Crowd spoke to Pip Queripel from Guernsey’s popular and homegrown traditional cider distillery Rocquette, discussing the importance and effect of social media on their communications strategy.
Tell us about Rocquette Cider.
Rocquette Cider is essentially home grown cider from Guernsey. To produce a quality, local cider has always been our dream. From planting the seed to creating a finished packaged product, which competes on an international stage, we are committed to continuing the long established cider heritage of Guernsey. We are proud of our sustainable approach to cider making and passionate about our brands. We aspire to instill our enthusiasm for cider within our community.
In which areas of the business has social media been most useful?
Driving product awareness, engagement and promotional / event support. We used social media as part of an integrated campaign to launch our latest product Rocquette XC – Exceptional Cider. As the product is aimed at a younger, more media savvy audience, it worked very well. We introduced the concept of tastemakers – socially connected individuals who would act as information disseminators and ambassadors for our brand through social media channels.
Which social media platform do you feel is the most successful for you?
Facebook. That said our use of other channels is still very embryonic.
How do you use each platform and how do you feel the audience differs on each? Do you have differing approaches?
We are a very small team so the time we have to dedicate to marketing is limited. We drive updates through multiple channels and try to use complementary partners to help gain further reach and traction. The audiences do differ which is why we are in the process of expanding our use of social media and an integrated communications platform.
Do you think social media has been helpful in improving the experience your customers have, and how has social media changed the relationship you have with your customers?
Customer centricity is core to our brand and social media has definitely helped us to have a more open and immediate dialogue with our customers. Our community is very engaged with the local environment and passionate about our brand, which makes our jobs a lot easier. We have found that as we gain traction within the UK market and further afield, social media channels enable us to maintain the local, family run heritage of our brand whilst also welcoming a more international audience to live the Rocquette experience. We have also found that feedback and product requests through social media channels is a huge help when approaching new markets.
Have you come across any problems using social media? Were there any risks on entry for you?
It’s always difficult to maintain the right level of interaction, but we make sure that we deliver on our promises and try and maintain a healthy balance of promotional content with information and community led stories which, I think, has ensured that we don’t bombard our community with irrelevant information. We don’t approach our social media activity with any degree of science. Our attitude has always been to maintain an interest led approach.
Do you find it difficult to measure/quantify your activity online?
At this point (having only launched a website and any social media activity in the last 6 months!) we are able to monitor activity reasonably accurately / successfully. Certainly we are able to monitor interactions with a much greater degree of sophistication than traditional media. That said, the real value will come in jurisdictions in which we don’t have such a close tie to the local community, so time will presumably tell!
Do you think that consumers/customers expectations have changed around customer service?
Yes, customers expect increasingly immediate responses. We don’t see this as a problem and we actively encourage our customers to interact with us through all channels. I think that it will always depend on the nature of the enquiry as to the real urgency of the response, but we tend to respond rapidly to every communication to ensure an open dialogue. We haven’t yet found the need to set ourselves response targets etc, but I’m sure this will come with growth.
Do you believe that the Guernsey marketplace has seen growth in customers using social to contact with you and engage?
Yes, and increasingly so. Guernsey people are passionate about local brands and seem very happy to engage with us over social media. That said we do try and make sure that we aren’t limited to this area only. Ultimately we want to sell our cider so a combination of social and traditional media is still important.
What’s your favourite part of using social media?
We are constantly amazed by what information gains traction via social media. We can run a great promotion which gets a reasonably good response but upload a picture of the farm in the snow and it can go viral to reach thousands. Our community seems to be very well connected so we often generate a much wider reach than we anticipate.