In an ideal - but perhaps unrealistic - world, anyone interested in visiting a working ranch could do so. One way we can cast a large, targeted net with messages about how beef cattle are raised in Canada is through influencer or content creator marketing. When creators share social content using their own words, footage and unique style, the authenticity transfers to their audience. Followers and viewers feel as if they too, in part, participated and learned from the creator’s first-hand experience.
In the case of the Ranching Experience campaign, 12 content creators were hosted for a full day that showcased ranching, western lifestyle, fashion and dining experiences featuring Canadian beef. You can read more details about the day in CCA Action News Volume 41, Issue 1. Here, we will focus on the results and value created from the campaign.
Paid versus Gifted Creators
Of the 12 content creators involved, two with larger audiences were paid to attend while the others participated for the experience and perks alone. In return for their participation, each creator was to post at least one Instagram Reel sharing what they learned about raising beef cattle in Canada with clips from the ranch visit and their shopping and dining experiences.
The two paid creators also had their content ‘boosted,’ meaning some budget was allocated to pay the social platform to get the content in front of a broader audience within the targeted demographic.
Social Results
As of August 2024, the campaign has amassed over 1 million impressions, far exceeding expectations. Estimated reach was over 830,000 people and there were around 3500 engagements with the content. Brief definitions of these social media metrics can be found below.
Impressions: The number of times a piece of content appears in someone’s content feed or timeline.
Estimated Reach: The unique number of individuals who have seen a piece of content.
Engagements: Tracks actions such as likes, clicks, shares and comments.
Comparing Paid and Organic Results
In this case, ‘organic’ has a different meaning than what agricultural-focused brains might think. Organic results come from posts that were not boosted. Views, reach and engagement would mainly come from the followers of the 12 creators, as well as re-shares, which can increase all metrics.
The metrics in the paid row are from the two boosted posts alone and don’t include organic results. In other words, all the paid metrics achieved can be attributed to the money put behind them.
The differences between paid/boosted content is evident in the table below, with over 800K of the 1 million engagements coming from boosted content. However, organic content resulted in far more engagements than paid since people are much more likely to engage with content from someone that they follow, as opposed to content that was fed to them from an account they aren’t familiar with.
What is the ROI on these results?
Another advantage of influencer marketing is that boosting social content generates a much greater return on investment than traditional forms of advertising, such as print. Take a look at a comparison between a print ad in The Globe and Mail vs. the paid social media content in this campaign:
It would cost roughly 10 times as much to reach the same size of audience with print advertising than by leveraging social media content with paid ad placements.
Genuine excitement for the experience and interest in an area unfamiliar to them led many of the creators to go above and beyond what was requested, greatly benefitting the campaign. Some created multiple reels; some shared across different social platforms; one wrote a full blog post on his experience that day; and one did a full question and answer session in their stories, thoughtfully answering her followers’ questions about raising beef cattle.
The Ranching Experience project was led by Public and Stakeholder Engagement (PSE), a national check-off funded program which aims to build public trust in the way beef cattle are raised in Canada. We thank Nature Conservancy of Canada and Ducks Unlimited Canada for sharing their expertise as well as partners Lammle’s Western Wear, Chop Steakhouse and Trail’s End Beef, each of which was integral in the well-roundedness and appeal of the experience.
You can view a few of the Reels by clicking on the thumbnails below.
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