Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Western Australia tourism business discovers power of social media just in time

Monday, December 16th, 2013
Photo credit; Jason A. Howie on Flickr

Photo credit; Jason A. Howie on Flickr

A Western Australia tourism business on the brink of bankruptcy discovered just how powerful social media could be in the nick of time.

After spending tens of thousands of dollars on traditional advertising for his one-man Margaret River Discovery Company and getting nothing in return, Sean Blocksidge was five days away from packing it in for good when the social media gods smiled on him. A few couples who had partaken in tours with his company, which provides 4WD tours of the rocky coast and canoeing on Margaret River’s famous waterway, left positive reviews on TripAdvisor and opened the floodgates for Blocksidge.

“I didn’t understand the power of this thing,” said Blocksidge. “And the algorithms behind it suddenly spun me up into the number one thing to do in Margaret River. That was it. The next morning, everything turned around. The phone and email went nuts and I’ve never looked back. Chock-a-block every day.”

For two straight years, it was then listed as the number one tourist activity in Australia.

And every day, Blocksidge does his due diligence by spending 15 minutes taking and uploading a photo of the region to his Facebook page, which auto-links to Twitter, and he then re-posts it to Instagram.

If it’s picked up by TourismWA, his image is viewed by millions.

To read more on this story, click here.

Learn the ins and outs of using Facebook and Twitter for your business

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013

The Australia Business Review has posted a short guide to Facebook and Twitter, the two social media behemoths.

Photo credit; Jason A. Howie on Flickr

Photo credit; Jason A. Howie on Flickr

The guide notes that interaction on Facebook is more personal than on some social sites which is a great tool for engaging audiences.

Facebook allows you to post videos, long updates, run campaigns and events, plus pay for promotion. Advertising on the site is easy because all you need to do is plug in the amount of money you’d like to spend on ad placement per day and Facebook handles the rest.

People that like a business page can send messages with questions, or post on the timeline of the page and even negative comments can be addressed in a way that allows others to see you care about customers.

Using Twitter, on the other hand, is good for a business because thousands of people can share your message in an instant. Interaction is similar to instant messaging, only with a potential audience of thousands or more.

As with Facebook, Twitter can be a place where customer service is showcased, but it must be done within Twitter’s 140 character limit.

Using Twitter and Facebook together is often the best choice for business, the guide says.

To read more on this story, click here.

 

SEO out, social media in as ways to attract customers for online business

Monday, July 8th, 2013

SEO, the once all-powerful method of attracting online customers, has been demoted to co-star in the online marketing realm, as social media takes over the starring role.

According to Mark Gustowski, the global business development manager of Pyksis, SEO is just a small facet of online marketing now when trying to grow your customer base.

Much more effective is social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, Tumblr and LinkedIn because they offer the opportunity for customer engagement.

Using Twitter as an example, Gustowski says companies can now actively look for potential customers using these social media tools. An online retailer of virus protection software, for example, could use the hashtag (#) search function in Twitter for finding people who have been hit with a virus (#computervirus or #virus) and then further narrow the search to a certain geographical region and then talk one-on-one with those potential customers via Twitter by tweeting to them.

The important thing to remember, Gustowski says, is that social media is all about engagement rather than the ‘hard sell’ and customers should be approached in a conversational manner.

To read more on this story, click here.

Social Media Helps Build Strong Brands

Thursday, March 22nd, 2012

More and more websites feature links to an associated social media page, most commonly Facebook and Twitter. The benefits of using social media to help interact with your users is endless.

baselinemag.com has 6 pointers on how to use social media to build a stronger brand.

Here are the top 3:

  1. Identify interested customers to encourage brand loyalty.
  2. Build a community to communicate with customers and improve service.
  3. Create viral videos and engage with consumers to promote new products and brands.

Check out of the rest of the tips over at baselinemag.com