Equine Social Media Marketing: What To Post For A High Engagement Rate
If you are serious about your equine marketing, including your social media presence in your digital marketing strategy is a must. Learn how to use your social media accounts to best serve your equine business.
Why Social Media
In order for people to work with you they need to know you, like you, and trust you, and Social media fulfills that purpose flawlessly – it excels in helping businesses in the equestrian industry to build online relationships.
They offer equestrian businesses a way to connect with their customers and target audience in a more personal way.
Social media has changed the way in which we function as a society, including the way in which we connect with each other. It is one of the most powerful tools that equine businesses and individuals can employ for marketing purposes today.
Connect with a larger audience
Social media has billions of active users, making it an excellent channel to reach a broader audience. Whether you’re an individual, business, or organization, social media enables you to connect with people from all over the world.
This is especially great if you are a product focused equestrian business, with digital products to offer, because you are not limited with a location or time-for-money exchange.
Brand visibility and awareness
Having well established social media accounts can significantly contribute to how others perceive your business, and can help you in building and positioning your brand the way you intended in your overall marketing strategy.
Build relationships and engagement
In today’s world where we are moving more and more toward the digital sphere, we are losing touch with the people with which we are involved. Social media provides a platform for direct interaction with your followers. You can respond to comments, messages, and engage in conversations, fostering a sense of community and building stronger relationships with your followers.
But, what does all of this mean in practice? How can this be executed to serve all of the purposes listed above?
The answer lies in content creation.
Are you feeling lost in content creation?
Looking at countless equestrian brands on social media, it is pretty clear that most of them do not understand what to post or why they post content that they do.
Are you struggling with the ideas of what to post for your equestrian business?
Are you not sure how often you should post?
Are you uncertain of which platforms to use?
Are you undecided about the format of your posts and what to create; stories, feed posts, videos, reels…?
Do you know what your content should look like?
Do you know that the angle of your messaging is the most important component of your content?
To excel in your social media efforts, the key ingredient is to understand how content creation works.
It is not enough to just post as much as possible and hope for the best possible outcome. Developing a strategy around your content is crucial for success.
The 3 E’s of creating content:
Content on Social Media should:
- Educate – informational content that brings your followers facts, theories, principles and ideas about the equestrian industry niche you are operating in.
- Empower – content that teaches your followers how to do something and leaves them with tangible assets they can try on their own with their own horses.
- Entertain – content with a sole purpose of making people laugh.
- (Sell) – even though you can definitely promote your products and services on your Social Media channels, you need to build relationships with your audience first. The way to do that is through the 3 E’s. In addition, only 5-10% of your posts should be promotional and drive sales).
What to post for a high engagement rate?
Before you start creating content that your audience will love, you first need to understand who your audience is.
Identify your niche and your ideal client
There is a popular marketing quote that says: ‘If you are selling to everyone, you are selling to no one.’
In other words, if you try to be all things to all people, you won’t be anything to anybody.
To get this right, you should think about who is the person that you would like to work with the most. Someone who appreciates what you do, doesn’t negotiate about the price etc.
But you should also think about the details of their life. How old are they? What are their interests, hobbies, lifestyle etc.
The narrower you go the more clients you will attract because your message will resonate with a specific group of people.
Craft a compelling message
After you have created the ideal client avatar, you can start thinking about your messaging and what would appeal to your ideal client.
The best way to show your expertise in the equine industry is to solve problems.
If you spend some time trying to understand what problems your ideal client has, in order to focus your content around solutions, you will create posts that resonate with your audience.
Showing your audience fixes and solutions to what they are struggling with is called sharing value.
By showing your followers how you can help them, you are building authority as an expert and you are showing people why they should work with you (and not someone else).
The message is the most important element in marketing in general, not only in equestrian marketing or in creating engaging content creation for social media.
If you get the message right, you will not have problems acquiring customers.
Sell only 5-10% of the time, build relationships instead
By selling too much and too often you are not showing people WHY they should buy from you, you are only showing them for HOW MUCH they can buy from you.
Before people buy from you they need to like you, know you and trust you. By selling to them all the time, you are doing neither of those things which brings us back to the importance of solving problems and sharing value.
It also brings us back to showing your audience how you are an expert that can help them with their struggles.
Lastly, it is good to keep in mind that people do not go to social media to be sold to. They go there to share information, make connections, and to keep in touch with their friends and family.
Are you still feeling lost and unsure how to develop your equestrian marketing strategy on social media?
To get inspiration and understand better how to manage your Social media accounts for your Equine Business, we can offer you two pieces of advice as a conclusion.
Competitor Research
The first one is to research your competitors.
No matter what your equine business is about, there are others like you out there that are nailing it on Social Media. Find those equestrian businesses, see what they are posting, what channels and post formats they are using, and get inspiration from them.
Do not copy their posts word for word!
There are no two equestrian brands completely alike. Every business is different and it is important to find your own voice and your own approach. People value authenticity and if you find yours, there will be an audience out there who will appreciate you for it.
