SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS FOR #HFDF16
Written by: Grace Lenihan — Medley Academy Student Contributor.
I was delighted to be asked to support Huddersfield Partnership with their social media activity both pre festival, and during. It was my role to create and integrate engaging content to increase brand awareness, engagement and fundamentally, visitors to the festival. The strategy showcased stallholders, sponsors and companies involved and promoted the brand across their social media channels.
Having had such a successful 15th anniversary, the Huddersfield Food and Drink Festival 2016(#HFDF16) was set to be bigger and better, and it didn’t disappoint. With the first day having an attendance of around 8,000 people alone, it was a busier first day than 2015. On Thursday 4th August, many traders said they traded up on last year and new stall holders felt they had done better than expected. It was no surprise that after such a popular first day that the rest of the weekend was a roaring success.
Why is Social Media Important for Business?
Social Media is becoming increasingly important for businesses, old and new. According to Forbes Magazine, 92% of Marketers in 2014 claimed that Social Media Marketing was important for their business, with 80% indicating that their efforts online increased traffic to their websites. Social media offers the opportunity for businesses to create emotional connections with their audience, maximizing the likelihood for engagement and in the long-term, trust. Social media underpins all marketing activity which essentially impacts on return on investment. The best content and ‘stories’ to tell via social media are actual and live events, hence why #HFDF16 has been a great project to work on.
#HFDF16 Social Media Statistics
How successful was #HFDF16’s social media?
With a strong content strategy in place, the festival’s Facebook page grew by a colossal 742 likes along with an avalanche of mentions and retweets. This summer has also seen Twitter impressions increase to 340.7K from 271.3K in 2015. Due to a widespread popularity of tweets, ‘#HFDF16’ trended at number one on the second day of the festival. The trending hashtag gained valuable visibility to a larger audience and generated both awareness and follower growth.
Karen Hobson, Huddersfield Partnership Manager commented:
“Thanks to Grace, we were able to grow our social media presence which propelled Huddersfield Food and Drink Festival to trend on Friday 5th August, a first for the event. Without the support of Grace, we recognise that the impact of the festival would have certainly have been hampered. We are so grateful to Grace for her knowledge and engagement capabilities. She would be an asset to anyone developing their social media brand/presence.”
Follow Grace on Twitter: @GraceLenihan
Final year Sports Promotion & Marketing.
Huddersfield University.
Ambassador for UOH Business School.
Blogger.
