Establishing and Growing Gleaner’s Online Community
McCracken developed a tailored social media strategy for Gleaner, growing an already engaged community. By spotlighting the people behind the brand, both the internal team and dedicated owners, McCracken helped humanize the Gleaner brand and foster a space for authentic conversation, connection, and sharing.
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY • CONTENT DEVELOPMENT • COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
About
Gleaner manufactures combines for farmers who want efficiency, reliability, and productivity from their equipment. Gleaner combines have earned a loyal customer following and a strong reputation for reliability in the farming community. Every combine is built with the farmer in mind.
The Challenge
Gleaner’s social media community was already engaged, particularly on Facebook and YouTube, but growth had plateaued, and content wasn’t reaching new people.
McCracken was tasked with providing new types of content to increase impressions, gain new followers, and increase engagement rates. All of this needed to be achieved organically, without relying on paid media support.
The Solution
McCracken developed platform-specific content tailored to how followers were interacting on each channel.
On YouTube, content focused on long-form, informative content like how-to videos, helping farmers get the most out of their Gleaner equipment.
On Facebook, the content strategy emphasized community-building through nostalgic and “beauty-shot” visuals, and storytelling that encouraged comments and shares, sparking conversation and deepening connections with the brand.
Implementation
McCracken collaborated closely with the Gleaner team to identify and showcase what really sets the Gleaner brand apart–its simple, dependable machinery AND the passionate people behind it.
By highlighting both the Gleaner team and loyal users, the content inspired a deeper sense of community and connection online, which helped drive both engagement and follower growth.
McCracken also enhanced community management across platforms to further encourage conversation and create more opportunities for meaningful interactions with the brand.
Results
The new content strategy drove significant, high-quality organic growth and engagement across Gleaner’s social channels:
- Gained over 9,000 new Facebook followers organically, increasing the average monthly growth rate tenfold from 1.5% to 15.88%.
- The new followers were highly engaged, increasing the organic engagement rate from 1.5% to consistently over 4% each month.
- Monthly organic Facebook impressions increased by 56%, reaching over 370,000–without any paid support.
- On YouTube, average watch time jumped from 25% to over 66% quarterly, signaling stronger content quality and audience retention.
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