Winner: Yorkshire Eyewear
Shortlisted:
• Tompkins Knight and Son Optometrists
• Urquhart Opticians
• Woodstreet Opticians
Yorkshire Eyewear demonstrated themselves as a progressive player in the optical industry by winning the Social Media Practice of the Year at Optician Awards 2022. The practice triumphs at building a platform to engage with its customers and local community with the aim to share entertaining content and infographics across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, raise awareness for important optical issues and inform customers of relevant news surrounding Yorkshire Eyewear.
Meg Lazenby, social media manager and optical assistant, says the team were pleasantly surprised to find out they were victorious on the night of the 2022 Optician Awards ceremony, last November. ‘We were in a category with some excellent practices, so winning was almost a shock. We were absolutely elated to take the trophy home,’ she adds.
The judges praised Yorkshire Eyewear for excelling across various channels, brand consistency, using a good balance of fun and educational content, and for using ambassadors within their business to create more relatable content.
Being an optical influencer
Yorkshire Eyewear recognises the importance of social media for reaching a larger audience and giving a voice to eye care professionals (ECPs). Its three times a week posting schedule per platform has amounted to a reach of 24,000+, and this has only increased since winning. The platforms keep to a vibrant on-brand theme of green, boosting the professional aesthetic on their feeds, which is so vital for success in the social media world.
Lazenby says: ‘We believe opticians can have a positive influence through social media by being informative, not just commercial. Making the general public aware of eye health, and innovations in the industry, such as myopia management, is how we can make a huge difference to people’s lives.’
Building relationships with patients is a key part of being an ECP and the practice reflects this through their social platforms. This is shown through posts featuring optometrist and owner Garrey Haase spreading eye care knowledge and advocating for campaigns like the British Contact Lens Association’s Love Your Lenses, as well as posting about involvement with local community events, the importance of eye examinations and welcoming customers’ dogs in the store.
‘We aim to create more posts where members of our team are speaking to the camera. We believe having real people talking on our social channels will improve our relationships with customers, as they continue to get to know the faces behind their local opticians. Building these relationships is essential for us, as it builds up customer loyalty, and allows us to retain abiding, valuable customers,’ says Lazenby. ‘We also believe that giving our followers and clients a voice is essential in making the service we provide something customers truly want and will continue to invest in.’
Yorkshire Eyewear’s ‘Optician’s Word of the Week’ series was a popular example of consistent educational content featured, and the practice plans to have Haase read the ‘Optician’s Word of the Week’ in a short video clip, rather than have static image posts. The practice is ambitious about developing its followers by increasing interactive posts like these, as well as by asking for customer input.
Lazenby adds: ‘We believe that the stand-out feature was not only the quality of the content we produce, but also the variety of platforms we utilise to get our messages out. We believe our ability to reach and engage with so many different demographics through social media is what sets us aside.’
Future plans
Yorkshire Eyewear is constantly experimenting with new platforms, such as TikTok and digital apps. A popular frame styling TikTok video posted from an external account demonstrated its gradual ascension into diverse platforms, with the video gaining 223,000 views as of late 2022. This created huge traction for the social media pages and helped spotlight them as a practice with passion and expertise in frame styling, which the optician notes is a key part of appointments.
Lazenby concludes: ‘You can expect continual improvement from Yorkshire Eyewear in the future, in terms of social media. Technology and the way social media is used by consumers is constantly evolving, and so are we. Since the awards, we have developed an app for our customers to elevate their patient journey even further, which was rolled out on February 17 under the name Yorkshire Eyewear, and we are always looking for ways to give our patients something bigger and better. We are looking forward to entering [Optician Awards] again this year with even more on our portfolio.’