Category Archives: Social Media

We’re just a few short months away from professional virtual reality (VR) headsets to hit the consumer market in a storm of holiday promotions, and the future is here.

Google Cardboard  - Free Consumer VR

Google Cardboard, an approximately $20 box frame with plastic lenses, went on sale this year as a proving ground for this new technology and it’s been a wild success. Google brings the concept to anyone who wants to explore the new tech, with free designs for the cardboard headset also available on their website. Reminiscent of the red plastic View-Masters of the late 1980’s, these cardboard boxes have a simple slot for a cell phone. All you have to do is download a VR app to a smartphone and the world of virtual reality is in your hands. 

What is a hashtag?

Hashtags are now an integral part of how we communicate and market online. Originating with Twitter, they are now included in most social networks. They can be used ironically (#sorrynotsorry) to punctuate a message, but the true purpose of the hashtag is much more important!

Hashtags are, quite simply, a search tool. It’s a tag, similar to organising a product on a shelf, with the hash symbol in front of it. (Tagged with a hash symbol = hash-tag.) Adding this to a post makes it searchable for anyone with an interest in your business or topic. When a user clicks on a hashtag or enters it in the search field, they find all content that includes the term. Hashtags can be used within Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to help target your audience and collect...

More and more tourism businesses are coming to grips with the reality that Social Media is an important component of their brand and customer engagement.

One of the best ways to do this is using Facebook and adding 'apps' to your page which showcase products and get people talking about your brand.

Two handy Facebook apps for the tourism business:

Tour Radar

If you run a tour company, this great Aussie-born App is ideal. Tour Radar provides the ability to sell tours, offers a platform for travellers to meet each other prior to the tour starting and share qualified reviews - all on your Facebook page. Another very attractive feature of Tour Radar is the all-important Facebook Competition. Tour Radar has a competition component that can dramatically increase your...

There's a new kid on the block of Social Media which lets you connect with your audiences in the most visual way yet. 

When marketing a tourism business, when it comes to piquing the interest of a potential guest or customer, the visual will always work better than the verbal. This is why the new Social Media site, Pinterest, should be of interest to you.

With Pinterest, you can organise images on your own online inspiration board, or pinboard - then engage with your social networks, link back to your website and let people share your images with the world.

Pinterest offers many creative marketing opportunities for your Tourism Business. You can showcase the various details or experiences your accommodation or activity offers in a visually arresting way. Using photos, share...

Trip Advisor - For around USD600.00, a B&B can get a business account with Trip Advisor that not only lets you list contact details and your website, but lets you add a special offer to the front page for the region when searched. Even better - travellers can receive your specials by email for each region they will be visiting

www.tripadvisor.com

Newsletters - When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys, but not with MailChimp! It's free if you have less than 2000 contacts, and offers a slew of templates, or lets you design your own email newsletters. You can share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use, and track your results.

See some of our tourism marketing newsletter designs or head to www.mailchimp.com and get started!

Google Places - Fast track...

As the recent 6.3 earthquake struck Christchurch, it was Social Media that we turned to, getting messages and information out to family and friends across the globe within a matter of seconds. The online sentiment felt worldwide was one of tremendous pain; and messages of sympathy and hope for those affected blanketed our twitter feeds, our facebooks and youtube accounts.

An earthquake of this magnitude touches all facets of a community's economy and lives, and as Christchurch is one of New Zealand's key tourism destinations this will be a significant blow to "Christchuch" as a brand. Our strategic partner Dr. Mathew McDougall, CEO for the China based firm SinoTech Group, is a South Islander himself, and one of the global experts on Social Media Strategy and Analytics.

The...