How local businesses can pay it forward in the place conversation online

Conversation about place make Maybe* tick. We’re passionate about helping towns and cities harness social media so all businesses in a place can benefit from increased reach, engagement and ultimately sales. Since lockdown we’ve observed a worrying drop off in the usage of social media by independent retailers. Pre-lockdown, 40% of indies were active on social media. Post lockdown? That number has fallen to 28%.

Every week we profile towns and cities across the UK, demonstrating what indie retailers are doing to stay active, stay connected, and put their best social media content forwards.

Next stop, Bourton-on-the-Water. Any business in any local place can apply these social media tactics. In fact we’re working with the whole of the Cotswolds to help the towns within it make social media work for them in a bid to support recovery across the UK.

The Maybe* Place Insights tool allows you to benchmark the social media activity, posts, engagement, sentiment and conversation topics of all businesses within your place. When you know what the local conversation has in common, you too can stage your own local social media love in.

How many businesses in Bourton-on-the-Water have social media accounts?

Maybe* Place Insights shows us that 26% of businesses in Bourton-on-the-Water, marked in orange, have social media accounts. That’s lower than the wider Cotswold Local Authority and just shy of the UK average of 28%.

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How many businesses in Bourton-on-the-Water create social media content every day?

Of the 26% of businesses that are active on social media, an average of 25% of them are active every day. This number usually hovers at 30-32%, but a drop off on a Sunday occurs throughout the Cotswolds, bringing the average down. Still bustling, beautiful Bourton sees their daily activity higher than the wider area.

How many posts do businesses make and how engaging are they?

Businesses in Bourton-on-the-Water create an average of 250 pieces of social media content per day. Those social posts earn approximately 2,000 engagements per day. That’s about nine engagements per post.

Engagement in Bourton is stable throughout the week. Being active through the weekends will help boost this number for the whole town.

What is Bourton-on-the-Water’s best social media content?

We’ve used the Maybe* Best Post in a Place tool to find Bourton-on-the-Water’s best post on Monday 9th September.

Don’t be fooled, the post may say it was posted in Hampshire, but the post itself comes from master chef Kuba Winkowski and celebrates his restaurant Kubarn which serves delicious cuisine to the Bourton crowds.

Having a national following and media relationships hugely benefits your engagement levels. But notice how Kuban pays it forwards to benefit the whole place through the use of local hashtags.

 

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A post shared by Kuba Winkowski (@kuba_winkowski) on

What conversations do Bourton-on-the-Water’s businesses create?

Glos Day and Glos Community sit at the centre of Bourton’s social media conversation. Like Kuban’s best post, businesses in Bourton also pay the social media love forward by celebrating the wider place, and wider business community.

The conversation across Bourton-on-the-Water and other Cotswolds towns is a perfectly pleasant one, sitting nicely on the positivity barometer. It would be great to see more local businesses increasing the energy in their posts and moving the dial closer to the top end of the scale. Think inspiring, inviting and exciting.

Key takeaway

Maybe* Place Insights aims to inspire more businesses to take up social media on a daily basis. When one business thrives, others can follow suit by participating and engaging in the local conversation. Paying the social media love forward in your place, means the sum of a town’s parts becomes greater than one business alone.

Wondering why using hashtags in the conversation about place matters? Read all about it.

WATCH THE WEBINAR HIGHLIGHTS: discover more super social from Bourton on the Water's independents with the Maybe* team

Maybe* is a social media management platform that helps organisations make social media work better for them. We provide easy to use engagement tools, smart insights and reports that rock.