The Mill at Rock Creek is Boone, North Carolina’s, award-winning wedding and event venue. Nestled in the beautiful mountains of the Blue Ridge Parkway, The Mill sets itself apart from other venues in the area because it’s only 5 miles away from downtown and has breathtaking views. Since the High Country is such a competitive spot for venues (with over 20 venues in a 20 mile radius!), The Mill wanted to stand out and become a reputable location for couples to get married and host events. Lazarus Design Team used organic social media posts to grow their following 90% in 8-months.
2021 Project Details
- Organic social media content (no paid advertising)
- Over 70 posts (with unique hashtags) and 327 stories
- 90% follower increase on Instagram
- 78% follower increase on Facebook
- Instagram reach: 24,467 people
- Facebook reach: 15,425 people
Check Out The Mill’s Progress
90% Follower Increase on Instagram
Over 70 posts created with unique hashtags
Over 327 stories created with custom highlight icons
Instagram bio audit and update
The Process
Any good social media plan has thorough research, planning, and preparation – it’s the basics for creating a winning social media strategy. For The Mill and all our social media clients, we practiced what we preach through an initial, in-depth “Discovery Phase.”
For a whole month before scheduling and posting began, our team dove deep into the audience, content, and hashtag research to develop something we call our Social Media Discovery Presentation (view the full presentation below). Inside, you’ll notice the research it takes to build a good social media strategy – competitor research, mood board inspiration, and content creation.
We looked at what was working for competitors online and combined it with The Mill’s social media goals to create post examples for their team to review and approve.
The Discovery Phase is one of our favorite parts about managing a new social media client’s profiles because it helps the #LazFam get immersed in the business. From Instagram highlight covers to curating thoughtful hashtags, the Discovery Phase is where the real magic happens.
Creating Social Media Content
As with all of our social media clients, it’s our responsibility to alleviate digital marketing stress, so we worked with The Mill team to create systems for content for their social pages. However, real-time content (content that is captured in the moment and is only relevant at that time), is just as important as planned content, so for example, anytime we receive a photo/video from the client, we stylize it to fit The Mill’s branding and add it to their Instagram and Facebook stories, reducing the amount of work on the client’s end.
Collaborative review process with the client
Add in unique hashtags for your area
One of the biggest reasons clients choose Lazarus to manage their accounts is because they just don’t have enough time to maintain a social media presence on top of doing their own job or running a business. That was the case with The Mill.
Kristine, the venue’s wonderful General Manager, had so much on her plate, she knew she needed to delegate social to someone else. It was a priority for her and the owners because they understood the importance of having a social media presence in such a competitive market and digital space.
On top of regular and real-time content, each month’s social media posting schedule includes graphics designed by the expert level designers on our team. We do this to bring variety to the plan and keep followers engaged.
The Ultimate Instagram Giveaway
Instagram giveaways are a great way to really engage your followers, while giving them something nice and useful – and the best part is you always gain new followers! For The Mill’s giveaway, we partnered with three local vendors for the Ultimate ‘Getting Married’ Giveaway to give away 3 awesome prizes:
- 🥇 1st Place Prize: 50% off the venue plus 50% off a DJ.
- 🥈 2nd Place Prize: 20% off a 30-day wedding planning package
- 🥉 3rd Place Prize: A bridal bouquet
The rules were simple: followers had to like the post, follow @themillatrockcreek and the contributing vendors, tag their friends for unlimited entries, and add the post to their Instagram story. This successful Instagram giveaway resulted in three lucky winners and 119 likes, 133 comments, 9 shares, and reached 930 unique people online.
About the Client
The Mill at Rock Creek is Boone, North Carolina’s newest wedding and event venue situated in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains only 5 miles from downtown. The venue seats 150 guests and has 5 ceremony location spots for couples getting married to choose from. The property was completed in 2021 and built specifically to be a vendor-friendly venue, so the wedding day can run smoothly. If interested in booking the venue, please email therockcreekmill@gmail.com or visit their website here.
