare your content schedule to any other business of any size. If you wanted to see what jobbies were up to. For instance, if you're a local garden centre, you can compare yourself. You can look at what times of the day they're posting. You'll notice on the far left, some of this is the maybe content calendar. The post in the column Monday the 17th has a little yellow star on it which says it's the best post of the day. Basically, it's got the most engagement to.

Be able to look at things and.

Say, okay, if I post on a.

Monday.

At 6pm in the evening, that gets me way more engagement than when I post on a Monday at 9am so you'll really begin to work to understand what works for you and what works for others. Oh, lovely.

I know. So this one, again, completely different. And this is a bit more festive. If you. Yeah, if you like a bottomless bunch at Christmas, why not? I mean, I quite like it all year round, if I'm being honest. But this is Turtle Bay national retailer and they do absolutely delicious food and lots of delicious cocktails, are very well known for it. And this is them doing a little reel of their bottomless Christmas. So this is quite literally the entire menu that you could get if you did any of their bottomless brunches or your bottomless lunches, whatever you would want. It's brunch. Yeah, brunch. If you went to any Turtle Bay restaurant on the lead up to Christmas. So they have started off with, I mean, as many Christmas emojis as you could possibly fit onto a feed. They've popped right in the middle of bottomless Christmas. So, I mean, you. There's no kind of misinterpretation about what it is. You're looking at it as a bottomless Christmas feast. They've put all of their food all on one big plate or two big plates, I guess. So quite literally everything that you could possibly want is all being shoved on a plate. They put all their cocktails together, they put all their special sauces together, anything at all. And so you really get a bit of a feel for. Right, okay. If I was to go for this, this would be. This would be what I Get. So it's either for you and it's not, but that's fine. And then the captioned it was. Did someone say awesome is Christmas? Yes, we did. And then it's quite just, you know, happy, go, lucky, chatty kind of conversational messaging. The it's been nice. It says it includes all cocktails from our menu. It states that it's for two hours. So you only get the two hours, but basically you can fit as many cocktails as you like in there. That's up to you. They've then said it's along with any brunch dish, burger or roti. And then you've got the last sitting is now 5pm Sunday, Friday. So they basically put in what I was saying earlier on about putting in all the detail for people. They put in all the times. They've basically put in terms of conditions without writing. It's, you know, a big bunch of boring T's and C's. They've actually just written that, you know, this is the time, this is what you get with it. These are the, you know, like the terms, if you like. And then it says book using the link in our bio. And then they've got some really good hashtags. So from my perspective, it is about, basically, you're thinking about what you want people to do on the lead up to Christmas or Halloween or any. Any other time of year. It's thinking about, you know, if you've got a menu to sell, what way can you showcase this menu? Now, we've seen restaurants who've done it in Facebook albums. So every day they've done a different image of their. Their various pieces of their menu. And then they've gone into like, you know, lots of tantalizingly lovely detail about, you know, the sustainable, the sustainably sourced X and the local Y. You know, there's lots and lots of lovely detail in there. And then you've got businesses like this that have gone now just shove it all on a plate and turn it into a little reel. Because actually, they know that video is king. They know that reels get more engagement anyway. They know that in that way you can really get, I mean, within seconds, you know exactly what you would get. So it's much more likely that, you know, if that's a bit of you, it's likely to be a bit of a couple of your friends. You're more likely to want to tag them in. And on Instagram, it just works better than doing lots of individual pictures. It makes you stand out. So basically, what I'm thinking with this is think about what products is that you sell. Is it food? Are you a service? And then think about how you can show the breadth of what you do in taking this kind of approach. You know, if it is literally festive nails, could you have two hands and a different festive nail on each finger to show the, you know, the breadth of the kind of design work you do. If it was coffees, could it literally be like different styles of coffees and different things that you do? If it was food, Lots of ways of doing it, as you can see. But it is, it's just thinking about how you can get a bit more creative with the tools that are there. And sometimes, I mean, you know, they've basically just thrown Christmas on a plate there and throw Christmas onto the screen with hundreds of emojis. So sometimes more is more is what I'm saying. So, yeah, I just wanted to show that because I think it is something that's just a little bit different. It's very in your face, it's very unapologetic, but that's the kind of brand that can get away with it. And I guess the only thing that I would suggest is something that we mentioned last week, Amy, was I would say rather than even did someone say bottomless Christmas? I'd say, who do you want to bring bring you for a bottomless Christmas? So. Because it then brings it back around. So it's not me saying that I'm going to take you for a bottomless Christmas. It's me saying, amy, I want you to take me for a bottle this Christmas. Which obviously, if you do, that's fine, but, but you know, that's the kind of idea behind it is, you know, you, it's a tongue in cheek. You would tag in a friend saying, come on, you owe me one, bring me for this. And you know, I'll get the taxi, whatever it might be, you know, it's that kind of way, if you've got that kind of brand that can have a bit of a laugh, have a bit of a joke. I would always say tag in somebody that you want to do this to you. And then I guess if you're a bit more of a softly, softly approach, it's tag in someone you would love to bring along on this because people will do it. It's not about winning, it's just about getting more reach and engagement on your post. So that's probably the only thing that I think was, was a way that they could have elevated it.

I think that One of the things that stands out to me about this, obviously, Turtle Bay, they serve Caribbean and Jamaican food predominantly. And so there's actually looking at their menu, and I don't know what they're doing for their Christmas menus, but looking at what they've got there on the plates, if you took the cold Christmas emojis out the equation, it doesn't actually scream what we consider to be like a traditional white Christmas with lots of snow and lots of snowmen and tinsel. And I think there's a really good lesson in this is that these guys are doing Christmas without.

But at the.

Same time staying authentic to themselves.

Yeah, that's a really good point. It is. And actually somebody did write underneath they made a comment. I think it was. It was about how Caribbean it was, or I think it was actually that this is not Caribbean food. So to them, they felt that they've gone the opposite way. And that's what's interesting about it. It all depends on your take on it. Yeah. So somebody had said this to me is not like Caribbean food. Whereas other people said, I can't wait to celebrate my birthday with you. But you'll see that people did, you know, it's so delicious, it's exciting. But again, that is what, you know, if you didn't want to reinvent an entire menu, it is absolutely right. Chuck a couple of Christmas emojis on there and stay authentic to you. You know, I think that's bang on.

I know. I'm really hungry now.

I know. It's brunch o', clock, isn't it? It's always the same. Every week we do this. And then another area that I want to highlight is the content inspiration section. So when you go into content, it's really good. And Amy, I don't think we talk about this enough, do we?

No, we don't, actually. So the content inspiration section is exactly that. It's a bit of a hidden gem within, maybe at the top. Every place in the entire country has a bespoke digital high street guide created for it that is socially shareable. And as long as you're active on Instagram and posting, I think it's once a week your business will appear in that high street guide. So think of it as a digital twin to your place. So those are always there for you to share, depending on the place you're in. And then underneath that, what you'll get is the best posts from the place that your business is in. So again, a way of being able to identify those businesses. That you might share customers with and share their content. And what it's great for is one, content inspiration in terms of getting ideas about what might work. And secondly, if you're having a day where you think, oh, I've not got any content going out today.

There'S a.

Whole host of content there that is relevant to your place, supports other businesses in your place, that you can simply just hit the create post button and you can use it to share other people's content.

Yeah, it's so, so good. And I just, yeah, I was having a little hunt for some ideas the other day and I thought, oh, I don't think we've talked about this enough on the webinar. So yeah, thought I'd mention it.

Yeah, we like to make things easy for people. So if you really are stuck for inspiration, there's a whole section called Content inspiration which you can use.

Awesome, thank you. And then remember, you can compare and improve. That's what we're all about. So the more you compare to other people and other people's content, see what's working for them, the more that you can improve your own and benchmark what you're doing. So you can add in one competitor into the maybe dashboard and then if you want to add more, then it kind of goes up in little increments as part of a paid plan. But basically, if you need any information on any of this stuff, just click on the little blue button within your dashboard and we'll get back to you on some suggestions on what we can do for you. Absolutely. And then. I'm sorry, Amy, I was going to.

Say let's round things up.

Oh, there we go. Right, so key takeaways. So getting involved in a sports day or a challenge or any kind of, you know, big chart, something that's going on in your community where you can rally the troops and get the team or the family, the dog, whoever involved. It's a great way to unite your team as well as connect with your customers because again, you can use that content in a hundred different ways. It shows the human behind your business and it helps you get involved with local community, which is only going to raise your profile anyway. Pet related businesses maximize this Christmas. Get involved in all things festive because it could just be about using cute images and clips. It doesn't really matter, but they work well on social media. It's always very shareable. It's all very taggable memes. Anything you can do to do with animals, please do it. And then getting behind an actual cause and again, a lot of this could be a cause that is particularly close to your heart. It might be a charity that you support, a local community group that you get involved in, whatever it might be, but get behind a cause over the festive period because I mean, on a business perspective, obviously it's good from a CSR perspective and it can help engage with your community and bring more people to you. But ultimately it shows the people behind your business. It shows that you've got a heart and it shows that actually it appeals to other people's hearts, it appeals to the community heart and it appeals to people's want to. Want to support other people. And then finally, reels, please use them. Think about Turtle Bay and think about how you can use reels or different other like TikTok and all the other different parts of the channels to show people what they can experience when they come to your business. So always think about social media as you your shop window. And you want to make your shop window pop. Because guess what? Not everyone walks past your shop window. They need to see it digitally. So the more that you can make your post pop and your products show, you know, show the different variations of what you do, the more that people will engage with it and the more people are more likely to actually cross the threshold into your business.

Absolutely. And I think a really important thing to note about reels is both Instagram and Facebook are, you know, they, they prioritize showing video content first now in people's feeds.

So.

You really need to embrace video and reels in particular to make sure you're getting as many eyes on your content as possible.

And on that, I saw quite an interesting thing about Instagram the other day and they were talking about the different, the algorithm and what they were saying was, is that where we, I think when reels first came, we all went through a big phase of everything was about, I don't know, a bit like TikTok about you to do a dance, you had to do a challenge or there had to be a thing. And then it said Instagram is like flipping it all on its head. And rather than using, you know, like, I guess, you know, like you see a lot of people doing voiceovers, you know, like just miming along to the content and that kind of thing. And that used to get a ton of engagement, they're flipping it on its head to be much more about user generated content. So literally be, you know, you physically going on and creating your own wheel, doing something fun and to so that it again makes it much more engaging because it's user generated rather than it being about, you know, whatever the trend is. Well, so whilst that works, it's quite interesting to see, you know, that they're kind of, they're moving forwards with it and looking at actually what people are genuinely interested in. Because guess what, their, their job is to get people. You know, if you've got an Instagram shop, they want you to buy from that Instagram shop, they want to push your business forward because the more they push your business forward, the more you'll keep using them. So ultimately they're learning from what works and then they're sort of then re categorizing and redeveloping their algorithms all the time based on the content that they think is going to be more preferable to people. So yeah, I just thought I'd mention that.

That's really interesting because I think it's really quite annoying, isn't it, when you go on to like the Instagram reels section and you're scrolling through and it's.

The same piece of content over and over again.

I think giving businesses the, you know, kind of favoring original content rather than just trends is a real benefit because it doesn't, you know, it doesn't require people to just do something that's inauthentic to them. So really appreciate them. Kind of rewarding authenticity and originality with that.

Yeah, 100%. It.