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, façade solutions and custom work in natural stone, ceramics and composite; installation of floors and screed; and logistics covering national and international transport and port operations.
With multiple companies, brands and audiences inside one group, communication plays a key part in building visibility, expertise and employer brand. That's a lot of stories to tell — and a lot of channels to tell them on.
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 is only one piece of a much larger operation: campaigns, events, websites, product communication, employer branding, internal communication and commercial support all sit within the marketing team's remit.
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 clarity and easier collaboration across the team.
One central environment for all channels
Since moving to Willow, the team manages every social media channel from a single environment. Content is planned, tracked and analysed for LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram in one place.
The main gains are time and clarity. Rather than managing each platform separately, the team now works from one shared planning. That frees up marketing 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. 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.
The momentum shows up channel by channel, too. 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.
Steady, structured growth across every channel — and every business line.
Results that go beyond the numbers
Marketing, HR and the sustainability team 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.