Worcester Business Journal

12 Worcester Business Journal | February 19, 2018 | wbjournal.com F OC U S M A R K E T I N G & S O C I A L M E D I A Central Mass. businesses excel by providing intimate, fun connections with customers #SocialMediaWinners BY ZACHARY COMEAU Worcester Business Journal Staff Writer A h, yes, Monday. The day the brief reprieve from the daily grind of the office ends, and it's back to work. If you find yourself casually browsing Facebook before you actually start work on Monday, your day might get a little better if you scroll by The Queen's Cups posts. Every Monday, the Worcester cupcake shop posts to social media photos of dogs eating pupcakes, which – of course – are cupcakes for our canine friends. Customers take photos of their pups eating the treats and send them to The Queen's Cups, which are posted every Monday. "Nobody wants to wake up Monday morning and start the work week," said Renee King, owner of the shop. "It's a fun thing for people to look at." Hundreds of pupcakes are made every weekend to keep the series run- ning on Facebook and Instagram, King said. The 20-employee cupcake shop has more than 16,200 Instagram follow- ers and another 13,600 on Facebook. Direct, intimate customer connection For a small dessert shop with no mar- keting team, connecting to customers on social media has become one of the most important undertakings, King said. With a menu changing every day, social media has become the store's daily newsletter. "People say 'Oh, I saw this online and I had to come in.' We hear that all the time," King said. The intimate level of interaction social media provides with customers has been an extreme benefit to small businesses, said Julie Frechette, a mar- keting professor at Worcester State University and Clark University. Social media has delivered small businesses a path around robotic mar- keting campaigns and a way into homes of current and prospective customers, Frechette said. "It's not a hard sell anymore," she said. "It's about creating engagement and much more about developing a long- term relationship that's more equitable." Social media, Frechette said, allows customers and clients to have an enor- mous voice on social media through ratings, comments, likes and dislikes. Those tactics not only build more trust, but also a larger customer base once the business catches digital fire. "That's going to carry much more weight than if it's coming from some executive behind a desk," Frechette said. Seed To Stem's far- reaching community If not for Instagram, Worcester's plant and lifestyle bou- tique Seed To Stem probably wouldn't have the amount of customers it has. The account has more over 23,000 followers, many of whom aren't even from Central Massachusetts, said co-owner Virginia Orlando. Most cus- tomers were first introduced to the store on Instagram, and those customers come from all over New England. "Once that started happening, we made sure to keep up with it," Orlando said. The store has even had some of its Instagram fans visit from as far away as Australia. Instagram "really gets people in the doors," she said. Along with the closer connection comes the ability to demonstrate the human element of every company, Frechette said. More creativity and a much less cor- porate marketing strategy helps build trust rather than sales. "That says, 'I care about you, and I'm willing to put together a service or product for you,'" Frechette said. Tree House's updates Charlton beermaker Tree House Brewing Co. has nearly a quarter mil- lion followers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook combined. The most active of the three accounts is Twitter, where the company posts (From top) deadhorse hill, Seed To Stem and The Queen's Cups are particualrly active on Instagram, with more than 42,500 combined followers. Social media tools like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter have become the backbone of marketing strategies for these small businesses.

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