Last September, the California Walnut Commission launched a new social media strategy, and over the past year, all metrics have soared. The result of all of these strategic changes, including more storytelling, the introduction of the blog, use of recipe collections, and new social ad formats, is that clicks to the website from social media reached 154,789, up from 20,726 the previous year. The primary purpose of the new approach was to increase engagement with consumers across social media sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn) where California walnuts is active and as a result, increase the number of visitors to walnuts.orgwho hope to learn more, and it worked.

A key component of accomplishing these goals was a brand new point of view with an encouraging, unified voice. Content continues to focus on walnuts in the kitchen but also takes walnuts beyond the kitchen, weaving them into many aspects of today’s consumers’ lifestyles. For example, showing consumers how to live a more healthful and balanced lifestyle by incorporating walnuts was a focus this year. Back-to-the-roots “orchard origins” content helped connect consumers to the broader community of California walnuts, and the story of ‘orchard to table’.

This larger range of content themes has allowed California Walnuts to reach new audiences, including men, millennials, health enthusiasts, and more.

In fact, since the launch of the new social media strategy, the California Walnuts social media community has grown nearly 16% — which means over 30,235 people have liked or followed California Walnuts on social media. Instagram was up 90%. It’s not just followers, though. The number of people seeing our content across all social media channels are up 140% comparing year over year, with 67 million total impressions delivered.

A critical metric in social media is engagement, which is the public’s way of letting you know if the content is resonating. These engagements could be likes, shares, comments or saves. These active engagements are up 336% over the previous time period. Some of the most-liked content has been from the monthly #MeatlessMonday series, which celebrates plant-based meals and Power Pairings, where walnuts are showcased with a seasonal ingredient along with a link to a recipe collection on walnuts.org.