Ryan McEnaney

Greenhouse Management: Were there experiences you had that catalyzed your interest and belief in social media?

Ryan McEnaney: Before I came back to Bailey — I grew up working in the company and then moved away and did other stuff — my first job was freelancing for the company doing social in 2012, 2013. At that time, it didn’t really exist for plant brands or companies to really use social. But because of my work in other industries and seeing the impact of what social could do, I thought it was really important. They did have social profiles for our brands, but they weren’t doing a whole lot. So we took a really hard look at how we were speaking to people, what our goals were and, especially at that time, did a lot of testing of what did and did not work. We saw our Endless Summer page grow from hundreds of followers to 10,000 pretty darn quickly because we changed our approach and tried to be more relatable and less sales focused. Just seeing how that worked and its impact really helped push Bailey and those brands.

GM: Do you think the industry values social media more than it did?

RM: It’s really changed a lot. When I would give social talks at events in, say 2014 or 2015, it was really hard to convince people, especially smaller businesses that don’t have a marketing team, that social was an important piece of the puzzle. That’s changed greatly. Even with organizations that don’t have big departments or don’t have a marketing department at all, there’s at least a recognition that it’s important. And the tools that exist now make it so that it doesn’t have to be someone’s full-time job. If you have the capacity and the budget for it, that’s great. But there are things you can do so it doesn’t have to be a full-time job.

GM: Is there a social platform you are most intrigued by in terms of its potential?

RM: I think TikTok is one that’s really interesting and we haven’t even done it yet because, until last year when I moved into the role I’m in now, I just didn’t have time to do it. And we didn’t want to do it halfway. If you’re going to dive in, you have to have a strategy behind it. We think we want to start with Bailey on there because we think there’s so many cool people stories and behind-the-scenes things that we can show that are not just relevant to people that work in horticulture, but could be a really cool recruiting too. Showing sustainability and green initiatives behind the scenes, we think, could entice people to come work in horticulture whether they have a degree in it or not.