Luxury glamping experience just outside Nottingham? You might have seen them on Channel 4’s popular B&B show Four in a Bed this December, but Birdholme has already been growing business in the local area and beyond. Here’s how our digital marketing and PR agency contributed to that growth by way of social media management and influencers.

Out of the woods: Spreading the word about Birdholme

Holly and Peter Hinchley, and daughter Meg, have been building and growing Birdholme for five years already. Nestled in 15 acres of natural woodland, the boutique glamping site welcomes visitors to luxury lodges complete with wifi, hot tubs, and even a bottle of prosecco. Still, set in a small village outside of Nottingham city limits, word can be hard to spread to the audience right on its rural doorstep.

The truly “from-the-heart” business has been steadily expanding its reach organically, especially focusing on social media as a platform to build awareness and attract new visitors. The account had even been approached by influencers in the past but hadn’t fully brought this style of marketing into its social media strategy. Enter Tank. 

Growing the Birdholme Social Presence

Leading the social media management on Tank’s side, Stuart Tongue and Mollie Newth worked closely with the owner to create a strategy for its key channels: Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Offering guidance and expertise, Mollie planned content to strengthen the brand on its profiles to better communicate the Birdholme story. 

Seasonal content, interview content with the owner and on-brand imagery from around the glamping site helped show the personality behind the company and boost relatability. A more authentic profile would also encourage visitors from posts to follow. As a business owner, keeping up with community management can be hard so answering comments and DMs was also taken into the social media management package.  

Getting it Right: Giving the Right Influencers Creative Freedom

To bring new visitors to the glamping site, Birdholme needed to expand its reach. For this, Mollie created an influencer strategy. In exchange for a short midweek stay when lodges were more likely to be available, content creators would post about their stay. We meticulously researched and selected influencers and built a strategy to improve brand awareness and reach. It was important to tap into Notts-based, local communities as a close target market but also a couple further afield to expand reach. Since most Birdholme lodges are dog-friendly – still somewhat rare in glamping – influencers that showcase their dog, or family life influencers, would also be ideal to highlight this.

When working with influencers, you should offer a brief and contract – especially when inviting them to stay in a place you have created from the ground up. However, when you’re offering an experience – that is, glamping in woodland – you want people to believe and feel that experience through your social media content. So creating the brief for the selected influencers, we wanted to ensure creative freedom. Allowing them to do what they do best and encouraged genuine engagement and fostered positive enthusiasm amongst their followers. 

Selecting some of the influencers’ past videos as inspiration, we guided content with recommendations based on their previous posts while still allowing for creative freedom to fit seamlessly into their followers’ feeds. For the pet influencer, we encouraged content along the lines of dog friendly lodges or walks around the area. For the local influencers, content along the lines of best nearby pubs or local landmarks, or simply escaping the city. Wildlife and nature influencers could capture content along the lines of birdspotting or holidaying with less ecological impact.

From September to October, Birdholme had collaborated with five influencers, all with excellent responses. 

Successful Campaign and Positive Business Impact for Birdholme

During Tank’s time working with Birdholme, its followers have nearly doubled. Reach and impressions shot up to over 52,000 and over 80,000, which boosted brand awareness, and engagement increased by over 196%. This not only shows positive sentiment around the brand but also signals to Instagram that their content was worth pushing! Plus, the Birdholme profile also saw many more enquiries from influencers proactively reaching out having seen Birdholme on their feeds, which means more quality content and further reach.

In terms of business and sales impact, the Instagram account saw a flurry of users and followers directly messaging to ask about bookings. On one Monday around the campaign, the Birdholme profile generated nearly ten-fold the amount of visitors to the website from organic social media (compared to a previous Monday). Which all suggests an increase in intent for booking.

And now with a TV spotlight on Four in a Bed, who knows how business will boom! We love to see a client deservedly make their mark.