In this blog series, we’re going to showcase some examples of small business doing great things with social media. For this post, our Social Media Spotlight is on a client of ours, Cat Utopia Resort and Spa.
About Cat Utopia Resort and Spa
Cat Utopia Resort and Spa is a luxury cat boarding facility located on the Central Coast of NSW, just north of Sydney. With a range of luxurious accommodation options available, guests enjoy heated floors, ducted air-conditioning, state of the art grooming facilities, amazing indoor and outdoor play areas and even flat screen TV’s! The kitties of Cat Utopia certainly do enjoy the finer things in life!
Facebook Goals
Cat Utopia were searching for an effective way to share guest photos with their owners. After trialing various photo galleries on their website with limited success, they were keen to explore other more cost effective ways of sharing photos and promoting their business through social media. With the upgrades to the Facebook Timeline for Pages that rolled out earlier this year, we encouraged them to explore Facebook. (You can learn more about Facebook’s new Timeline features here).
Initial Growth Strategy
To optimise Cat Utopia’s new Facebook Timeline Page we applied some simple upgrades. First of all we created a brand new cover image for the Timeline featuring their logo, brand colours and some gorgeous photos of the facility. We added their logo as the new profile image. Then, we customised the ‘about’ section to ensure that their address and phone details were fully visible. We also reviewed their ‘about’ page to ensure that all the essential informati0n about Cat Utopia was included; website, hours of operation, parking availability, location, email address etc.
Next, we developed a plan for sharing content and updates daily and guest photos at least once a week. Content shared with fans of the Cat Utopia page is a mixture of articles, information on the Cat Utopia website, and links to interesting articles related to cats – with a little bit of ‘cat humor’ thrown in from time to time. Guest photos and images of cats are the most popular elements of the content strategy.
Results
After applying these simple strategies to the page Cat Utopia’s Facebook Page fan base grew by 8% within 3 months. Even with a small following (just under 300 fans) the engagement and People Talking About This scores on the Cat Utopia page are excellent. This tells us that the people who like the Cat Utopia page really value the content that is being shared because they regularly interact with the page (by liking photos and status updates, adding comments, and sharing photos with their own Facebook friends). This also demonstrates that a high percentage of the people who like the page represent Cat Utopia’s ideal target market.
This is exactly the kind of activity we want to see on a small business page – consistent and organic growth and active ‘conversations’ with followers. Although increasing fanbase numbers is desirable to ultimately expose your products and services to more people, it’s the Facebook engagement scores that are more meaningful. The better your engagement scores, the more your posts are going to be seen in newsfeeds – and THAT’s the ultimate goal of successful Facebook marketing.
The results that Cat Utopia have achieved in the last 3 months with a few basic improvements and simple sharing of relevant content provides an excellent foundation for their ongoing Facebook growth strategy. Facebook is now an important factor in improving customer loyalty. Many clients of Cat Utopia still regularly interact with the business through Facebook even though they may only use the facility once or twice a year. Cat Utopia will be top of mind for these clients when they book their next holiday!
“I love the way Facebook connects our clients with their cats while they are away on holidays. Even when they are overseas, they can log into to Facebook to see photos of their beloved cats enjoying their stay at Cat Utopia.
I have noticed an increase in enquiries from new clients through Facebook which is great.
We’ve even managed to re-home one of our guests through Facebook! We posted a photo of Bertie and we were overwhelmed with responses. We found the perfect forever home for him.
We have a lot planned for our Facebook page and I’m looking forward to growing it and making it even more exciting for our clients”.
~Amanda Sweeting, Owner of Cat Utopia Resort and Spa
Take a look at Cat Utopia’s Facebook Page here
If you would like to read more about building engagement on your own Facebook page take a look at this article from the Web Chameleon blog. Or if you need personalised help – check out Belinda Jackson’s Online Visibility coaching options.
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