Social Hours

Meg Cloud helped grow Stark Bro’s extensive social media marketing campaign.

When Intel introduced the first 4-bit microprocessor in 1970, Stark Bro's Nurseries & Orchards had been in business for 154 years. Of course the nursery, or practically any business, didn't realize that invention would spark a revolution.

Fast forward 40 years, and another revolution is taking place — the way we communicate. Modes of communication are now 140 characters on Twitter and streams of status updates on Facebook. And Stark Bro's, a 195-year-old nursery in Louisiana, Mo., has embraced this new-world order. With the help of social media, the nursery is building a huge customer base.

Stark Bro's uses a variety of multimedia avenues to reach customers, including a comprehensive and well-designed website, e-newsletters, blogs, Twitter and Facebook. The nursery, which grows fruit trees, nut trees, small fruits and roses, sells the majority of its product direct to consumer through online and catalog sales. But the nursery also maintains a wholesale division.

As manager of PR and social media, Meg Cloud is charged with making sure all those multimedia communication channels are effective. A couple of years ago, Stark Bro's had a Facebook page and a Twitter account, but the nursery didn't do much with them. Cloud was asked to figure out how Twitter and Facebook worked in general, but mostly how it worked for the nursery.

"I had to figure out if social media was viable for our industry and viable for our company," Cloud said. "It's taken some time for me to say for sure that it's good for the growing and gardening industry. But I'm not convinced it's for every industry."

The effectiveness of social media for growers who are trying to solely reach wholesale customers should be considered on a case-by-case basis, she said.

But for Stark Bro's, social media allows the company to interact personally with people, help them with planting needs and questions, and troubleshoot in real time.

Social media is a different kind of marketing, Cloud said. It's not cold-calling or selling, she said. Social media is warming-up selling.

"It actually helps humanize your company," she said.
 

A clear perspective
The light-bulb moment that prompted Stark Bro's to adopt social media as a primary marketing tool came during a catalog promotion last year.

"I was trying to build up our social media program at the time, so I had a pretty good understanding of how it was working for us," Cloud said. "We included a coupon program in our catalog where the customer got $5 for every person they got to buy from us. It didn't do as well as we hoped. And on social media, a request like that would have spread like wildfire. The coupon in the catalog was an example of cold-selling. Social media is a better way to make and sustain a customer relationship."

Stark Bro's now has two people who work full-time on the company's social media marketing program. At press time, the grower had about 6,600 fans on Facebook and about 1,000 followers on Twitter.

"It's worth having one person devoted full time to interact with customers on social media," Cloud said. "I'm not saying you must have a full-time, 40-hour-per-week person devoted to it. But you've got to have someone dedicated to it and not take care of it as an afterthought."
 

Social media musts
When developing a social media and multimedia marketing campaign, companies must have some insight on the psychology of humans, Cloud said. Consider things like attention spans and education levels. Make sure your message is simplistic and making the customer feel comfortable and at ease.

When it comes to interacting with consumers on social media, you've got to update your pages just about daily.

"Facebook allows you to look at the stats and see when your friends/fans are online the most. Twitter also has some insights, such as viewing retweets," Cloud said. "Watch for patterns for a few months before acting on them."

Above all, understand that all social media is high maintenance, she said.

"If you don't have time to maintain it, don't get into it," she said. "It takes a lot of commitment and interest. Social media can give you a lot of exposure, and you'll make the most impact in how you maintain the relationships with those who follow or friend you."

With a Facebook or Twitter account, you must claim ownership of your page and control it, she said.

"Accept comments and respond to them. Some will require short responses and others long. But you must interact," she said.

For a business-to-business Facebook page, growers should follow and like the companies they're already doing business with. But Cloud said to seek out secondary connections like those you're not necessarily doing business with.

"'Like' posts and respond to posts and comments, which could open up an opportunity to start a business relationship," she said. "Social media is a great prospecting tool, but it does not take the place of a phone call or even an email."

Growers and green industry supply companies can use social media to improve products or find new uses for products, she suggested.

For more: Stark Bro's Nurseries & Orchards, www.starkbros.com.

Want to know more?
For more on Stark Bro’s, visit the Online Extra section of our website, NurseryManagementOnline.com.