WEEDMAN LAWNCARE USA
Braeden’s first job out of school was Weed Man USA’s new Social Media Coordinator. He better make a good first impression. Then several tens of thousands more impressions after that.
The Goal: Maximize Organic Engagement. Improve Brand Awareness.
Back in 2015, Weed Man was new to social media. So they needed to strategically stress test their content. Try out different types of content and see what stuck. Fortunately, Braeden isn’t one to shy away from creative experiments.
The Challenge: Limited Marketing ASsets.
Weed Man had limited digital assets. However, they did have a subscription to iStock and a subscription to Adobe Photoshop. Braeden never had designed anything professionally in their life, but started learning fast.
A Creative SPRAY TREATMENT
As it was 2015, Braeden was mostly posting for audiences on Facebook. The goal was to post daily, so Braeden created a weekly sequence of posts:
- Games on Mondays,
- Tips on Tuesdays,
- Whatever on Wednesdays (promos, employee highlights, an experiment where Braeden tried growing a lawn in a mug),
- History and throwbacks on Thursdays,
- And #famouslawnfridays (which should’ve caught on more in Braeden’s opinion).
Not only that, but Braeden was posting to over 100 franchisee social accounts across America and letting stoners down when they @ mentioned us only to find we weren’t that kind of Weed Man.
From this experimentation we gathered, Weed Man’s audience primarily liked posts about the company’s history, throwback retro ads, and lawn care tips. Also the “find weed man game” got a lot of engagement… people really wanted to find him.
All useful information in future campaigns and further investment in social channels.
TApping into #TurfCHAT on twitter
While the weekly content kept a steady stream of engagement and new followers coming in, Braeden also joined weekly Twitter chats with industry leaders every Tuesday and Thursday. Engagement on tweets shot up by 300% during these hour-long tweet hangs. A twenty-one-year-old Braeden tried his best to keep up with very savvy green space leaders with decades of experience while staying in character as a lawn care superhero.
Needless to say, the tactic grew Weed Man’s Twitter audience by a few hundred, and landed @weedmanusa a spot in Turf Magazine’s (yes, the Turf Magazine’s) top Twitter accounts.
Aerating Concerns
Frankly speaking, Weed Man’s online reputation for some franchisees was not doing great. Part of the role was to better attend to customer reviews and improve ratings. Through newsletter campaigns and coaching franchisees through responding to reviews, the general sentiment of Weed Man increased a star or two.
Left The Grass a Little Greener.
An increase in engagement across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Linkedin. With hundreds of followers gained across all platforms. A plethora of daily posts for several months driving engagement from zero likes per post, to a consistent 6 to 20.
Gathered and reported valuable insight into content preferences of Weed Man’s audience.
Increased positive sentiment, response times, and ratings on review sites Facebook, Yelp, and Angie’s List/Homestars.
Successfully fought the urge to tweet, “Happy not that kind of Weed Man day!” on 4/20.
Not bad for 9-month first gig.