Bettys: Modern fans for a historic brand

Sometimes, the best way to sell your products is to let your customers do it for you. That’s exactly what we did over many years for Bettys, the famous Yorkshire café tea rooms that has made a big move online in recent years.

With an established local fanbase, Bettys was keen to build its reputation further afield via social media, yet keeping its authentic, modest tone of voice. To achieve this, we used word of mouth, making the most of the existing fandom.

We turned purposefully to UGC (user-generated content) as the chief source of images for Bettys’ social media accounts. Customers visiting the tea rooms were already sharing photos of their delicious cakes and the classic surroundings so, with their permission, we shared these, accompanied by a witty caption fitting the Bettys brand tone.

Alongside this, we continued to interact with customers in the comments, further building the love for Bettys and increasing the number of UGC photos being posted that we could go on to share. When the covid pandemic hit, the online side of the business skyrocketed, and there was already a growing social media community ready and waiting to welcome new customers from around the UK and beyond.

Our approach created a snowball effect. Using content created by existing fans delivers a sense of authenticity that’s hard to achieve in any other way – and it keeps the fans at the heart of the community. It paid off hugely for Bettys: during the eight years we managed the Bettys accounts, we saw follower numbers and engagement both rise dramatically. One simple UGC photo of the outside of the café tea rooms attracted almost 9,000 likes, more than 800 comments and nearly 400 shares.