How Groep Verhelst manages social media efficiently across multiple teams and activities
With the help of Willow, Linda Verkempinck gradually built up Groep Verhelst's social media activity to more than 800 posts per year.
Groep Verhelst is headquartered in Oudenburg, Belgium, and employs around 400 people across 11 locations. The group brings together four complementary activities: trade in building materials, wood, tiles and finishing materials; production of prefab concrete, facade solutions and custom work in natural stone, ceramics and composite; installation of floors and screed; and logistics services covering national and international transport and port operations. With multiple companies, brands and audiences within the group, communication plays a key part in improving their visibility, expertise and employer brand.
Social media as part of a broader marketing operation
"Social media has been part of a professional marketing approach at Groep Verhelst for years. The team already worked with content planning, fixed formats and clear communication guidelines. But social media is just one piece of a larger operation: campaigns, events, websites, product communication, employer branding, internal communication and commercial support all sit within the marketing team's remit." Linda Verkempinck, Marketing Manager
That's exactly why, in 2023, Groep Verhelst went looking for a way to organise their social media planning more efficiently. With multiple companies, channels and target audiences within the group, they wanted more overview and simpler collaboration without adding more complexity.
One central environment for all channels
Since moving to Willow, the team manages all their social media channels from a single environment. Content is planned, tracked and analysed for LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram in one place.
The main gains: time and clarity. Rather than managing each platform separately, the team now works from one shared planning. That frees up the marketing team to spend more time on strategic initiatives instead of platform admin.
Collaboration across marketing, HR and sustainability
As more departments became active on social media, the need for structured collaboration grew with it. Today, colleagues from HR and the sustainability team can prepare content and draft posts themselves. Marketing then reviews tone of voice, makes adjustments where needed and ensures consistent publication across all channels.
The result: expertise from different parts of the business reaches the audience faster, while the quality and consistency of the communication stays intact.
Two years of steady growth
Groep Verhelst now manages multiple company pages through Willow, publishing more than 800 social media posts per year across all their activities. Together, those pages have grown to more than 17,500 followers (up 37% over two years).
Over the same period, they reached more than 1.5 million impressions and around 132,000 engagements across all channels.
In the past year, Instagram impressions grew by +13.55% and follower count by +11.16%. Facebook saw +25.66% follower growth and a +28.87% increase in published posts. Among the smaller LinkedIn company pages, Verhelst Prefab leads the way with +51.65% new followers.
Results that go beyond the numbers
"The growth in reach, followers and engagement confirms that a consistent approach works. But for us, the biggest value is in the way we now collaborate."
Marketing, HR and the sustainability team can all contribute more efficiently to Groep Verhelst's communications. Everyone works from the same environment, with clear processes and a shared overview.
For Groep Verhelst that means a stronger social media presence, more visibility for their different activities, and a way of working that fits the scale and diversity of the group.
