“I have such huge trust in all of you and your team.”
Ann BarnetteMilford DDA Executive Director
Client
Year
Deliverables
Photography
Video
Situation
Downtown Milford, a beloved historic downtown district known for its vibrant small businesses, community spirit and destination events, partnered with Franco for more than a decade to build and sustain its social media presence and brand awareness. While early efforts focused on establishing brand consistency and steady community engagement, the rise of social media as a primary channel for discovery and connection presented a new opportunity and challenge.
Downtown Milford needed to evolve its social media strategy to keep pace with how audiences consume content and how the algorithms evolve. The challenge wasn’t just to maintain visibility, but to grow it meaningfully in an increasingly competitive, fast-paced digital landscape. That meant moving beyond traditional social posts to embrace a more dynamic content strategy with higher focus on short-form video.
Franco was tasked with modernizing Downtown Milford’s social media presence by leveraging short-form video to expand reach and drive engagement. The objectives included:
- Capture and communicate the energy of the downtown community through business owner storytelling.
- Increase digital engagement and audience growth across Instagram and Facebook.
- Support local businesses and events through more shareable, discoverable content.
- Convert online momentum into real-world traffic and community involvement.
This shift laid the groundwork for audience growth, stronger community connection and a measurable increase in engagement.
Approach
In response to the constantly changing algorithms and the shift to short-form video content, Franco revamped Milford’s social media strategy to prioritize Instagram Reels and more human-focused imagery.
Our team worked closely with the Milford Downtown Development Authority and local merchants to determine priorities and how to best showcase the community’s stories through video and social media storytelling. Our services and partnership included:
Social Media
- Create weekly content for Instagram and Facebook (static image posts, Reels and Stories)
- Daily community management
- Competitor monitoring
Photography / Videography
- Quarterly content shoots to capture photos and videos for social media platforms
- Coordinate merchant interviews for highlight Reels
- Create quarterly shot list for each visit
Strategy + Reporting
- Monthly reporting and analysis of social media performance to inspire future content themes and campaigns
- Competitor benchmarking.
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
Results
In June 2023, Franco began to elevate Downtown Milford’s social media presence by introducing short-form video/Reels, including merchant interviews and professional videography, as well as a quality-over-quantity approach to strategically showcase the people and stories behind the local businesses.
The results show this approach resonated. Here’s how Downtown Milford’s social presence grew YoY from June 2024-June 2025 compared to June 2023-June 2024.
- Sustained total Instagram reach.
Even with fewer posts, Milford sustained a similar total reach on Instagram. - Facebook reach remained strong despite cadence change.
While there was a minimal drop in total reach (677.34K → 632.35K), this number was extremely strong despite a significantly decreased posting cadence, suggesting high-quality posts continued to draw in a substantial, relevant audience. - Competitive performance trend.
Milford improved its competitor ranking from 8th to 4th place in Facebook engagement rate when compared to other Michigan downtowns. - Engagement stability across platforms.
Facebook engagement rate remained steady at 1.75% despite algorithm shifts and reduced posting cadence.
Instagram’s engagement rate increased from 8.25% to 8.43%, showing content efficiency and resilience.
These results demonstrate that investing in high-quality, story-driven content can strengthen audience connection and competitive position, even with a reduced posting cadence.
