Meet Jolene, Facebook queen at Memorial Centre Farmers’ Market

Market Manager Jolene uses Facebook to connect with customers and share tidbits about their trip to the market. In an interview with Farmers’ Markets Ontario, Jolene provided the step-by-step recipe for her Humans-Of-New-York style Facebook posts.

Step 1 – At your market, approach a customer who seems like they’d be willing to chat. Introduce yourself and tell them you would like to ask a question and then post a photo of them on the market’s Facebook page. You MUST get their permission to post their answer and photo on Facebook (click here for a downloadable PDF permission waiver!).

Step 2 – Ask the customer to tell you about their favourite vendor, their favourite thing about the market, or what they bought at the market that day. Don’t forget to snap an interesting photo of them! Don’t stress about the quality of the photo – you can use a cellphone.  The whole conversation should take about 10 minutes when you start – the more comfortable you get chatting with customers, the easier it will get!

Step 3 – Post the photo with a quote from the customer on your Facebook page. You don’t have to include their name. Make sure to add your market’s current hashtags to the post and watch it explode on social media!

“Everyone benefits because the customer feels good celebrating the market and we feel good celebrating them. It builds trust.” -Jolene Simko

 Why Jolene focuses on Facebook

Facebook is used by 80% of people aged 18-65.

Leveraging your market’s social media is super beneficial because as Jolene pointed out, it’s an exciting chance to attach real faces to your market. Customers will look forward to each post and to seeing what other customers have to say about their favourite market!

Do a few interviews on a single day and post one of them each week. When you start to run low, do more.

Click here for some tips on maximizing your market’s social media efforts.