PORGIES HAWTHORN

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When Porgies came to The Likes Of You, the brief wasn’t just to post more content.

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It was to make the brand feel relevant again.

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The goal was to refresh the café’s identity, better reflect the people behind the business, connect with a younger audience and create a marketing ecosystem that worked online and in person.

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From social media management and content creation to influencer marketing, local SEO and Meta Ads, we became Porgies’ outsourced marketing team.

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SERVICES

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Social Media Management (Instagram & TikTok)

Content Creation (Hi-Fi, Mid-Fi & Lo-Fi)

Influencer Marketing

Local Area Marketing

Google Business Optimisation

Local SEO

Meta Advertising

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THE CHALLENGE

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Porgies had a great product and an even better team, but its digital presence wasn’t telling that story.

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The brief was to refresh the brand, better reflect the people behind the café and create content that resonated with a younger audience, all while staying true to the local community that made Porgies what it is.

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That meant moving beyond traditional café content and building a brand people wanted to follow, not just somewhere they wanted to eat.

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THE STRATEGY

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Instead of relying solely on polished food photography, we built a content ecosystem that balanced premium brand imagery with relatable, entertaining content.

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Every shoot was art directed with flash photography, thoughtful styling and carefully selected props to create an editorial look that stood out in the hospitality space. Alongside this, we produced a steady stream of mid-fi and lo-fi content that felt native to social media while maintaining a premium brand feel.

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The result was a feed that looked cohesive, felt authentic and gave people a reason to keep coming back.

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The Mic’d Up Series

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One of the biggest wins came from a simple idea. After testing a number of creative concepts through short-form Reels, we launched the Mic’d Up Series via trial reels.

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Two Gen Z mates. One café table. Real conversations.

There was no script, no obvious sales message and no forced branding. Just relatable conversations that happened to take place at Porgies.

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The series generated tens of thousands of views, high shares and introduced the café to an entirely new audience, proving that personality often outperforms promotion.

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Celebrating the local community

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Community has always been part of the Porgies brand, so we looked for collaborations that genuinely made sense.

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Working with Hawthorn AFL premiership player Josh Gibson, we created a venue takeover where he jumped behind the coffee machine, chatted with customers and became part of the team for the day.

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Because Josh already had a strong connection with the local community, the content felt authentic rather than promotional, resulting in strong engagement from both existing customers and new audiences.

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Becoming the café people found first

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Great content is only part of the equation. Alongside social media, we implemented an ongoing local SEO and Google Business strategy designed to improve visibility across Google Search and Google Maps.

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Combined with Meta Ads, this ensured Porgies wasn’t just entertaining people on social media, it was also showing up when locals were actively searching for somewhere to eat.

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BY THE NUMBERS

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Social Media (Last 90 Days)

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491,800 total views

123,400 accounts reached

10,800 content interactions

338,374 organic views

140,826 paid views

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Our best-performing content consistently centred around personality, humour and community, proving that people connect with people before products.

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Local SEO

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Our search strategy positioned Porgies as one of Hawthorn’s most visible cafés online.

#1 Google Maps ranking for “Hawthorn Cafes”

Top 2 Google Maps rankings across major Hawthorn café searches

302 organic keywords ranking

89 referring domains

Approximately 890 monthly organic visitors

Up to 14,700 monthly Google Search impressions

Up to 862 organic clicks per month

Click-through rate up to 5.9%

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Meta Advertising

(Last 90 Days)

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Paid social amplified organic content while driving awareness and website traffic.

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184,809 impressions

65,497 people reached

8,621 total clicks

2,628 website clicks

$0.95 cost per website click

4.66% overall click-through rate

$13.53 CPM

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WHY IT WORKED

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The results didn’t come from one viral Reel.

They came from connecting every part of the marketing strategy.

Organic social built personality.

Content creation gave the brand a recognisable visual identity.

Meta Ads extended reach.

Google Business and SEO captured local search intent.

Community collaborations strengthened trust.

Together, each channel made the others more effective, helping Porgies become one of Hawthorn’s most visible and recognisable cafés both online and offline.

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LOOKING TO GROW YOUR HOSPITALITY BRAND?

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Whether you need social media management, content creation, influencer marketing, local SEO or paid advertising, we help hospitality brands become the venues people discover, remember and recommend.

Let’s build something people want to show up for. Say hello@thelikesofyou.com.au

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