Deirdre Mahon of Quack and Dirk in Fairview, Dublin:' On Instagram you can check Insights, and I know I should be doing that, but I don’t. I purposely don’t because I want to be really genuine.' Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Many of the customers who come through her door tell her they’ve been drawn in by her Instagram page, which has more than 4,000 followers, and features snaps and videos of Mahon, staff and customers modelling the latest stock, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at running the shop day to day.
'We just try to keep it natural; our own personality, really': Emma and Ross Johnston of Hunter Paper Co in Belfast. Photograph: Laura J Curran “There’s a Japanese brand called Hobonichi that we’ve just got in, and literally just one post about it on Instagram was huge for us. We did a reel about these pencils, Blackwing Pencils, that have a very specific cult following in art circles. It took off on Instagram and we definitely saw a traffic spike from that,” she says.
“[Instagram] is great for local customers who come into the shop, to keep them updated with what we have, but also to reach a bit further as well, especially for our online customers, being able to give them the feeling of what our shop is like in person.
“Visually I feel sometimes that social media in general is just a little bit samey-samey. We try to lean away from just pretty girls in pretty dresses; there’s got to be a bit of humour or narrative, or something that will resonate with people,” she says. Colin Murphy, owner of the West Cork Beard Company based in Clonakilty, says his business would be “doomed” if he wasn’t able to connect with people on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
Seemingly counterintuitive to the idea of winning over his target market, Murphy’s most successful posts even poke good-natured fun at fellow beard growers, such as about how it seems impossible to eat ice-cream without looking like a messy-faced three-year-old, or to wake up without looking like a mountain goat.
But even that small investment can pay dividends, as he says it takes only a single hit video to reap large returns. “Without social media I think I would struggle to keep going, I think it’s the main driver towards my sales and also my main source of community,” she says.