The Social Angle With Marin Le Cour Grandmaison, Deputy Director, Hippodrome Chantilly

More and more businesses in the thoroughbred industry are using social media to strengthen their brand and reach out to current and potential customers and clients. We caught up with Marin Le Cour Grandmaison, Deputy Director at Hippodrome Chantilly, to talk about how they use social media to share insights from the training grounds and the racecourse in Chantilly.

TDN: What are the benefits of social media marketing for businesses in the Thoroughbred industry?

MCG: When my boss Matthieu Vincent and I created our social media accounts, it wasn't about benefits. It was more about sharing our passion. We work in a beautiful place and we felt that we had to share it. People from all over the world have heard about Chantilly, but few are blessed enough to have the opportunity to visit. So, we wanted to give people an idea about the industry here, and with social media that is so easy to do.

We can say that our benefit is to share our industry. Horse racing is unknown for many but our social media accounts allow us to show people how it works and how the horses are trained. It is also a perfect way of sharing information with trainers and owners.

TDN: What social channels do you prefer, and what type of content do you post on each platform?

MCG: We started with a Facebook page three or four years ago, and more recently we also opened a Twitter and an Instagram account. We are no social media experts, we mainly work with the tracks. But we have found that Facebook and Instagram are more for the general public – people who like horses – and they like to see beautiful photos such as horses training in the sunrise. Twitter is more professional. Most of the trainers have got Twitter accounts and this is where we would share more detailed information, such as the state of the ground on all racedays, or information about horses. People like to see photos there too, but on Twitter it doesn't really matter if it's sunrise or if it's grey and rainy! But we stay out of politics and journalism, because that is not our job. We only share positive things.

TDN: You have more than 10,000 followers on your Facebook page. What's the secret?

MCG: We post a couple of times per week, and most of it is photos and videos taken with my iPhone. We are lucky to have such nice landscape and nice light, so it is easy to get a good picture here. We just post what we see, what we think is interesting, and that keeps it personal and very close to our followers. A video we posted last year after a big storm, with horses walking through water on the track, got more than 400,000 views. Everyone was interested in seeing what happened after the storm.

   And I think people enjoy seeing what is happening behind the scenes and on the tracks, and to find out all the secrets! In Chantilly, we have 145 km of sand tracks and that requires a lot of work. We have almost 100 people working with the maintenance of the training grounds, so there is a lot going on behind the scenes.

   We don't do any advertising or anything like that, but we share our work and our passion, and it seems to appeal to people.

TDN: How do you measure success? Can you convert social media followers into customers?

MCG: We don't measure success, but each time we organise an event we share all the information on social media, and invite people. I'm sure it has resulted in more people going racing.

TDN: What are your advice for other organisation or businesses that want to increase their social media use?

MCG: It doesn't have to be complicated. We don't have a person working with social media or marketing. We just take photos and share them.

TDN: What are the biggest mistakes to avoid making?

MCG: Spelling mistakes. Internet users can be so rude!

TDN: How much time does it take every week?

MCG: We try to publish something a few times per week, and it doesn't take much time. My generation is always using social media and I spend time on Twitter and on Facebook anyway, and to just take a photo and press share is very quick and easy.