Social Media – The River Cottage experience

welcome

#rivercottage

About the Project

What are the project aims?

• To provide improved broadband connectivity in specific rural areas that get slow* or non-existent services (and may never get high speed services)

• to support business productivity• to benefit the wider community

*(under 2mbps)

Who is involved?

• Devon & Somerset County Councils• Funded by RDPE (Rural Development

Programme for England)

Delivery Partners• Tooway Direct – broadband solution• Cosmic – providing IT support & advice

What is the project offering?

• If you are eligible

– Free satellite and installation (pay monthly fee for broadband starts at £25 a month)

– Free one-to-one IT help and support– Free group workshops

How fast is my speed?

Visit

www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk

Social media & River Cottage

Strategy, facts and figures

River Cottage on…1.Marketing2.Campaigning3.Crisis

Questions

What is River Cottage?

‘less dependence on the outside world, food integrity, and the consumption of local,

seasonal produce.’

As a business?

Food, multimedia & TV company

– Courses & events – Restaurants - Plymouth & Axminster

Canteens– Film company (Keo films)– Books, DVDs, food column

River Cottage Team

Social media side

•Graeme – marketing manager•Murry – digital producer

Time spent working on social media? Roughly 1.5 days a week

Facts & figures

• Social media tools used by River Cottage

• the ‘guided tour’ of application, facts and figures

• the overview of strategy and how impact is measured

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What tools do they use?

Off site– Twitter– Facebook– Flickr– YouTube

On site– Blog– Forum

Social Media Cycles

• River Cottage is on its 3rd – 4th Cycle

• The process is cyclical – not linear• Constant review, monitoring,

improvement• Repeat the things which work well• Fit to business activities, key

messages, events

Facts & figures - Twitter

7 Twitter accounts

@rivercottage60,143 Followers

@RCHQevents3,683 Followers

@RCFeedback210 Followers

Twitter - Canteens

• Plymouth – @plymouthcanteen– Followers 1,959– @plymfeedback– Followers 0

• Axminster– @axcanteen– Followers 2,411

Facebook.com/rivercottagehq

• River Cottage HQ– 62,273 ‘likes’

– 3.4 million impressions per week

– 2140 new likes last week

Facebook Check-in• HQ – 1,351• Axminster Canteen – 2,392• Plymouth Canteen - 1071

Check-in/Places

156 official videos

YouTubeVimeo

YouTube

Flickr

Onsite - Community

ForumsCreate your own blogQuestionsRecipesMy page

300,000 users

Find a recipe

Upload your own recipe

Community created blogs

River CottageWhat’s the strategy?

Customer journey

Moving people

From interested• Growing• Sustainability• Curious about the Brand• Curious about Hugh• Living a rural life

..to passionate

•Brand advocates•Attend events•Join in campaigns•Get into growing/eating/cooking•Lifestyle choice

What’s the strategy?

• Who? Audience– urban : people desire country living, association

with River Cottage product and experience– local : developing connection with the local base

and ability to visit, buy and share experience• Why? Engage

– Build brand– Communicate – Customer services– Marketing channel– Campaign

Demographics

Biggest segment-25 – 44 year olds

Gender-split -

44% male

56% female

Sprout social demographic

What’s the strategy?

• What? Brand– Recipes– Menus– Sell events– Added value– Advocacy

• Where? Channels– Twitter– Facebook– YouTube– Flickr– Blogs

• When? – During TV shows– During events– Pre and post events

and courses

ListenGoogle AlertsTwitterGoogle Reader

Participation

Twitter Facebook

Content creation

You TubeBlogFlickriTunesTwitter

Community building

ForumFacebookLinkedInNewsletter

Virtual worlds

Social media engagement ladder

Less time More time

Choose your Channel

• Find the right application and platform for the message and content

• Where is your audience?

• Split channels – Separate brand– Different audience– Emphasis (eg campaign)

• Use #hashtag

Questions?

sales & marketing

River Cottage on…

Sales & Marketing

using social media for ‘bottom line’ activities – and how does it support general promotion and brand?

River Cottage Events

• About 300 events every year at RCHQ

• Private, public, invited events & courses

– 4 day courses– Day courses– Day and evening events– Weddings, corporate events, parties

How can social media help sales? …

‘Generates a good crowd of followers who know you and like you’

– Encourage shares– Give out good content– Mix sales into the messages

‘It’s all about the website’

Everything comes back to the website - Central destination

Easy to book & pay

Back end integration with database

Creative selling

‘Create stories – lead through editorial’

– Visual – Photography, video

– Engaging people – with product– In experiences

– Raising desire for product & experience

“Make it Fun! … don’t be too worthy”

Hugh’s Fishing Trip posted to…

– Fish Fight – Blog – attract people to corporate days– Workshops – training how to prep & cook fish– Autumn Cookery Course – extended training – Facebook page– Twitter streams– 1 video 6 uses

– Content shared ….. then used to sell

River Cottage Posting rules

Don’t post ANYTHING unless

1. Small amount of value2. There’s advocacy attached3. Shares expertise or knowledge

Example:

Get Growing in Spring

Two day visitor weekend March

Pre-event publicity

• Created stories around speakers, animals, activities going on during the event

• Stories were Tweeted, Facebook, through e-newsletter and blogged

• Created a hash tag #GetGrowingInSpring

Run up to the event

On the day of the event

Graeme took photos all day and posted them on TwitterStill engaged with people during that dayPosted on Twitter and Facebook

Re-tweeting people’s comments(listening using TweetDeck)

After the event…

Encouraging people to post their photos

Public event

Advertise events in Facebook Events

Facebook Page – Book a table at the Canteen

Dealing with Feedback

@Rcfeedback•Sells events•Not a big twitter feed or following•But used in website auto-pull feeds on feedback

Dealing with complaints

Learning points

• Create stories• Use video content and re-use liberally• Use content to encourage share – then sell

• Encourage commentary• Engage before, during and after event• Encourage click-through to website

Learning points

• Patience is Key– Accumulated effect – it takes time– Immediate returns are obvious but trickle-

effect is also working

– Build-up of messages and engagement– Tickets sell so fast, because people are for

tickets already. They are already waiting, engaged.

Questions?

River Cottage on…

Campaigning

•Brand reinforcement•Building community•Advocacy is an important business skill – show you care!•Building your reputation •Shows wider interest and commitment, passion

Campaigning & Social Media – a match made in heaven!

Campaigning

• Hugh’s Fish Fight– Half of all caught fish thrown back at sea

– ‘discards’

- Hugh joined the campaign to stop discards at sea

How did they do it?

3 nights of TV helped! Channel 4 Fish Fight

800,000 signed up to website petition

Website encouraged Sign up to Facebook, newsletter and Twitter

243,000 likes

30,478 followers

• All this aimed to– Tweet to the MEPs involved in the

debate

– On the day of the debate….– 140,000 Tweeted in support of the fight

changed the minds of the European Parliamentary debate

Campaign break down

Website with

Twitter addresses

Look at the number of likes and shares!

Campaigning

• Compared to – – Chicken-Out

• Pre-Social Media• 160,000 signed petition online

• FishFight Campaign nominated for BAFTA Award – new media

Lessons Learned

• It’s not about selling, just using media as a way to influence big change

• Must not harm the brand. It must reinforce it

• Build drama, get deadlines and create events

• Decide an end date

How can we campaign?

• Decide if you want to set up your own campaign or join in an existing one

• Create Facebook Group or Page• Decide if new channel or #HashTag• Create editorial – make it good• Get the storyline• Plan as a 2 year project, create deadline, find it

a home after (exit strategy!)

Questions?

River Cottage on..Crisis management

Social Media use during and after crisis – how can it help, how can it assist recovery of a business

River Cottage Crisis

Serious Fire – 7th February 2012

Badly affected HQ buildings

River Cottage Crisis

– Phone lines on-site were down – no communication

• Immediate Tweets to share info (and reassure)• Twitter became the communication channel on

which to develop key messages, share updates and inform audiences

• Commitment to regular updates – follow-up

Immediate decisions on priorities1. Safety – staff and visitors on-site2. Support for short-term/guests arriving that morning3. Protecting long term bookings and business

‘Be positive’

Handling the media

• Gathered interest from press and TV -local, regional, national

• Press became reliant on social media channels for updates

• News content driven by River Cottage staff and spokes-people

• River Cottage remained in control of the story and used materials from social media

River Cottage Crisis

• Key Social Media use– Twitter

• Short, sharp messages and updates• Sharing photos and messages of support

– Blog• Narrative and explanation• Information about bookings, what to expect

Business as usual – 2 weeks

• Social media helped– get message out quickly, accurately,

succinctly– Provided place for positive support and

response from public– Allowed central resource for materials

for the Press, kept control of news stories

What happened?

- Follower numbers increased

–Interest and business support grew as a result–Guest feedback on the new experience was highly positive and supportive

–Reduced impact on business, speeded recovery– Maintained reputation

Lessons Learned

• Act quickly• Say what you will do and do it• Provide images and video for content• Ask followers to spread the word• Tweet short messages – point to your

blog or website longer messages• Video is very powerful

Questions?

Summary

Lessons Learned

1. ‘Learning to use social media is about cycles’

2. ‘Our strategy? We’re about moving people from interested to passionate’

3. ‘Point back to the website’4. Don’t post anything unless.. It has

value, advocacy, expertise5. ‘Social media is about content’

6. ‘Engage with people’

7. ‘Monitor wisely’

8. ‘Make it fun’

9. ‘Think about when to split channels’

10. ‘Be patient’

Consider two points from this morning for you to take away to either do or learn to do…

Questions?

Take a moment….

Would you like help?

Our digital mentors team are here to help you

0845 094 6108talk@cosmic.org.ukwww.cosmic.org.uk@cosmic_uk

Evaluation forms!