Nobody wants to pay for something they can get for free.
So if you can reach your audience organically, aka without paying to boost a post, why would you spend money on ads? The only problem is that, since 2018, social media platforms have been prioritizing content from friends and family in people’s newsfeeds.
That sounds nice, but for companies trying to reach potential customers on these platforms, it poses a problem. Because now it’s harder to get in front of the people who could potentially buy your beverages. In fact, on Facebook, businesses’ posts get an average of 5.2% reach. That means that only 1 in 19 followers sees the posts on average.
Many businesses, including breweries, cideries, distilleries and wineries, have responded by throwing money at their posts. Boosting them in hopes that they will get in front of more customers. The problem with that is that it could be a waste of money. If you don’t have your organic content nailed down, then you don’t have a solid foundation to build an ad strategy off of.
If you want the time and money that you’re putting into your posts to count, then it’s time to focus on increasing your organic reach.
BUILD AUTHENTIC RELATIONSHIPS
Since Facebook and Instagram prioritize relationships, the best thing you can do is start building them. Engagement leads to reach and vice versa. While it may seem like a hard cycle to break into at first, once you start the snowball, it can turn into an avalanche.
If you want to get followers who identify with your brand, aka the people who will eventually want to buy from you, the best thing to do is to be authentic to your brand. This will help you attract the right followers so you can later convert them to customers.
Now, think of your brand as a person, and your followers as friends. When you interact with them, act like you would act with a friend. That means being consistent with your communication, responding to them, and putting effort into your connections. When you do that, you’ll establish a relationship that can turn your follower into a loyal customer.
LISTEN TO YOUR AUDIENCE
We all have that one friend that is wrapped up in themselves. You can talk to them, but they don’t listen. In fact, it doesn’t really matter what you say, they’re going to keep switching the conversation back to themselves.
Nobody really likes that friend. Don’t let your business be that friend on social media.
Instead, make sure you’re taking time to listen to your followers. That starts with some research. Look at your own insights and see what followers are responding to. Then look at companies who have similar audiences as you and do the same.
When you’re consistently listening, you’ll have the opportunity to adjust your content to reflect what your followers are telling you.
This includes optimizing your content for each platform. Since demographics on the different platforms aren’t the same, adjusting your content to match the platform lets you craft a message tailored to reach that group.
We all have a friend who actually cares, and they’re the friend we want to hang out with. Everybody loves that friend. Be that friend on social media.
MAKE EVERY POST COUNT
Let’s be honest, posting to social media takes time, or if you’re paying someone else to do it, it costs money. Either way, you want to make it count. Yes, consistency is key, but posting just to get something just for the sake of posting it is a waste of your valuable resources. If you’re aren’t posting with a purpose, then you aren’t giving people a reason to follow you.
You’re on social media for a reason – to get in front of people, and get more customers for your tasting room. Make sure your posts are helping you achieve those goals.
This means learning about your audience and taking the information that you’ve gathered and using it to develop a goal-oriented strategy. When you establish goals, you can measure whether or not you’re reaching them. You can look at the data and say with certainty that you’re accomplishing what you’ve set out to accomplish.
If you’ve never done it before, then developing a strategy can feel overwhelming. We know, because we’ve been there. But we also know that it’s worth it. A strategy can save you time when it comes to posting and it can help you make more money driven from social media platforms. We know that from experience too.
That’s why we’re here to help. We can work with you to develop a winning social media strategy that will help you achieve your goals. We will even teach you how to adjust it so that it will last you and your team for years to come.