Social media, once a medium for college students to connect at their school, has now evolved into so much more. These days, entire business deals and connections are formed through social media. However, representing a business on social media is a very intricate process that takes time and meticulous planning.
After interviewing horse trainers about how social media has impacted their training businesses in Part 1 of this series, we now take a look into the business side of social media and the mechanics into promoting a business successfully on this platform.
We interviewed four successful equine business owners who use social media in various ways to find out why it is such a useful tool and why using a professional can help elevate your business to the next level. It behooves those of us who are less than social media savvy or simply do not have the time, to let professionals “take the reins” when it comes to managing the social side of our businesses.
Meet the Business Owners
The first step to establishing a successful business is identifying the need for the services the company will offer. Courtney Chown and Kelsey Huffman of Courtsey Promotions (pictured right) created their business after speaking with a few business owners with the desire to use social media to draw attention to their activities. However, these companies lacked the skills and time to learn the intricacies of the tool.
“We realized that social media is here to stay and that it is such an excellent venue to promote businesses. We started working with a few companies that had the desire to market on social media but didn’t have the time to spend updating their pages and acquiring followers. Our business helps to structure and manage social media for our clients that don’t have a marketing team. We work as contractors for a lot of different companies,” says Chown.
In addition to helping to create attractive and user-friendly pages, Courtsey Promotions manages social media for a variety of businesses in the equine industry ranging from horse training operations to stallion promotions to apparel companies. They strive to keep their social media outlets up-to-date with show results, sale horses, offspring success, and new product offerings. “Our job is to make things easier for everyone and keep information accessible and organized,” says Chown.
Victoria Delarosa of Valor Designs (pictured below), a nationally recognized equine advertising agency, has also found social media to be a crucial part of the equation when it comes to successful marketing.
“At Valor, we mainly focus on the advertising and the designing side of the house. However, we have had to branch out more into handling customer’s social media because we have clients that need to have a presence on social media but do not know how to navigate the various sites. Several of my customers acknowledge that social media is important, but they don’t want to manage their accounts. I serve as the medium between my clients and their social media inquiries and have gotten more involved in the day-to-day activity of their accounts. I am responsible for updating the page and creating the designs along with trying to obtain the maximum reach with each post,” says Delarosa
Mike Jennings, along with his wife, Stephanie, own ProHorse Services, a business primarily involved in online horse auctions. The couple has seen the horse industry shift to people wanting to conduct more business online.
What started as a live auction company with over 60,000 horses sold, has now evolved into a business involved with both in-person and online sales.
“My parents started doing live auctions in 1970 and the big thing we were doing at that time to market the business was to use print magazines. We also did a lot of direct mail, that was how we reached customers. After e-mail had become more prevalent, we started doing e-mail blasts, but now, we have found such a convenience in online auctions and social media. We use social media to reach people and make them aware of the horses that will be available in our auctions. Although it can be complicated, social media has helped us to reach more people than ever before and has been an integral part of restructuring our business,” says Jennings. (pictured right with his wife, Stephanie)
GoHorseShow, established by Landon and Suzannah Fuhrman in 2008, started with a website where a new story would be launched daily, and e-mail blasts would alert readers of the release of the new online GoMag every month. A few months after GoHorseShow was established, Suzannah Fuhrman got a personal Facebook page, and she realized that it would be a great way to share with her friends what GoHorseShow was doing daily.
Facebook quickly became a match made in heaven for GoHorseShow, with the business page receiving thousands of followers almost overnight. “Social media has helped us to get known and reach more people. Today, GoHorseShow has over 110,000 followers and when we share something, it reaches so many people. That aspect has been an integral part of our success and has helped us keep our community together and stay connected,” says Fuhrman.
Marketing Businesses on Social Media
An active presence on social media is paramount to success for most businesses. However, merely being on social media is not enough. For a business to maximize their presence online, they need to develop a network that will help their posts be widespread to keep customers and potential customers interested in their products and services.
While this may seem overwhelming to some, professionals know how to represent a business in the best possible light to attract positive attention from social media goers.
“The more people you have interacted with your posts, the more traction all of your posts will have. You want to do more than just sell horses or promote your stallion, the goal is to create a culture that people want to know more about that keeps them excited and wanting to engage with your business,” says Chown.
The amount of reach a post gets is not as simple as posting something and hoping it goes viral. It is a carefully thought out process that takes more than just the click of a button.
“We make our posts reach further by tagging people who are relevant in the industry and connected to that particular post. You have to share information thoughtfully. You don’t want to over-share or be perceived as overly aggressive. There is a fine line between having a presence online and bombarding people and seeming desperate,” says Delarosa.
So how do you get so many people interested in what you are posting? By posting interesting things that get people’s attention. While the answer seems obvious enough, the practice is more complicated. By establishing your business as entertaining, informative, and interactive, people are sure to share your posts on their network, and in turn, the company will acquire more followers.
“We have been able to establish ourselves as the first source for breaking news. We are often the first news source to alert the horse industry about the developments in everything related to the horse industry. Other than that, it has just been about a long-term, consistent presence and posting stories that are relevant to the horse industry that has helped to keep us in the spotlight,” says Fuhrman (pictured left).
Jennings agrees that consistency is key when it comes to establishing a business on social media. “We post things every day, sometimes several times a day to be present and remain relevant and gain more followers. We are always tactful with our posts, and we make sure to post in different places so new people will see our posts all the time. When we are having a horse sale, we highlight individual horses in the sale and market them individually as well as the sale as a whole. By spreading our posts and being readily available, we have been able to develop a rapport with our customers, both buyers, and sellers,” he says.
Another factor in the success of social media business promotion is taking into consideration how posts will be received and when the best time is to post things for them to be seen by the most people.
“As professionals, we understand the best way to get positive attention on social media, and it is not a passive process; it takes a lot to learn the particulars of social media. Professionals have learned when the best time to post things are for each page and, yes, each business is different depending on the followers. We post things based on the followers of each page, and we can learn a lot about members including their age, gender, and where they are located,” says Delarosa.
Fuhrman has spent years analyzing data and carefully coming up with the best times to post news and stories. “My advice is to always to ask yourself, when am I on the computer and when do I think other people are on the computer? Those are the best times to post things. You want to make sure that people are online or else your posts will not receive a lot of traction,” says Fuhrman.
While social media is a great tool through which to conduct business and market your business, all of our experts agree that it is not a substitute for maintaining a professional website.
“A quality website is crucial. A lot of businesses have stopped using or updating their websites, and I think that is a mistake. Websites help to give a professional appearance to your business and that is a huge part of attracting and acquiring clients,” says Delarosa.
Additionally, the larger footprint a business has online, the more the company will show up when they are searched for on online search engines. “The more activity you have online, the more relevant you are in an online search, and that can only help with attracting attention to your business,” says Chown.
It is important to keep up with both social media and a professional website to remain relevant. If one of the pages becomes outdated, there is a chance that customers could think that your business is no longer operating.
“I took over a client’s Facebook page that was set up for her stallion that hadn’t been logged into or updated in years. They had not responded to messages, and they were wondering why the stallion’s breeding career was almost nonexistent when he used to be a top breeding horse. It turns out that people had thought they had stopped standing him because of their lack of responses to messages and updates to his page. They had their website up to date but had not kept his Facebook page current, and that was a big mistake. He is a great sire, but without that presence on social media, he was forgotten,” says Delarosa.
To stay relevant, it is important to maintain a website and have a presence on social media. Customers expect you to be accessible in numerous ways in the digital age.
Why should you use a professional?
Marketing a business using social media is a complex undertaking, it is easy to see why many are enlisting the help of qualified professionals to take the guesswork out of using social media as a business tool. One of the things that set professionals apart is their ability to post things that are worthy of a second look.
“It is all about presentation and promoting a horse or business in a professional way. We want the first impression of the post to stop someone and make them want more information, and we make sure that information is easily accessible, as well,” says Jennings.
According to Chown, it is important to make sure that the things posted on social media are posts that you, as a social media user, would be interested in reading. “Ask yourself: is this something I would stop scrolling to read? Does this grab attention in a positive way? If so, chances are, other social media users will agree.”
Once something is interesting enough to post, how does a business make sure that it reaches the masses? Professionals know the importance of using different groups and hashtags to get posts shared in places where they will have the maximum amount of interested parties.
“We are a member of over 150 groups, and when we have certain horses for sale or want to get the word out about an auction, I make sure to target specific groups for that horse’s discipline. By taking the time to post in different groups, we can get more interest in individual horses in the sale and get more attention on the posts that I share,” says Jennings.
Additionally, along with the professional’s knowledge about where to share information, a business owner working with a professional can also gain access to the network built by the professional.
“GoHorseShow has such a large group of followers who are interested in what we are posting, and that is where we can surpass any individual entity because our reach is so great through our numbers. By advertising with us, our clients get the huge benefit of piggybacking off of our social media reach. When we share something and include our advertisers (which is often the case), it reaches so many people,” says Fuhrman.
With multiple social media sites, it is easy to get overwhelmed or spread too thin when trying to manage a business on several different sites.
According to our experts, it is not necessary to have a presence on every single site for a business to thrive. Unanimously, Facebook was named as the most useful site for companies with Instagram, Twitter, and SnapChat receiving secondary attention.
“Facebook is a must, and Instagram is growing all the time and has a great network through hashtags that help to group photos and target different interests. We are working on getting people to use SnapChat with the hopes that it will give potential clients more of a glimpse into our customers’ lives and make them feel even more connected,” says Chown.
Fuhrman and Delarosa agree that Facebook is the primary site for business, but having a presence on Instagram not only tells a story through pictures, it can also help direct business to Facebook or a website.
“We treat each site differently. Instagram is more about pictures and telling a story; we use hashtags and appeal to all age groups. Facebook is more matter of fact, with posts of a picture and a link. Regardless of the site, we never get too wordy on our posts and try to keep things clean and straightforward,” says Fuhrman.
Indicators of Success
How do professionals know that their efforts on social media are paying off? Results. Whether horse sales, inquiries about breeding, or calls and messages about services.
“Social media has helped immensely with person-to-person contact. People can get a feel for a program and social media gives a prime opportunity for both passive and active communication. Using social media as a platform that allows people to feel comfortable, involved, and able to communicate can lead to the opportunity to engage them in the business, and that is a positive thing,” says Delarosa.
The proof is also in the numbers and when sales and breeding numbers go up, it is hard not to point to social media as one of the contributing factors. “We have sold lots of horses; stallion owners are getting more attention and messages every day. We can see the reach and the direct impact of every post. We love that people can share information and engage in mutually beneficial business ventures,” says Chown.
Social media helps to keep businesses relevant and in the public eye and that is something that has fueled the success of GoHorseShow. “Social media contributes to maintaining our brand and level of quality in front of people. It creates community and keeps us connected,” says Fuhrman.
Finally, by acquiring more followers and broadening networks, social media can help to take a business to the next level.
According to Jennings, “We have seen a massive increase of ‘likes’ and followers and we have sold a lot of horses, and that is proof of the power of social media. Our capabilities are much greater due to social media. Imagine how many mailers we would have to send out to reach the same number of people we can now reach at the click of a button. And while we enjoy the benefits of social media, we see shifts and changes all the time. We are always evolving and changing. That’s the key to success in a digital society.”
Stay tuned for the final part of our social media series which will be discussing acceptable and unacceptable behavior on social media as it pertains to the horse world.
Photos © Courtsey Promotions, Valor Designs, GoHorseShow, ProHorse Services, and Virtual Horse Help
About the Author: A California native turned Texan, Erica Lang Greathouse took her first pony ride at a local fair at the age of four. That ride ignited her passion for horses, and there was no turning back. In her show career, she has earned a Congress Championship, multiple APHA World and Reserve World Championships, and a top ten finish at the AQHYA World Show. She graduated from the University of North Texas with a degree in Communication Studies and a minor in Psychology.
