DEV Community

Xander Taylor
Xander Taylor

Posted on

What I learned building a social media system for a farm (yes, really)

My most interesting client project this year wasn't a SaaS, a startup, or an app.

It was a farm.

Gardens Farm is a family-run operation in West Yorkshire selling milk, eggs, and local produce. They had a great product, a loyal customer base, and almost zero social media presence. I was brought in to fix that — and ended up building something more systematic than I expected.


The brief

Post consistently. Sound human. Don't be boring. Don't use generic food-brand language.

Simple enough. Except when you're posting multiple times a week, every week, for a brand with a very specific voice — it stops being simple pretty fast.


What I built

A structured content system with a weekly schedule:

  • Tuesday — traditional product spotlight
  • Wednesday — recipe highlight
  • Thursday — milk round / delivery post
  • Friday — Sweet Treat Friday
  • Weekend — flexible, community-focused content

Each day has a content type, a tone guide, and a set of rules. The rules sound small but matter a lot: never use the word "proper," don't imply seasons that don't match the current month, keep it casual and witty rather than corporate.

That level of specificity is what keeps a brand voice consistent when you're producing volume.


The lesson

Brand rules aren't constraints — they're a gift. The more clearly defined the voice, the faster and more confidently you can produce content that actually fits. Vague briefs produce vague output.

Whether you're building a system for a client or writing your own content, nail the rules first. Everything downstream gets easier.


This is part of what I do through Tizzle — web development, but also the digital infrastructure around it: content, social, marketing systems.

xandertaylor.org

Top comments (0)