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CASE STUDY. Lessons from Woodie’s Astonishing Social Growth.

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CASE STUDY.

Lessons from Woodie’s

Astonishing Social Growth.

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Table of Contents

Background: Transforming where you live, love and laugh 3

Challenge: Engage, Inspire, Grow 4

Results: The three-step program 6

Summary 8

[email protected]

58,000+Social Fans

4Social Channels

1Country

BACKGROUND

Transforming Where You Live, Love And LaughSince its first store opened in June of 1987, Woodie’s has understood that do-it-yourself home improvement is about more than just power drills and paint samples.

Knowing that renovating your home is an emotional experience has helped the brand grow into Ireland’s market leader for all things homey. Boasting thirty-seven branches across the country, Woodie’s is now the biggest chain of DIY home superstores in Ireland.

Just over a year ago, Woodie’s social presence was almost non-existent, but the company has jet-propelled its channels into a social-engagement machine, with an audience that rivals some of its most notable competitors. The brains behind this transformation has been social media specialist Laura Lynam. With support from the wider marketing team, Laura has spearheaded Woodie’s social growth from nothing in 2014, to a community of 58,000 across newly established Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Vine channels.

Laura LynamLaura is the Assistant Marketing Manager for Woodie’s, managing all social activities for the Brand. She has been with Woodie’s for one year, and before that worked in a similar post for Dixons Carphone.

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CHALLENGE

Engage, Inspire, GrowHome improvement is a daunting task for most people.

Before Laura came onboard last year, it was clear that Woodie’s needed to establish a voice and a support system through social media. It used to

be that the only real opportunity for Woodie’s customers to interact with the brand was in-store, but the company saw a valuable opportunity in expanding their audience through social media. Enter Laura.

“Quickly growing a social audience was not the core objective for us at the start. When we launched we had one mission, and that was to engage and inspire our customers. Social presents a huge opportunity to inspire fans with our products, and that’s one of the main reasons we use it.”

Laura Lynam, Social Media Specialist, Woodie’s.

With 37 stores nationwide, we’re very local, at the heart of many communities.

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Woodie’s take on establishing a social strategy from modest beginnings exemplifies what should be at the core of every brand’s marketing roadmap: engagement first, growth second. They understood that simply acquiring as many likes/comments/shares/fans as possible in a desperate rush to catch up with competitors would never breed long-term loyalty from an online audience. Instead, they chose to play the long game. And that begins with grasping why your customers come to you to begin with.

“Our products are emotional products. They transform people’s homes, they help you make the most of where you live, where you love and where you laugh. With 37 stores nationwide, we’re very local, at the heart of many communities. Knowing this, we wanted to use social to inspire people first and foremost.”

Laura’s secondary goal was to build a solid customer service support system through Facebook and Twitter.

“I wanted us to be able to provide excellent customer service, to listen to customers and respond to their queries within a short time frame. I wanted to establish that rapid connection on social that you can’t achieve offline.”

Being a veteran of social strategy, Laura knew that both of these goals would require a strong brand persona on social. To inspire your audience, and to let them know that there’s a person on the other end of their questions and comments isn’t possible if your online persona is dull. So how do you build a fun, yet trustworthy social media presence completely from scratch?

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RESULTS

The Three-Step ProgramThe LaunchOne of Woodie’s first tasks was to launch the brand’s Facebook page. With no social media presence, the team knew that a successful Facebook page wouldn’t arise from simply setting up and saying hello. Laura decided that the brand needed to establish a following before going live, and they needed fun content to engage customers.

“Our brand is full of personality, so I didn’t want to start by saying ‘Hey, we’re Woodie’s. We’re here to help.’ I needed something more fun. Social media was also new to Woodie’s, so I really wanted to embed it into our company culture, and get colleagues involved.”

The answer?Employee advocacy. Two weeks before launching, the team set up an internal competition asking colleagues to snap a fun selfie somewhere in store. They then used the winning selfie as the brand’s first Facebook post. The aim of the competition was to connect Woodie’s online fans to their offline world, where helpful, down-to-earth colleagues are waiting to help customers transform their homes.

Naturally, the first post racked up huge engagement, but for Laura, the success of the competition was more about getting her colleagues behind her social strategy:

“Our colleagues are the people our customers are engaging with primarily, so the selfie competition was important for putting a face behind the brand for our

online audience.”

Laura Lynam,Social Media Specialist, Woodie’s

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The MilestoneOnce you’ve had a successful launch, how can you maintain momentum and establish an online audience? For Woodie’s, another competition was the answer. Using the Falcon platform’s Build feature, Laura set up a Facebook app using the tagline “Which Barbecuer are You?”

“When we were looking for a social media management tool, two things were important to us: one was scheduling, and the other was the ability to build custom apps. Falcon’s Build App is great for larger competitions as it allows us to create more engaging content, as opposed to the generic ‘like and comment’ competitions.”

The competition gave customers a series of barbecue personas to choose from (options included things like the bossy “backseat griller”) and offered them the chance to win a BBQ of their own. The idea behind the app was to give people the chance to engage with content that they could relate to, setting up Woodie’s social presence as friendly and familiar.

In the first weekend after going live with the app, Woodie’s had gained 15,000 new Facebook fans, with 10,000 entries to the competition overall. Woodie’s were on to a winner: share content that your audience can relate to on a personal level.

The Service As well as inspiring customers, Laura also wanted to establish an outstanding customer service strategy. Using Engage, she’s been able to efficiently manage incoming comments, questions and queries from customers. Working as a one-woman team, it was important for Laura to be able to delegate and escalate queries from customers to the appropriate

team members easily and quickly.Being able to respond to each and every query,

in good time and with a committed response has helped Woodie’s strengthen its bond with both customers and prospects online. Laura has understood that this relationship relies on giving customers what they want, and taking care to extend the conversation, even with the most simple comments: “You have to respond to not just queries and complaints, but every interaction that you get, and Falcon really helps you manage that.”

“Customer service needs to be nailed before you can really develop your engagement strategy. If you don’t have good customer service, there’s no point in putting content out here. Without building a strong relationship,

you’re just sharing content with people who aren’t listening. Why should they interact or engage with you? Falcon has been so important to helping us

build good customer service. It uncomplicated the process; it puts in front of you what you need to see at that moment, and filters out everything else.”

SUMMARY

A Focused Social FutureFollowing such a strong start, what does the future hold for Woodie’s on social?

T he brand is growing their social strategy, and focusing on content that strikes a chord with its audience. Video will be a huge part of this, signaling that the shift towards video content is infiltrating even the DIY industry. Woodie’s take on this is interesting, as opposed to live

streaming, or enlisting the help of agencies like some brands, they’ll be focusing on production. In just one short year, the brand has evolved from having no social presence to 58,000 engaged

fans and a strong online support system for all your DIY needs. People come to Woodie’s for the chance to transform their homes, and for support through this process of transformation. The brand’s social strategy effectively meets this expectation, through the familiar and relatable brand voice that customers love. It’s all about creating content that works for your audience, not your brand, and Woodie’s social success shows that they understand this completely.

To learn what Falcon.io can do for your business, request a demo online

or email [email protected]

REQUEST DEMO

“When we first established our social presence we produced a few in house videos and immediately noticed the positive impact

on organic reach. After we realised that, we partnered with a video production company, so we’re serious about video. There’s

so many ways you can inspire customers through video.