The world of social media has become a huge part of everyday life – and the work we do as the BID in Harrogate is no exception.

Over recent years, much like everyone else in the business world, we’ve found that the use of social media has become a key part of the promotional aspect of our daily work as we look to spread the word and highlight Harrogate as a safe, clean and welcoming place for businesses, residents and visitors.

There are clear benefits of the use of social media for Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), whether that be interacting and information sharing with our levy-paying members, building loyalty and relationships with key partners in our town all while publicising the constant work we do to deliver our Business Plan.

With more than 7,500 followers across our channels, we share constant updates on the campaigns, services and events we deliver to maintain our town’s reputation as the jewel in Yorkshire’s crown.

According to research, the top 3 social media platforms in 2025 are Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok – all of which we are active on and aim to post on with daily updates and stories on our activities.

Our accounts across these platforms receive tens of thousands of impressions, engagements, visits and views every month as we look to build our follower count by introducing new content. Over the last month, the Harrogate BID Facebook page gathered over 65,000 impressions with almost 13,000 views on videos published across the month. Meanwhile, over on Instagram, our account collected almost 34,000 impressions.

Our top performing post on Facebook from across the last year was to promote the Candy Cane Express Christmas animation, with a reach of more than 16,000 and over 23,000 unique views from users.

We also often use our channels to support our members businesses across the town centre, whether that’s shouting about events, deals or campaigns they’re planning to deliver or using our channels to spread the word on the fantastic offer across the business community to thousands of followers.

Over the last year, we have created and published hundreds of video reels to offer a wider promotion of our town. These have gathered hundreds of thousands of views from a vast demographic – and often feature different streets to highlight the excellent offer in various locations of the town centre or focus attention on businesses across the different sectors that make up Harrogate’s community.

Looking back at our data, we can see that we have provided posts on our accounts to support members on more than 80 different occasions over the last year – and we’re looking to build on this as we move further into our second term.

We receive very positive feedback from our members on the range of posts we create, with new businesses often reaching out to request a post on our channels to help them push an event, reductions or other sales or increase awareness of their brand or offer.

On the odd occasion, we also take a partnered approach to posting on our social media channels. We work collaboratively alongside the likes of local media outlets and other groups or businesses which can sometimes offer a wider reach when sharing key information on some of the events we deliver, new campaigns or changes in any of our services.

Some of the services, event and campaigns we offer are sometimes captured by visitors and residents and then posted or shared onto social media. For example, in summer last year, ‘Team BGee’ took to the streets of Harrogate to provide entertainment with comedy, music and dancing. One onlooker captured this on video, with the organic post going on to gather almost one millions views across different social media platforms!

Although we utilise social media for the good of the organisation and our town’s business community, we do occasionally come across challenges such as negative comments and fake accounts spreading false information on the work we do in our town. We do what we can to prevent this from happening and often reply to any comments to answer questions or clear any queries our members or other users may have, but no organisation is immune from some negativity in the online space…

As the BID, we really do see the huge value of using social media to promote, inform and highlight the events, services and campaigns we deliver across the year to ensure Harrogate remains as a must-visit destination! We have plans in place for the upcoming years, so watch this space…

If you have any questions, or would like to speak with us about working collaboratively on social media, please email our team on info@harrogatebid.co.uk