7 social media tips to spread the word about your diversification

With ever more farmers diversifying, making sure your business stands out from the crowd is increasingly important.

It’s a busy marketplace, however, so it’s vital to get in front of would-be customers, whether you’re offering self-catering accommodation or a pick-your-own pumpkin experience.

Entrepreneur, marketing expert and farmer’s son Mark Simpson shares seven tips on how to use social media to raise a diversification’s brand awareness.

See also: Pick-your-own pumpkins offers diversified income channels

1. Work smart

Social media is the best free tool available for marketing a business to the public. With numerous platforms available to connect with a range of people, it’s important you choose the right one for your business and don’t try to do them all at once.

Instagram and Facebook, in particular, have very different user demographics. Do your research and understand where your audience spends its time online.

2. Don’t oversell

This may come as a surprise, but farmers frequently do this incorrectly. They use their social media purely to “sell” their products when the purpose of social media is in the name – it is social.

Whether you’re offering accommodation, forage or livestock, it’s important you build a relationship with your audience rather than just sell to them.

People have to know, like and trust you before they commit to buying from you and, in a digital age, it takes on average eight touchpoints to trust you enough to buy or book.

One day they might see you mentioned in an article, the next they might see a post on social media or a friend recommends you and eventually – on average after seeing your business mentioned eight times – they might pay attention.

3. Document

One of biggest kickbacks I hear from people when I tell them to document on social media, rather than sell, is that they aren’t interesting enough.

But this isn’t true. One thing that worked for us as a farm was that we were in a stunning location on the North Yorkshire coast and people wanted to know what was going on day to day on the farm.

We were a working farm offering accommodation, so showing them what was happening behind the scenes struck a chord.

Right now, it’s lambing season and the best pictures we ever put out were pictures of newborn lambs.

We engaged our audience, asking them to guess or name the lamb. The pictures often went viral – people love animals.

4. Ask questions

Audiences love to be involved in conversations (see – social media really is social), so ask tons of questions.

If you think back to your school days, it was the teachers who asked questions and listened to you who were the ones you respected. Do the same as a business.

Run polls on social media. Find out where people are in the world. Ask questions about your livestock and answer related questions so they can learn from you.

It’s the best way to get your audience involved in your day-to-day life.

5. Create something people can join in on

On our farm we started using a “#Farmie” (a selfie on a farm). It’s now done around the world and there are 1,762 posts using that hashtag.

People love to get involved and follow trends, as we know from videos that go viral on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

So join in or invent your own, asking your audience to pitch in, even if it’s something as simple as using a hashtag.

6. Become the ‘go-to’

In recent years, Facebook has focused much more on building online communities and, as a business owner, you can use that to your advantage by sharing your expertise.

When we were building our business, I joined Facebook groups in the Scarborough area, such as business and parent groups. I would answer questions, give tips, recommend places to visit and so on.

It took me a maximum of five minutes a day over a cup of coffee, but because I showed up consistently, people started to see me and our business as experts on the local area.

We got to a point at our peak where you could go into any Facebook group and, if people were asking for accommodation recommendations in the area, we were named.

Try picking three groups to show up in and provide value.

7.  Build an offline community, too

As a farmer, you’re doing this already. If you go to a livestock market, you’re building relationships within the community, but when you diversify you have to widen your net.

If you have guest accommodation, see how you can reach out to – and work with – other local businesses and recommend them.

For example, if you’re glamping but don’t have hot tubs, are there local businesses that hire them out?

Think about how you can provide an extra experience by supporting another local business and increasing your brand awareness and visibility. It’s a win-win.

You can offer something you don’t have full time, your visitor experience will be improved, and you’ll likely reach a new market through their audience as well.

About Mark 

Mark Simpson took over the management of The Grainary at his family farm in 2012 and, over the next five years, took the traditional, 25-year-old accommodation business online.

Mark Simpson © Mark Simpson

He built up the farm stay’s web presence to rank among the top three properties in this region on TripAdvisor, as well as becoming the “most followed” independent business on Facebook in the area.

The property expanded, with the addition of further rooms, a tearoom and restaurant.

His bestselling book, based on a decade of marketing experience, The Book Direct Playbook, is available via Amazon, Kindle and Audible.