A Suffolk business urges firms to embrace social media after one Facebook post helped saved them
New research shows social media influences around one in every 20 in-person purchases in the UK
A Suffolk brownie business is encouraging other small companies to embrace social media after a single Facebook post helped save it during the pandemic.
New research commissioned by American Express suggests social media now influences around one in every 20 in-person purchases in the UK and helps drive an estimated 1.7 billion visits to shops, restaurants and hospitality venues every year.
Nearly half of spending influenced by social media now goes to independent businesses, according to the research.
24 hours and four counties later
For Charlotte Giddings, founder of Brownie and the Bean, those figures come as little surprise.
The family-run business, which started as an events company, was forced to rethink how it operated during the pandemic after her family contracted COVID and the company was unable to access some of the financial support available to other businesses.
"We were completely on a whole other loophole island on our own. There was no way we could get any help," she said.
With no mailing list and just a single brownie flavour to sell, Ms Giddings decided to post on a local Facebook community page offering no-contact deliveries.
She expected a handful of orders from local parents.
Instead, her phone "blew up".
"I thought potentially a couple of our mates from the preschool might buy a couple of boxes from us," she said.
"Oh no, it was absolutely a phenomenal chain of events."
The post was shared across Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, with enquiries eventually arriving from as far away as Bedfordshire. Within days, the business was creating new flavours and making deliveries across the region.
"People are being so much more considerate about where they spend their money"
Six years on, Ms Giddings believes social media remains one of the most important tools available to small businesses.
"I think it's absolutely vital," she said.
"It's not just a case of you've got a great product, people will buy it. They buy into the person. I think people are being so much more considerate about where they spend their money."
She said social media now helps shape everything from new product development to event planning, allowing customers to directly influence the business.
"It really helps to shape the future of our business," she said. "You can put that out to customers and find out if it's something they would buy, something they'd enjoy."
The business even uses social media followers to test new flavour ideas.
Not every suggestion is a success.
Ms Giddings laughed as she recalled her husband's attempt to create an orange liquorice dark chocolate brownie inspired by a childhood holiday memory.
"It was absolutely foul," she said.
"It didn't even make it past the bakery."
She said maintaining a social media presence can feel like a full-time job in itself, particularly as platforms and algorithms constantly evolve.
But she believes the effort is worth it.
"I dread to think if we hadn't gone on to social media where we'd be now," she said.
Research published alongside the campaign found 63% of consumers say social media has influenced at least one visit to a high street business in the past year, rising to 88% among Generation Z shoppers.
More than half of consumers now use social media to research businesses before visiting in person, while more than a third of Gen Z shoppers say they have travelled to another town or city to buy a product they first saw trending online.