Take a tour of the best social media activity in the Cotswolds

Here at Maybe* we love a new feature and this week we’ve been playing with our new Place insights tool. Place insights allows you to benchmark the social media activity, posts, engagement, sentiment and conversation topics of all businesses within your place. So we have taken a tour of the lovely Cotswolds to see how active and engaging businesses are there and what topics of conversation gets Cotswoldians nattering amongst each other.

How many businesses in the Cotswolds have social media accounts?

Through July, between 31% and 34% of all businesses in the Cotswolds have a social media presence, so there's still some way to go to getting every business au fait with digital. Since lockdown, the number of businesses across the UK on social media has decreased, while public usage has gone up. Launching social media accounts helps all businesses in a place stay connected to customers and with more people than every using social, now's the prime time for businesses to engage. Maybe* knows there are loads of charming, unique and thriving independents in the Cotswolds, but the area needs to ramp it up and follow in the footsteps of their digital trailblazers such as Denise Law at Law and Co boutique. 

Maybe* Place insights showing the number of businesses in the Cotswolds with social media accounts

How many businesses in the Cotswolds post to social media everyday?

Maybe* Place insights supports local authorities, BIDs, councils, placemakers and businesses connect more efficiently to customers via social media. But to connect effectively, businesses need to be active every day. In the Cotswolds, of all the businesses with social media accounts, only 20% of them are active every day with many having no activity at all on their social channels across the weekend. Given that this is an optimum time for businesses to engage with their existing and potential customers, it's a massive missed opportunity. It's also really easy to rectify.  Businesses can plan and schedule content ahead of the weekend and use the Maybe* platform and app to monitor and engage with responses/questions as they land. 

Maybe* Place insights showing the number of businesses in the Cotswolds active on social media per day

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

The Cotswolds businesses that are active on social media are a very chatty bunch. An average of 3,000 posts by businesses make it on to Instagram grids, Facebook feeds, and Twitter every single day. On average this delivers 30,000 engagements for the businesses, that’s 10 engagements per post.

To increase engagement businesses need to experiment with advertising, but before they do, they should increase organic engagement by figuring out what works best for the audience.

Using this insight helps businesses stay better connected to customers and residents by demonstrating how often businesses are posting and how well they are engaging.

Maybe* place insights showing the volume of social media posts by businesses in the Cotswolds on a daily basis and the engagement with them

What conversations do the Cotswolds' businesses create?

Exploring conversation topics helps businesses understand what phrases are being used the most. In the Cotswolds, they love a hashtag with #cotswolds #gloucestershire and #cirencester leading the way.

But also featured is topics about interior design, shopping locally, supporting small businesses. Use this information to really understand what topics businesses are talking to customers about, and use it in your own content.

Maybe* Place insights showing the conversation topics most frequently used by businesses in the Cotswolds across social media

Key takeaway

The Cotswolds may not be super social but what they do say socially, is varied, engaging and super local. The area’s businesses closely take pride in their place and in their indie status. Increasing participation from other businesses will only help the indie scene flourish further, so that all businesses in an area can benefit from one another.