> STAY CONNECTED
An Untapped Resource While Facebook and Instagram are fairly saturated with florists (both profession- als and enthusiastic hobbyists alike), LinkedIn is not. “It’s widely underappre- ciated for our industry,” said Nic Faitos, senior partner of Starbright Floral Design in New York City. “LinkedIn has more than 500 million users — many of which have a lot of spending power — and I’ve only seen a handful of other florists on there. I absolutely take advantage of the lack of competition.” Faitos looks up every new Starbright
FRIENDS WITH INFLUENCE Jackie Levine makes a point of connecting with journalists, so Central Square Florist is the shop that comes to mind anytime they are working on a story about flowers, holidays, retail trends, gift giving ideas and more.
customer on LinkedIn. If he finds them, he sends a request from his personal account with a quick note of thanks for choosing Starbright — a tactic that has a 70 percent success rate. Whenever he gets an acceptance notification, he sends
a second message asking the contact to follow Starbright’s business page. “LinkedIn is the one platform where
I feel comfortable connecting with customers,” said Jackie Levine, vice president of Central Square Florist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led a webinar for the Society of American Florists on leveraging the site (watch it at
safnow.org/moreonline). “It’s not as intrusive as Facebook or Instagram. No one’s posting photos of their children or vacation there.” Like Faitos, Levine regularly reaches
out to customers, particularly former brides and grooms, as well as any vendors she’s collaborated with on event work. She also makes a big effort to connect with as many local journalists as possible. “I want to be the florist they think of when they have a story about flowers, holidays, retail trends, small business stories, you name it,” she said. Rounding out her network: anyone she knows really well (family, friends, neighbors, classmates, coworkers, etc.). “You should link with all kinds of people in your life,” she said. “You can actually get to 500 or more connections [a key benchmark for LinkedIn influence] pretty quickly.”
Content That Clicks Following Levine’s suggestion will yield a very assorted network, which calls for variety with your messages. “My LinkedIn posts cover so much ground because my followers are so diverse,” Levine said. Among her recent posts: wedding snapshots, customer reviews, a Father’s Day shout-out to her dad and business partner, news coverage of Central Square Florist, a graphic depicting the mental challenges of life during a pandemic, praise for her state’s retail association, and teasers for her SAF webinars. Faitos posts on his personal page
four to five times a week and coordinates with a marketing professional, who updates Starbright’s business page with similar frequency. “We always share any media coverage we get — that’s instant credibility,” he said. (As a member of the Forbes Business Council, Faitos authors and is quoted in many articles through- out the year.) Other favorite topics: educational tips (how to order flowers,
32 FLORAL MANAGEMENT | July/August 2020 |
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