Bushfires & Pandemics: Marketing Strategy During a Crisis

hello okay so can you see and hear me okay okay um well hello i'm georgie from the south australian tourism commission um i am the social media and content manager and i have been with the agency for almost four years and yeah so today we are excited to share a little bit about how the satc has reacted to not only the bushfires but corona virus as well um so just as a quick agenda um the i'll give you a quick overview of um the social and

content strategy here at sapc and how that fits into the marketing team um we'll go through the bushfire phase one and two and then um without much of a break in reality and in the presentation there will be a little bit of a run-through of covert 19 and the three phases that we've got um running with that um take you through a little bit of that edm strategy and then open up to questions that's going to be 30 minutes um and there's a ticker on the

left hand side so that's good we can keep um track of time um so the south australian tourism um commission um is responsible really for um bringing our visitors into the state um and it's an industry that is a really big growth industry at the end of 2019 we recorded one point sorry 8.1 billion dollars in the visitor economy um and the role of satc's marketing team um is really to focus on bringing international and national visitors to the state but as well as getting south

australians dispersed across the state so we can um to get yeah to get money into the visitor economy um which then in turn um increases jobs um and at the end of december 2019 we're not quite so much right now um but the the tourism industry was responsible for around 40 000 jobs so it's a massive industry um and with the likes of bushfire and povert19 it does have a really massive impact so um we're not through it all yet and it's an ever-changing beast but

um yeah we'll do what we can to share with you what we've done today um so just on um a very very top-line level and the social and content team sits within the marketing team and we're part of the digital marketing team so when i first started um the social media was really focused on increasing a bit like our growth like our fan growth um and we were really focused on getting likes and comments real sort of vanity metrics um which is not so much today

we'll go through that shortly um but we we did this quite aggressively for two years and we we sort of um were really focused on on those vanity metrics and we did end up becoming the fastest growing in in australia and we took over new south wales and um and wa for you know the size of our accounts and then we became the most engaged of the accounts and that was all well and good like it was a really good starting point but we had this

massive community and what could we do with that to show our industry that that was actually providing some dividends to them um and that was quite challenging because vanity metrics means nothing to an operator um in the clear valley and they they just don't see that the the metrics coming through um you know the bottom line or visitation from from social so we had to really look at our role in in the marketing team and to see how we wanted to fit within and demonstrating um

the the worth to to industry um and so really what we've done over the last 12 to 18 months it's been a really interesting testing period um and we've we've really committed to swinging the pendulum in the other direction um and getting quite far from the feel and the plan and the thinking stage to the sort of more of the booking and conversion stage and without hopefully being too obvious to our community we've really um focused on involving the social strategy to um traffic to site

um and atdw leads which i will explain soon um and demonstrating social operator leads as well which is um you know when you do an instagram story and you do a tag say if we tagged um darren burke cube then we can demonstrate that we had a thousand people click through to the darrenberg cube instagram account for example um so we yeah so we just we that was our primary focus and then our engagement and our vanity metrics were really sort of a minor secondary focus

and it was just about maintenance that wasn't necessarily about growth um so we're just in planning stages for the next year and we'll probably swimming the pendulum sort of towards the middle uh middle of the two tests that we've done um but that's what's really exciting about social media is really adapting um and doing a lot of testing because there's no right and wrong and there's definitely no right and wrong for different industries um it's it's about what works for your business and it's about who

follows you so um that's that's probably the biggest learning um is really doing a lot of testing and a lot of measuring and how do you measure um and for us um that's really um that's really sort of the crux of how we we measure our performances looking at you know traffic to site and atdw leads and social operator leads so i'll get into that shortly um but just as a quick rundown i thought i mean they're pretty interesting stats um to share and um we

we're not sort of um but we certainly don't boast about this it's more just um just interesting really and i think it's really interesting to get insights to other businesses on what they can achieve um and by all means um you know this is not super sensitive information at all it's just it's just a matter of fact so um our our traffic site for our own channels and this is just so it's clear owned channels is what we don't put marketing funds behind um so it's

really our organic channels um and our organic community so we're just using our community to to achieve these results without any funds so we had um just over 150 000 people to the site from facebook and instagram stories um and they're the two platforms that we use to get traffic to the site so it's just two platforms um product views so um just as a bit of a summary our website um is is basically um dynamite for us and that's really what we do as a

business from a digital marketing point of view um our website is at the core of our strategy and the the key pillar of that um function is a tdw which is an australian tourism data warehouse which is a centralized warehouse for like a cloud-based warehouse for um tourism businesses to register and they self-content manage the platform so an example here is the letter porcini in the adelaide hills and they create a listing with the australian tourism data warehouse and then we um can pull that through

on our website and every other state does this as well um so it's just a really great centralized um database for us to be able to feature a lot of tourism warehouse our searchers and businesses without us content managing because that would be a nightmare um so we are focused on um hearing heroining our atdw listings which is our operators um on our website and then a lead is what that what that lead means is um we want not only to them to view this listing

which is a product view we want them to click on the website so the big red button at the bottom or we want to click on their email address or if they've got a phone number which for legendary doesn't um then we want them to click on the phone number as well so whenever someone clicks on that that's how we define a lead um so as you can see we had 13 and a half thousand leads which is at the very very pointy end of the

conversion rate for our um for our channels so um it's quite interesting to see um you know the conversion rate percentage if you were to look at um the traffic to site um compared to leads so i think the real evidence for us here is um there's a really big space to for us to play in in the planning and the thinking stage um that's what we will be looking to do over the next 12 months but social operator leads is a really powerful tool for

us to um to really use our reach on instagram stories to feature businesses across the site um sorry across across the website and we want to get people to um to click on the operator say bird cube and we want them to go across to their instagram account and follow them and then we've at least done um you know we've done a job they're getting reach for our operators um so just back to just a quick example which is um on the slide here um we

we want to make sure that when people type in a product or say darren burke cube or velesha puccini we want to be the first person um up on on this site and i'm a colleague emily primaveron will be presenting tomorrow so hopefully you guys can tune in and watch her talk all about the digital marketing strategy um so how this looks for us on a daily weekly monthly and a quarterly of an annual basis is really through our analytics um platform adobe analytics so we

really like to see what our average is and how that week or how that month is performing against our average um and obviously with kpis which is a massive thing um for us to know how we're performing we want to be able to measure this and this is this is critical so um with the light blue line oh sorry um with the light blue line that's our average and on the left is um visits per week to our website um versus the average so the light

blue line is the average and the um the dark blue line is um that week's performance and then on the right hand side um again similarly is leads so what we really like to be able to see here is the peaks and troughs and we want to understand what is the content that's pulling traffic and leads um and we want to be able to make sure that we're constantly um you know having a circular funnel where we get people to the website and then book and

then um or to you know head over to a website about greater and to do some more investigation or make some bookings um and then we also want to keep um that wheel in motion because the more sort of recognition they get from operators the more they're likely to think about taking this um walking more seriously so for us what we um what we need to do is we need to understand what content brings that traffic across to site um and this can be done i

mean you can do this in google analytics and i'll talk about how we i'll talk through how we um display um our urls and how we build them so we can actually understand where this traffic is coming from um but just in a table format we can actually see what products um have driven you know the most traffic and what have generated the most leads for us based on our social traffic so this would either come from an instagram story or from a facebook uh post

um so here just some product names on on the left we can see that we've had um villa village porcini views and then 606 leads so it's really great for us to track and measure and so how we do this is by creating utm links um which i'm sure many of you um know about but if you don't this is um this is an amazing tool um and we just we put the url in we keep the source and medium consistent um and then we just

update the the name or the campaign name which is just the post so for us it's villeta porcini um and then we pop that into bitly so it's not super ugly um and then everything else is done by either google analytics if you've got your google analytics or for us adobe analytics and then we can really um drill down and see what has happened on site thanks to our social posts um and there's content for purpose and we've as i said earlier we're still trying to

maintain engagement um we will still be um over the next 12 months testing what works it's always changing but for the last four months it's been really evident that there are two types of content um for us and and they serve a different purpose and one is very much that reach engagement which is super important um in order to be able to generate traffic so there's two groups here um and whilst they're not together in a room just at home or if at work um have

a little think about which whether the top or the bottom line would generate um leads would it be the top row do you think or do you think at the um would it be the bottom row that would drive more traffic to site and generate leads for businesses so have a little think and then the reveal is one two three yeah so it's the top line um obviously they're more tangible um you know people want to know where that building is what combination that is what

that little star is um and and where that restaurant is so um for us uh there is certainly um merit in in um putting you know amazing photos that um our sunsets and landscapes but we also really need to balance that out with um you know people who are in the planning the booking stage while wanting wanting wanting more information so um and that is really evident with the amount of um leads that are generated so um the top left-hand side there's been 610 leads but

if you were to look at the leads for the one underneath um you'd probably get under 10 because there's really nothing there's no business apart from a tour operator um maybe that would be able to um to take you to that location so that's a really um key uh part of of what we do in social content it's just the tip of the iceberg um and i just thought it'd be a bit of an interesting insight into sort of making um social a little bit more

tangible for your business um but then of course business as usual um this year has not been business as usual it's been the year of crisis comms so um how has satc used social and content um in order to um you know to share um the messaging um across uh our um sorry i was a little bit there um so yes how how we use our social and content to um reach people around the bushfire and covert 19 crises um so obviously we all know um

what happened early january with the kangaroo island and just before january um the adelaide hills bushfires um so between the 3rd and the 10th of january um it was a really pivotal time um for us here at the biz at the agency um we our business as usual to stop because kangaroo island was in the peak time of um of travel uh it gets booked out over summer um so there was um yeah there was there was a lot of things that we just had to

put a standstill on because the situation was constantly changing we were checking and getting updates you know on the hour every hour from cfs um and we were learning about um you know um businesses that had been destroyed and they were unconfirmed and so it was really it was just we just sort of took stock of everything and we just sort of were quite silent what we were doing for a day or two um on on like a media front um but from a social point

of view in these times of crisis we're sort of the first um tool in our arsenal that we can really just stand side by side with our community um and this was like a major um a major blow to uh two regions that we you know we're so keen on on getting visitation to and we've got we're really close to the industry so um we were just humans in this moment and we were just living with it um living through it with with our industry um

and so the first stage um it was just a matter of information sharing um and there was so much happening um you know around and it was happening all over australia as well and we were all seeing through our feeds just really horrible imagery um and it was really cluttered with um what was confirmed and what was unconfirmed and um we think government agency were you know we had access to um say paul and through our communications team so we just um we just were sharing

information that we had um and also obviously the first couple of days it was just about standing side by side um and pretty much just sharing how you can donate and and how you can volunteer and we were you know around the clock for for about five days we just had our dms but just it was so heartwarming to see social media shine in this way um and it's been a while since we've really seen that but um the support that was coming in from international

um you know destinations i remember someone contacting us um through an instagram dm in scotland and they said that they had a 30-minute um community um sort of memorial at their lighthouse and they shared pictures and videos from that and so that was just a really nice thing for us to share with our community because it just really touched everybody um and over the first five days we were able to reach um five million people um through just what we were doing pretty much on on

instagram but also on facebook as well but instagram stories is a massive one for us um and so we were able to get people to um swipe up to the page that we had quickly built on southaustralia.com about how you can donate um but obviously in this instagram story here we haven't done that yet this was the night of the third and the day of the fourth of january so it was just about here's how you can donate um and you know social was a really

important part for us to learn what people were wanting to know um you know small things like the swift code for international donations that wasn't considered before so um we we had that and we talked to the mayor's fund and we made sure we got that information out so it was just an information sharing tool essentially and the big megaphone for for us domestically um but also really internationally um so the men's sort of the first day or two we sort of caught our breath we

all just um you know stopped what we were doing and we just realized that you know there was a lot of people that were um either on the island um and they had to get off or they had holidays booked on kangaroo island and they wanted to know whether they could still come or um what was what was happening so we had a really big job to do on southaustralia.com with just educating people through at faqs um and through how you can help paige whether you

know is kangaroo island 100 burnt down or um what what can i expect when i go there is this operator still hope open are they you know what am i going to see when i get there um so for us it was just about really sort of distilling that information into a really credible source um and these pages were a massive massive driver for traffic through seo so we didn't even have to to do much to get this out there people were just there was a

massive appetite for people searching this and we just had a huge traffic um which we'll talk you through shortly but we just had a huge traffic to these pages but um yeah initially it was a great way for us to be able to share um maps that we you know the design team um satc were just updating on the hour every hour and just updating road closures what businesses weren't open anymore and where you couldn't travel but also it was really important to show that there

was still a major part of the island that was okay and that was sort of the starting point where we had to start turning the comms into yep it's been really horrible but it's also um we also need you to come and if it's safe to do so then you need to come so that was a really sort of treacherous period for us but it was a great segue um into mobilizing the book them out campaign um and boy did we mobilize so we moved really

quickly on the book them out campaign it was yeah it was a really um amazing campaign for for everyone um because it was just it was so emotionally charged but what was interesting is we didn't really have a massive job to do to convince people to to go to kangaroo island i mean the people knew that um you know they had to go to support and so our job was really about facilitating getting people there um and making it affordable for people to to get there

so um uh can you still hear me i think you can still hear me um sorry i'm not actually sure if you can hear me sorry sorry everyone if you can hear me um okay i'm just going to go on this assuming that you have you have access um okay so i'm just assuming that um you can hear me okay great thank you sorry guys um okay so yes the campaign was um uh we didn't really have um much of a job to do um with

convincing people to get to kangaroo island so we wanted to make sure that yeah we facilitated that really quickly um and really easily and it was all about um uh yeah getting people to um to book through through our partners but um you've probably seen the ad um i might just quickly show you this um and make sure yeah okay you can so yeah this is the book about tbc um increased is okay so i don't think you can see that oh oh my goodness okay

can you guys see this oh my goodness okay um hey georgie it's romania here how are you that's okay you've been doing fantastic oh thanks it looked like the screen had cut off so i wasn't sure if anyone could see it can you see now i can see you is what we've got okay all right let me share my screen can you go back okay can you see this screen now yep we can see your screen and it looks nice and big fantastic um yeah we'll

move on because what we'll do is we'll share those video links later okay all right sorry guys that was a big technical um fallout um so let's move right on um so we had another video we won't play it right now but um the the video that we had on the right was um really about um sharing on social because we had a lot of feedback from the book about campaign that people didn't quite believe that the footage that we had shared was um shot after

the fires even though there is footage of burnt of burnt lamb so we wanted to make sure that we had a video that was really um depicting um what kangaroo looked like kangaroo island look like today um and then we'll we can share that later but that did really well um on social and those videos um yeah just did did a great job in spreading the message um so next um the book about campaign um was really about facilitating as i said earlier um people facilitating

people facilitating people to book um and we wanted to make sure that there was plenty of information for them to realize that ki was and adelaide hills was completely safe to get to and you know they were going to have an amazing holiday when they got there um so we feature the key tourism operators um on the campaign page which is what you can see on the left hand side um and then also just the frequently asked questions and what's open and what's closed on the

bottom um and then what you can't see on that page down below what i've um heroed on the right was really um heroin our partners um that we we featured throughout the campaign and that was just um that was a pivotal piece in in the campaign is just really making sure that it was um easy for people to get to and also economical for people to get to because we we just we knew that we couldn't let a second wave of destruction happen on ki and

that was um with the economy suffering because it's one of the biggest um it's one of those the biggest economy driver with agriculture on the island so we couldn't let that happen and and the partners really came to the table with um with facilitating that trouble so we went far and wide with all of these partner um bookings um you know from um c-link to cad connect to rex um webjet booking.com hurts budget car hire um so this is an example of an instagram story um

which is not as usually as tactical as what we would do on instagram and it did so well um because there's such a massive appetite for that um and then also of course um at edm so we just we went far and wide though of course it was all through digital marketing um through the partner relationships um through pr um and yes it was just it was flooding the market um so the results were really amazing and um really really encouraging um so obviously um people

were keen to get across to the island but from from our digital marketing point of view um the on the bay the launch um south australia.com recorded the highest number of site visits to the website in a single day ever um and yeah 61 higher on the same time last year um and we had over 380 000 people um reading the bushfire content so the new content that we had um developed on the website was um was really important for people to learn how you know

how their holiday is going to look on kangaroo island um and a also encouragingly a large um portion of that traffic was um to the pages of how you could help so um not only were we getting dms from people telling us that they had just booked a flight to australia because they wanted to come and volunteer but that you know this the content was being searched organically as well um and um uh leads from our website to kangaroo island businesses were up 150 um in

the week compared to the um same week as last this time last year um and then also anecdotal reports from tourism businesses so i mean you've probably heard a lot of stories about these as well but you know things like um mount lofty rangers vineyard had that on sunday after the campaign launch they had 30 people in their cellar door whereas they had three people the week before like the same sunday but the week before so um yeah just had a massive reach and then also

um sea dragon lodge on kangaroo island which is a top-tier accommodation provider they were inundated with bookings because obviously with um sad destruction of southern ocean lodge and they had a lot of people come through um as you know as as bookings from from sun ocean lodge so it was a huge success um and something that yeah we're all really um yeah proud to be a part of um and no sooner did we catch our breath from bushfires um but we all um yeah entered the

world of covered mankind so um yeah this is a really interesting base and one that's still moving um and you know like with the third phase of our marketing campaign um the poor guys and the domestic marketing team and the digital marketing team are constantly re-evaluating their media buys like pulling out of victoria pulling out a big tour of new south wales and then um yeah dipping their toes into wa mt but you know with times like this it's a really interesting time to to innovate

and um and to test and that's exactly what we've done from day one so um we for the first for the first little while um again social media was really the um i guess it was just the first tool that we could just talk to people and just say we're listening we're here as well and we're going through this with you guys um but i just remember like everyone was saying i can't go on social media anymore because it's so um depressing and all i'm seeing

memes and it was funny for the first day or two but then you know two weeks of that it was just and the situation was getting quite higher it was really um it was really upsetting to get on social media it was so depressing so we just sort of um took stock and said look we're here still um and we're just going to post calming moments i'm just going to take a back seat for a little while um and just because it was such an unknown

territory for us and people seem to really like that um and they liked that calming moment that we sort of instilled um on social and just interrupted their really cluttered yucky news feed for a period of time um so not only um did we you know we were all in this um as you know as a health pandemic but um you know our tourism industry again um was on on the front line of um being mainly impacted by the second um second crisis so um we

wanted to bring that to the forefront for for the first sort of little while and we put this instagram story out which was just really depicting how you can help from home the tourism industry and that was really about you know don't cancel just postpone because these people it's the people's livelihoods as well they're not only concerned about their health but they're also concerned about their business and so there was really simple things that people could do and that was just again not not cancelled just

postponed by a voucher um for an experience that you've always wanted to do that you will do when you get your freedom back um write a review of your favorite um operator or experience that you've done um start planning because you know we're all locked down so um get around the table with your family and actually start planning a holiday um something small to start with and then yeah see what happens um and then obviously um the um sharing with your friends and family we created

a facebook page see south australia from home we wanted to get that across and that was really about um uh having sort of a mouthpiece for um businesses that didn't necessarily have an organic community that they could lean on um but they were innovating and they could still sell their product um and their services through an in um through a unique kind of way um so we just gave them a platform to be able to connect to customers and um and that was really important and

sort of a lifeline for a lot of people um so then we moved into um while we were sort of catching our um you know chasing our tail in the background of you know giving social a bit of a breather um it was a bit of a um sort of a duck on the water and then feet underneath were all sort of um bringing to life um the the campaign which was satv um and it's so ingrained in our heads that we're because acronym is satc

i still say they say tv so it's just it's part of our blood now but um satd was really like um it was bringing tourism to people's lounge rooms i mean you know my movement was um was restricted um people weren't you know willing to go outside they weren't really allowed to go outside um so tourism is probably the most obvious place that that suffers and how can we innovate in this time and that was it was a really big business challenge for us but um

it's brought through some some really exciting things and it's forced us to reevaluate you know our video strategy moving forward um it's it's forced us to look at um how we integrate with pr as well um through con through the consumer channels um so it's had a really great effect on us as a business but also um for our industry it was oh you know there was so many exciting people exciting businesses doing exciting things that um we we really needed to to elevate them and

get them um ahead of you know in in front of a global audience and there was exciting things about um people um you know doing wildlife tours and um you know q and a's about wine um making at home and so we were just um it was a virtual arena really for people to um to tune in um from from a virtual world so i think i'm running it over time won't play the video um because we don't have time um another little quick thing was

um just you know when uh in phase two of sort of that was the welcome back campaign sorry um so the welcome campaign was obviously for south australians when we could travel freely again um and it was just really about saying um you know travel is now really important we're actively encouraging you to get out into region um all the money that you saved on parking and petrol put that back into the economy um if you can um to regional tourism businesses so it's really about

disbursing people across the state um but not only that we just we we as low hanging fruit for people that had booked a trip to bali or fiji or the uk um you know that's not that's not feasible anymore so you've um you've got so much at your fingertips here in south australia so we did a really fun piece around comparing um south australian locations to bucket list locations internationally um and it was just interesting to see the results you know you think that most people

would know that hands down it was that's 100 flinders ranges and um not arizona but yeah it was just really interesting to see that um there was quite an even um disparity across votes um and just quickly that bbm strategy and this is another tool that we've got that doesn't um you know it doesn't really cost us a lot um and we are starting to improve the sophistication that we've got with our idiom strategy and we not only just ask people to sign up but we

really want them to tell us more about them these days because it just helps us personalize the the communication that we send across um so now when you sign up which is on the left hand side you get a welcome email which is all automated um and then we ask you to tell us um what interests you about south australia and these are our core brand pillars um and this you know this is the this is the type of communication um that we would normally send

through um edms but then what we would like to start doing um is really focusing people um and sort of um focusing our content dynamically to people who are interested in wildlife or food um so that we can be really quite automated and personalized about um the information that we send to them and depending on where they sit in the path to purchase funnel and we can be quite tailored with the content so we're not sending offers to people who aren't in that space yet they're

still in the inspiration space and vice versa so i know i've gone over time so i need to finish um and um there's questions um that we can do in the panel that i'm doing with kelly um noble after her presentation so i shall zip it it's been lovely to talk to you guys virtually thank you so much tuning in hey georgie thanks so much that was fantastic in case in case you haven't noticed my voice is starting to go but um yes thank you so

much i think those campaigns really did hit home with the local market all the comments on the webinar platform people actually went and booked uh and did manage to travel before covered so also people have been um buying up one and gin and all the rest i think natalie giles put it best when she said there's two messages buy local explore your own backyard exactly pretty critical points yeah yeah and then and tomorrow as i said um emily primavera will really talk about sort of the

nuts and bolts of the digital marketing behind those campaigns so if you're tuning in tomorrow that'd be a really awesome one um to look at behind the scenes a lot more of what happened behind those campaigns absolutely thanks so much georgie and we're about to throw over to kelly so kelly is an iconic figure in south australia's digital and social sphere most notably as the founder and director of glam adelaide hi kelly how's it going through glam kelly was heavily involved in helping south australian businesses

recover from bushfires with the book them out campaign she's once again performing an instrumental role in helping south australia businesses reopen after the cover 19 pandemic so kelly's going to be sharing a little bit about what her work and then following on from that we'll have a big q a with both kelly and georgie so over to you kelly thank you great um thanks for having me guys and uh interesting listening to georgie's stuff because um obviously through what um i do at glam adelaide and

showcase south australia there's a lot of crossover um and i think we're all sort of in it for the right reasons and and we're all here to support south australia and have been doing that for a long time so just a little bit of background on me um i sort of moved to south australia in 2000 um when i finished my comments degree and you know i came here and i wanted to you know get to know south australia i wanted to go out and all

that sort of stuff and i had no idea where to go what to do and i found it really hard so i started a myspace group which was glam adelaide um and then that carried on and i sort of i made a website from there and you know it's been sort of 15 years now um but we've we've come a long way um and we really focus on positive south australian news so we do a lot of lifestyle news um and you know we've been supporting

small businesses for for quite a long time now um so a lot of our clients um and people businesses that we work with and people that we just know from the content that we do um they have um you know that's the lifeblood of our stuff we do a lot of food and wine a lot of tourism uh and destinational stuff and so um on december 20th um it was a knockoff day for christmas and we were all off having cocktails and the bushfire sort of

started and so we were seeing information from all over the place um with you know people that we knew and wineries that we were dealing with were all um getting hit or there was you know information that burden hand might be on fire or barrister's block or you know it could have been howard and and so we were really concerned because you know we know these families and we've spent years sort of working with them um but there was no one particular spot for us to

find that information and so people were panicking um so while we sat at or in west lakes um with our cocktails um sort of just off the cuff made a facebook group thinking well everyone can kind of just share stuff in um to the group so we can we can all know what's going on and there was the ki bushfires there was a few little ones started as well so people from all over the place were started sharing bits and pieces in and we um well

i went out and found a bunch of admins um to help channel that information in and that really sort of kick-started everything so we were involved with um bushfire communication and trying to help um channel information using social media um from from the get-go um so that was on the 20th um on the 21st on the saturday um we uh somebody got in touch with us and said till brook estate had lost everything in the fires and i think they were the hardest hit because they

lost not only their cellar door but their wine shed that had all the wine in it so they lost everything um and they had the owner james had like a case of one or two left at his house um so he was going to auction it off at the farmers markets the next day um so that he had a little bit of money to you know i don't know do something anything um and so we promoted that um people came along they had a huge turnout

um to this auction i think they raised ten or fifteen thousand dollars uh you know the one was worth 20 bucks a bottle um but people were really amazingly generous and then they donated the wine back so you know it really sort of showed us that people were wanting to help and wanting to get out there so we started using the the facebook group to channel donations um help find you know people are like i need water tanks uh to fight the fires uh because obviously

they were still burning so we'd find water tanks and we'd find trucks to ship the tanks and then we'd get stuff to the farmers and people needing piping because all their um their irrigation systems had melted um so we were helping to do like really very hands-on um unusual stuff for us um but it was good because everybody really came together and it was a a brilliant way that social media worked because it was instant um and we we were able to channel all that information

into one place and then we were writing articles on glam adelaide so we started doing articles about each of the individual businesses what was going on um and we published a um let's see if i can change a slide here there we go um so that was the group and we had all the links for you know all the different places you could call to get help um if you spotted any fires where you should call um if you wanted to donate stuff where you could

go and drop it so it really became quite a resource um and we um so from there we went more we want to do more um you know there wasn't enough uh that you know we just felt like we were really helpless and we wanted to do more so on um i reckon it was boxing day i pulled together a group of people i'd done an event with for the migration museum the previous year and we we sat down on boxing day and uh decided to

do a fundraising event and a few years ago during the queensland floods we did an event called essay for queensland um which i think it raised about a hundred thousand dollars and it was held at the town hall so we we got the wheels in motion we went right let's do another one of these um spoke to the town hall they were really keen to be involved but their catering company was on holidays so we couldn't get in touch with them and um and so but

we started progressing all of this stuff and then we got uh to a point where we had so much interest we created a facebook event and thousands of people had registered and we thought oh god we might need to have a bigger venue adelaide oval agreed to come on board as a venue but then it was dependent on the sporting finals so then on um and they had a board meeting about it on new year's eve at like 10 o'clock at night so they were they

were really committed um and then it ended up that um adelaide convention center said they'd take us and they went in on new year's day so everybody was really you know going above and beyond um and so we booked a a space for 300 people and within a week we'd sold 1400 tickets so um the essay for sa bushfire appeal um gallop was born um we had to pay up front which was not what we expected uh for a whack of the tickets and and catering

to lock it in so there's a fairly big commitment on our part so we started a foundation so we started the glam adelaide foundation from our caravan in remark where we were trying to have a few days off with the kids and um again social media was just everything because there was no time for anything else so we were we were using glam adelaide to write articles about it um we were still coordinating volunteer effects in the background and then we were trying to organize this

gala so i've got a quick little video which is the summary and i'll show that to you and then i'll um come back oh i won't i love technology all right let's see if this will work all right come on so so so and there's youtube excellent let me see if i can get out of that um so yeah so we ended up raising 414 dollars from that night and we pulled it together in a month and um and i'm still dealing with auction items six

months later so ah but it was all for a good cause um and you know and we were really able to bring everybody together for um you know to help what was going on um but what was interesting now if i can get back let me just try and get out of this slide and i'll pop it back on all right so is this no that's the wrong thing here we go okay um so with all of this the way that we sort of were working

everything and um other than just running the event we created a new bushfire category on our website specifically for um the bushfires people could really find those stories about the businesses that were affected the guides on you know which adelaide hills businesses to shop with or how you could support um ki businesses um which wine you could buy online and support those wineries that had their cylinders shut all that that sort of stuff so we did 137 articles uh just on bushfire related stuff um and

it kind of shifted glam adelaide's content a little bit because up until then people had known us for you know bar guides and bits and pieces so we were doing a lot more newsy stuff um and uh and then you know stories like the um this one which is the bushfire affected wineries that need your support uh went completely viral um this had over 100 000 hits just on the one article uh it was shared all over the world um but then it um it actually

got um you know it spurred on other content so people that had read that story um were getting in touch people were buying wine from overseas different media outlets were picking up the articles and running stuff which was you know funneling more interest so it was it was good to on a global scale get more support for south australia because you know then you had all the stuff that was happening down the east coast um and they were getting a lot of attention and donations so

at least we were able to sort of still try and get some attention on sa um so then you know just when we thought we'd have a time to breathe because we were working 20 hour days and um it was it was really exhausting we went away to bali for a week with our kids who missed their school holidays because we worked and done all the gala stuff rolled into covered and um you know and flipped that switch again and just did all the bushfire stuff

all over again it feels like all the businesses needing help people needing to get their information out about us trying to show where you could buy stuff online who was delivering um which businesses were still open and trading so we did a lot of stuff like that so again we started a new category so we've got a section on our website just for covert 19 information um and we've up up till i don't know this was yesterday the day before i put this number in uh

we'd done 370 articles um and the first article that we we did was on the 13th of march which is when we came back from bali and they sort of started locking down all of the um travel and suggesting you don't go overseas so we we just just missed that um quite quickly but then we we shifted everything online and um everyone started working from home from from that date um but we've been you know we're still very much in this space and we're very much

using social media to try and help businesses um and and it's been really rewarding both um through the bushfires and through the covert stuff how we've been able to use our channel to to reach people um so you know one of the one of the little stories is that um businesses like i'll tell you a bushfire one quickly um we got contacted by a large organization um who wanted to help and they said look if you can give us a list of all of the people

that have been hit by the bushfires um we'll just go and buy their stock and um and they have the budgets to do that so we um sent through details of a guy who had he'd made all these cupcakes um and cakes for the uh the christmas markets and lobethal that were cancelled and who don't call out and said look i don't know how to sell this is a major event for us this is meant to fund us through the next month or so um so

this organization went and bought every single cake and said well you know we can't use them uh for our business but we'll just give them out to our staff um and and save that guy's business and so there's like lots of little amazing things the prawn store was another one um they were selling directly to um you know hotels and convention centers and um restaurants and so suddenly they had no customers so they decided to pivot and go and do some um direct to consumer stuff

and they came on board with glam on the monday before easter and we promoted the fact that they were coming to adelaide flying over with some prawns and so they did some pre-purchasing um managed to sell all the prawns uh it was so successful that they went out and bought a refrigerated truck um that night on on the thursday before easter and so they were going to come back and sell four times more prawns for for mother's day and we were a little worried that we'd

kind of oversold what we were able to do for them uh but we ran some more stories and um and they sold out all of those prawns as well and now they're doing pop-ups regionally they're going to claire they're going to renmark um they've got their truck um and they've been able to completely reinvent their business um because we've been able to help get that message out to people so there's been some really nice um results of the stuff that we've managed to do using the

social media and whatnot and we've also put out relaunch packages for small businesses so we've got little 500 packages to help um people relaunch their business and show people that they've reopened and they're doing stuff um it's also had a really good effect um for us so uh financially cove it's been tough for us but um from a numbers perspective because we're doing much more content that's useful we've been doing health uh updates with you know covered stuff every day and um you know just just

more general content i guess rather than just you know martini guides um we've seen it sort of almost a year-on-year growth where we've doubled um and we're on track for 10 million this year um hits so we get about 500 000 unique browsers a month so that you know the numbers are great but it means that we can keep using that to give back and now we're getting grants um to help fund journalism about community projects and and that sort of thing so um for us

our strategy's always been social we started on social media we've always been on social media and it's um you know it's how we it's how we communicate and it's it's always been really interesting because people haven't um they haven't had faith in social and they've never really wanted to put money behind it we've been in this space our entire time and and we can see how effective it is and how it can you know it's not only sustained us and i've got a real grown-up business

now you know it used to be a hobby and the fact that i can earn a living out of this is fantastic um but the fact that we can help send the other businesses and um like georgie was saying you know we can post something and then we can see that there's a an immediate sort of knock-on effect and people get bookings and people spend money and um for us you know we're we're far less analytical um than satcs um but we get the direct feedback

from the consumers that we write about and even um you know tonight there is uh maniacs is launching which is an axe throwing bar um in the old coke factory and we went and checked it out last night and it's it's so fun but from the stories that we've been um running you know they've got all sorts of bookings um already and people are really excited to go in there and you know they've struggled because they've um they're from adelaide but they have an ax storing

warehouse in melbourne that's uh shut and reopened three times already um so you know like everybody's hurting different ways through all of this all these challenges that we've got but i think the important thing is that we all kind of make sure that we are online and that we are digital and we are communicating with our audiences um because i i think we've got a long bumpy road ahead um so the slicker you can be with social media and your website there you know the more

secure you're going to be going forward um that's pretty much my my bag it's it's always hard there's just one side of communication is anyone there hi kelly i sure am here fantastic um i really enjoyed your pros um and that essay for sa gala i was so bummed that the twins were still breastfeeding so much i really wanted to be there but unfortunately twins what are you gonna do by the way um but that's a sensational achievement um particularly the amount raised um there's been

some great comments here on the webinar um particularly around how did you do it all um you were clearly exceptionally reactive running on adrenaline probably um kirsty wants to know is there anything current kelly would tell january kelly oh my god go out and eat at all the restaurants like it's like when you have kids and you're like god i wish i understood how much freedom i had before i had children i think um just everything that's happened we haven't had a holiday like a proper

holiday um in a year because we were meant to go away in may and i think i think just all the stuff that we took for granted um you know from it from a business from a technical side of things um not particularly like i think um i think having a good team and having good people around you and good advice is just um it's it's so key um so i was really lucky with the essay for sa bushfire appeal you know we had so many

volunteers we had dozens and dozens of people who were contributing to that um and it just wouldn't have happened without them um and people volunteering their time and our office was ridiculous we just had like 20 people at any one time in there um you know setting up auction items and doing setting charts and trying to organize entertainment and um even after the fact all the all the admin on the other side of it um i think having people around you that have their own specialties

is good and i think just you know just in general i'm trying to get more organized as well because i really want to i want to have a day off i'm exhausted i can imagine okay we've got 25 minutes till lunch georgie if you want to switch your camera and mike back on uh some of these questions are for you as well um just another follow-up on that kelly uh jamie wants to know what was your method in getting so connected with so many people and

impactful communities um i think i'm just i i live and breathe social media i'm on my phone all the time i you know um i think it's just it's just the way i work um so when i say something i you know i i comment on it straight away or i do whatever it is so with with the bushfire thing it wasn't i had no long-term agenda with creating that group um even even the event was going to be something small and it just kind of

evolved from where it is even glam adelaide i mean that started as a myspace group it wasn't ever meant to be a business um i think i i don't i'm not strategic um i'm not a you know george is in a very um you know structured um analytical place where they can still be creative i'm not that person um i very much go i'll do what's in front of on baby steps whatever's in front of me i'll do that and then i'll figure out what to

do next i don't have long term plans um most of the time i just kind of follow my nose and one thing leads to another i think if i planned ahead i'd i'd get derailed too often well you know covert bushfires um i had another question around the bushfire group that you created on facebook um can you speak to how you kind of fostered that community because i when i joined it it just kind of started with the information as you said and then next thing

we were saying till book need people to go out and lay irrigation cables we need people to go and help distribute hay or you know people raising money for for water tanks to be sent out and so on um give some insights as to how that community sort of evolved i guess um did you have a hands-on approach or just trust people not to be spammy or people weren't spamming um we didn't have to worry about that at all um i think it was one of

those things i think having multiple admins was a really um clever thing to do like i'm really glad i did that because it meant that even though i was very much the dominant force i was posting like 30 times a day um i had other people who would take like their cues from that and when they'd see similar content they go oh this this must be relevant you know we'll put that in the group too um and then they were all kind of moderating it as

well so it meant that i could still do my other stuff and not have to be solely focused on it it was absolutely a quantity thing um just absolutely everything i saw that was bushfire related i'd excuse me i'd share it into the group um and the content and the and the assistance that all just evolved from there because i'd see people asking for help and a goal that's relevant i've got people that might want to help um but we were even uh coordinating overseas volunteers

at some some point it was like people were coming to us going obviously you know what's going on can these are my skills do you know where i can go and um yeah it was it was just it was a force like it was unbelievable to see how south australia came together and outside of our group as well like just in general um i think it's one of the most community you know like it made i think it changed the way south australians interacted with each

other as well i think we all kind of felt like there was this big warm hug where we were all working together and we were all trying to help each other and we're all trying to do the right thing um and i think it brought everyone closer together um and then you know covered kind of derailed a lot of that but in the same way you know like i now know all of my neighbours um because we had front porch parties where people would sit like

three meters away with their chair and we'd be over there and and you know my neighbors who've been here for 30 years like we've never known anyone on our street and so i think there's there's a lot more community going on um online and offline so i think i think the bushfire has kind of triggered all of that at least in my experience georgie did you have anything to add to that sense of community yeah i mean for the first time in a very long time

we've seen the community behavior offline um really feed into online and i think south australia's like kelly said is quite unique in that respect they're very um very protective of their turf um and not only um were they really concerned about um south australia but they were about australia as well and i think that was a really powerful thing that social media was able to demonstrate was it was becoming a new source for people um and it you know some more credible than the others and

that i think was really the role that we took is we wanted a credible um source of truth and that was how we could mobilize as quickly as possible okay so here's a generic question for both of you this one comes from bell what platform did you find engagement increased the most during these crisis periods um hands down instagram for us we saw a massive spike in follower growth um in the space of a week i think we grew um we grew like 8 000 or

something which was um quite a lot in in a week um and that was because of the stories that we had going out from the third of jan so um hands down instagram for us but also dms and since then it hasn't really um because instagram obviously had the new general and primary dm which was thank god because it was just becoming like yeah we just couldn't even open everything and we said to everyone at the start we want to get back to everyone because we

really valued their support from wherever they were in the world but we just haven't there's there's there's just so much in there um and that's a real testament because that was the platform that people were using um for us it's facebook um facebook is you know i suppose we do i mean our instagram is is more um you know pretty inspo pics to make people get out of the house and go and see south australia um whereas you know our facebook page is sharing all of

our news articles and um you know letting people know what's going on so we we're getting far more um comments and you know last year for us to get a thousand comments on a story was like oh that's awesome that's like a that's a big one and now we can get you know multiple um sort of 500 to a thousand comment um posts a day like it's really we've really leveled up with our engagement on facebook and then that's also driven a much higher hit rate

for our website so you know on average we'll do 30 000 hits a day whereas we were probably sitting closer to 10 last year so it's it's all just kind of escalating for us but yeah i think that that's certainly where we've seen the the engagement in the growth uh speaking on how the community at all we've both said completely different things but that's that's what's so interesting is it depends on your audience what kind of information you are sharing um and at the start of

the um for us and and covert it was just it was just information sharing and we were pushing people away from our website um and we were pushing people to cfs um to say hell to say poll um so yeah it's just it's about really understanding yeah what kind of community you've got and what kind of audience you've got on on both channels or whatever channels that you do have and for some that may be your website not necessarily social media you may have a really

small social media following but you may have a really interesting niche for your website that you can leverage from seo terms so we're talking about these the additional traffic the higher levels of engagement um that these crisises i guess have given the opportunity for um gosh this is a really bad way of putting it but missy basically asks seeing that we've had these spikes in this last six month period um has this changed or impacted on your reporting at all um and how do you think

that might impact future so when it comes to this particularly for you georgie reporting next year year on year obviously you'll try to grow from where we we are now but fingers crossed people are actually traveling again and starting to engage in i guess tourism activities um how do you think this big spike is going to impact i guess long term on reporting and also how are you reporting on it at the moment i think the way that we're reporting is not just hard numbers it's

really understanding about people wanting because life has changed and we can't go to melbourne melbourne's can't come here and south australians and australians and everyone is really concerned about traveling on a plane right now so what's really interesting for us is there are peaks and troughs in thematic types of information that people want and we can't necessarily report that um with a statistic but we can really listen to what people are reading on our website um and what they're wanting from us on social road trips

and caravanning and camping is a massive um is a massive thing at the moment particularly for south australians and domestic audiences um so what will be really interesting is this time next year is looking at has that content or has that theme or desire um diminished and has it um you know been focused into um different types of travel um more like sustainable travel and so that's sort of the stuff that we're looking at um maybe in a 12 month period um from now um but

from a hard numbers point of view i mean we will always report on the things that we always report on and we'll be able to see spikes peaks and troughs and we'll be able to um you know recognize those anomalies from bushfires and covert um but yeah i mean it's really important for us to be looking at what's happening um seasonally and what's trending from a keyword research point of view and coronavirus is still still really trending and that has massive implications of what people are

typing into google um and we want to know what that is because we've got we might have the right answers for people so we'll create content based on that and you know caravan camping is a massive one um but then also sustainability is also another one so it's kind of um yeah from multi multi different angles we can we can look and slice the cat however many times we're like that's not the right saying i'm so bad with sayings i shouldn't be so you know what

i mean yes we do um stephanie has a question particularly about adobe analytics um she asks how does it compare to google analytics and perhaps google data studio and why it might be worth investing in so i'm certainly not the the digital marketer in the team that's emily she'll be able to answer that tomorrow but i know that the reason we use adobe analytics is because we've invested in the adobe marketing tech suite so um the integration between all the different um platforms like an audience

manager and a campaign for example um we can see um synergies between all of all of the the product so that's why we use it and it's a lot more sophisticated than google analytics um but in terms of like the the really techie kind of stuff that's the questions that end tomorrow definitely i'll keep it in mind for then uh this one comes from bell again directed to georgie i've seen a lot of polls online influencers b or c grade celebrities broadcasting uh south australian tourism

commission campaigns have you considered using real people to um back these struggling regions yeah so the reason that um you'll see um you know celebrities um on um you know with collaborating with the satcs because they've got a really strong pr um force and the pr team work really hard to understand um what type of people um really will get talkability in in the pr space and this is not my space at all but when they do try and look at the marketplace to see what

media will pick up a story they need to be really tactful about who they work with and it may not necessarily be someone that you align with or joe blogs down the street aligns with but that's what that what that's what the media aligns with and that's what's going to get the story picked up and spread nationally and internationally um and a good a great example of that is hans he's got a massive reach in in the us um with you know being on the tv

show over in the us so that's a really really important factor and we may not necessarily align ourselves with that type of celebrity or that influencer but that is the research that goes into um you know how we work with people and who we work with people um micro influences is something that my team do and we don't we haven't done a lot over the last 12 months but we sort of focus on content creation more so now than influencers um but we yeah i mean

we sort of influence the work a couple of years ago um and those types of people are really about reaching the target audience so our audiences that we're trying to target are high-yield experience seekers so we need to um those people often live in sydney and melbourne and they're the ones with the money because we want that money coming into the state so we will make sure that we work with influencers who have people like that following them so it's really it's really quite strategic and

whilst it may not make sense um it's very complex um in the back end i've got a follow-up question here from fiona uh it's for both of you how do you maintain the sustainability of your campaign engagement or just social media engagement in general is that to kelly or or both you go kelly um look i think we we've just been plugging away at it for a really long time um we we you know i think the thing that's great about social media is that you

can really test what's working what's not working so when they change algorithms and when you know when different world events happen like you know what we've faced this year um you find out pretty quickly what what's happening and what's not um you know what will work and and how we can keep people engaged so you know we might do less of one type of content and shift to another type and it's really just a every single thing that we post we look at um and again

it might not be in depth but we we look at you know are people clicking on it are people liking it um it might be the photos we use uh you know not getting great engagement like if we use people photos on instagram we don't get any engagement i don't want to see people um where some people really need those um more personal photos to get the engagement so um we're just constantly like all the time we're you know we're reinventing ourselves and we're trying new

things and we're we're changing our content and it might only be slight but because we live and breathe it you know we notice the difference you know readers and and people who follow us on social media might not see it but we're um like even on our um our instagram we started reintroducing a lot more venue based and food based photos we were really massive into that years ago and then we just went landscape for ages we've gone back to it and we've had to drip

feed it in because if we change it all too suddenly people stop following us because they came to us for landscapes but really you know we're really in a space now where we want to help businesses and we want to drive people into businesses um since the bushfires so you know we have to be even when we want to change things we can't really do it overnight we're having to kind of it's all small adjustments um but we just i think we're just all obsessed with

social media and and helping people and and getting that buzz from actually you know helping and making changes um so we just we just keep at it there's no real strategy to it it's just you know just keep out i think one thing like for us that we we really try and do is engage the community and it's engagement is different to what it used to be it's not just commenting and sharing it's and that's why um facebook stories instagram stories are really great because you

can have a two-way conversation now and we do a lot of q a's um and that way you know you can tell us what you want us to post and where i mean we're in the office it's not like we're some big agency um who are not in touch with who's following us we we actively encourage people to um and answer those questions and we also put out a lot of polls um and it's just that really interactive way um that social media has um enabled

people or really sort of diversified the types of functions that are available in the platforms um and that's why um yeah i would encourage people to try all the different functions and tools that are available to you from facebook and instagram and they're designed to um yeah to really have those two-way conversations and like kelly said testing like last year videos didn't work for us at all we shared a road tripping video which is the perfect time because of what's happening with chronovirus but that video

um is has already outperformed our best performing content from last year so um it's reached uh like 1.6 million people organically in the space of a week um and that was just because we trialed it again it was it was timely and it was seasonal um and yeah video seems to be what people are more i guess in tune with at the moment but test test test that's it i've got a couple more questions before we wrap up for lunch um i guess we kelly you

did mention the speed of social media communications um and the ease of that as well and while it has been great for sharing information during this time of crisis raising money um there also have been instances where a fundraiser like celeste barbers for example went viral raised over 50 million and then she wasn't able to distribute it beyond the rural fire service in new south wales um i guess i'm just looking for anyone who's got thoughts georgie or kelly love to hear what your thoughts are

around that i think particularly with the fundraising stuff over the bushfires nobody knew what they were doing um and i you know i think that was just one of those really random moments where no one had really raised a lot of money using facebook uh fundraising before um you'd seen people dabble and post things because it was their birthday and whatever else but um you know everyone learnt on their feet with that one and you know even now i guess uh celeste's got some regrets uh

but you know there was i i saw somebody who was just a you know random chick on my facebook she set up a fundraiser for southern ocean lodge um and she raised i don't know some ridiculous amount of money and it was just she knew she didn't know them she just thought it was a good thing to do um there were plenty of people that just did things off the bat and you know again i think if they realize how much money they would have raised

they maybe would have made it a broader thing um so look there's definitely downfalls to being fast but you can't wait for two or three months and learn everything and then go okay we really need to be careful about who we allocate the funds to sometimes you just want to wing it and and play ball and you know i think that's but i think the important thing is that we all need to learn from mistakes when they come to light and go okay so that for

next time yeah um same with anything it's the same with using photos off google you know yeah that for a very long time until people started getting sued and then you learned oh yeah speaking of which paul gordon will be joining us tomorrow so save your legal questions for them um i also have one here from jessica do you guys have any thoughts around fat businesses that are boycotting facebook as a platform what businesses um there has been kind of a this general a sort of

under move movement i guess of businesses that have just gone i don't like facebook's data policies or i don't like the algorithm or i don't like other aspects of the platform and then have chosen just to abandon it and use something else instead which facebook probably own anyway if they're using instagram or whatsapp um but yeah i guess from my perspective anyway my answer to that question would be it depends on your target market and whether they are on facebook or not but did you guys

have any other thoughts or experiences or anything in that space i think it's um yeah it's it's a valid question but then you can also ask the same question about well if i'm going to buy an ad and put this in a newspaper or put this display ad on news.com and that's owned by you know whatever conglomerate it's always going to have the same questions um raised so um i don't think it's just facebook it's not just social media it's media in general um so i

i if you want to market your business then um in 2020 this is the reality um and our social media just happens to be one of the most agile and one of the cheapest mediums to do of it um yeah i mean you're going to come into the same problems with where you place your media by um you know online and in print absolutely kelly any further thoughts yeah um similar line of thinking i think you know we're not going to leave facebook anytime soon it's

one of our major traffic drivers and you know i think as it's nice when you've got options and you've got budgets to go and do things otherwise but you know most of the businesses i know don't have those budgets um facebook is going to stay right where it is for us uh you know we've been using it for over 10 years and as other things pop up we experiment with them and we have a look and i think with anything you always try and grow your

own database so yeah everybody should be trying to hold their own list of customers or clients or um you know people in in a mailing list so that if facebook does start charging like the you know rumors that people keep posting for 20 years um you know like if if they suddenly shut down and zuckerberg becomes you know i don't know goes in with trump and we all run away um you know it's nice to have options so you at least you can still keep communicating

with with your clients so i think you should never rely just on one platform um for you know whether that's a political thing or a privacy thing or whatever it is but um you know while it works for us we're going to keep using it but we're still building our own database and we're still focusing on people coming to our website so that if we you know if we stop using facebook tomorrow it wouldn't be the end of the world but it would certainly make things

a lot harder for us i think this one sorry georgie no that's fine just one last one last little quick comment i think for very you know small to medium businesses your first um data source should be your own and that should be a really major focus for i think um growing you know your own first party of source of data because one you own it um two you can control it and three it's the cheapest and they often post um you know um well they

they are who your your audience is so you can certainly um leverage that audience a little bit more than you can with second and third party data sources okay i've got one final question which leads straight off of your answer georgie which is just the best um jamie asks for some tips for small business businesses they're just starting out um some good tips around communication channels they could be using and places where they can get assistance with that i know it's a very broad question okay

so um i think the first couple of tips i would um encourage is just a small um understand who you're talking to like who does your business talk to are you talking um business to business or business to consumer um and that will really um you know inform where you start um creating your social media platforms do you think it's easier to have a linkedin page as opposed to a facebook page for example or is that the right you know which is the right medium for

you or do you think you're going to get more um dividends out of creating an seo strategy for your website um and you know social media is not a quick win like it's not especially not these days it's still a pay-to-play platform so i think people and businesses need to sort of shift their thinking that social media is um is a quick solution um it's resource heavy um it's time-consuming um and and just i that's that's a tip that i think you know people starting out

need to recognize um and you know investing in your website is something that you might want to focus on for the first 12 months or first you know 24 months and then when you've got that right you might want to then start social media channel um or vice versa um and then what was the second part of the question um i think that pretty much just covered it okay yeah i would um just sort of jump in and say similarly um look at look at what

your business is doing so if you've got a more corporate audience um you know linkedin is great um if you're fashion and visual um and food and that sort of thing instagram is a good spot um to get you know click-throughs and sales and and that sort of thing um especially now that you can have the little shopping buttons on the on the image and then facebook if you want um you know a full range of you know content um and even just sharing articles and

things but one thing one of the things i've noticed small businesses do badly is uh frequency um the businesses that post more often you know they're always in my feed um even like fashion businesses there's um there's some tiny little fashion um outlets that they'll post multiple times a day and i see it and i just scroll past it but every now and then i stop and i shop you know your hit rate's a lot higher if you're posting more often glam used to post um

you know a couple of times a day i didn't want to spam people now we post every 20 minutes um and you know like there's a lot of stuff that people won't see um but the more we post the more hits we get because you know people that missed it the first time they'll see it the second time and click through so frequency to be top of mind and to to share what you're doing is important people don't know what to post don't just post rubbish

don't have stuff to post don't post but just remember that um the more often you're on there so you kind of need to make a bit of a commitment just having a facebook page and posting once a week um i don't know how well that's going to be uh well how effective that's going to be for a business but even with uh glam adelaide articles like when we go and research a company we'll go to their facebook page and a lot of people don't have photos

of their venue they don't have photos of their food i don't have any idea what that business is like like visually i really look for those cues um so you know a little bit of investment and planning so whether you've got a website or no matter what social media channel you're using think about getting photos done it's such a basic thing that people don't do even on your phone take photos on your phone um but that that sort of thing is really easy for people to

connect with so just you know show them visually what what it is that you do um unless you're a plumber or something and so you know there's some businesses i think would be harder but even then before and after photos of bathrooms like this photos do so much and so many people just don't use that as a tool you don't have to be sassy and come up with interesting quotes and things just take some photos people are very forgiving they don't need everything to be super

professional anymore they just want communication and information so you may have heard a ding dong noise in the background lunch has just arrived at reveal i bet kelly and georgie are starving as well you guys probably are too i want to thank you again both of you it means a lot to us you're taking the time today to chat to us about what you've been up to and also to answer some of our questions today we will be dropping off some adelaide hills one wine too

soon um so please do let us know kelly and georgie if you have a preference for sparkling white or red right it will come red um and we will be purchasing these wines from uh wineries affected by the adelaide hills bushfires for us so that's our sign of support this year thank you one last thing i just want to say um we with showcase south australia we took over from brand sa when they uh closed a year ago um but we're running the i choose sa

business directory now so um if you've got a south australian business and you're watching um feel free to go and add your free directory listing on there um because we're really ramping up uh promotion through itunes sa um and showcase and we're kind of you know in conjunction with the stuff that we're doing with glam we're trying to really uh help businesses that way as well so thank you definitely if you haven't actually checked out the memberships at showcases i'd say it's definitely worthwhile out of

some great professional development opportunities there and steve has been running some amazing networking events i think your first one you had the australian of the year speaking um to a group of executives so doing great things in that space both for glam and for showcase south australia so please do check it out georgie have you got any plugs that you would like to add as well of course um get out and holiday in south australia um it is such an incredible state and i think there's

a lot of places that we aren't familiar with um as locals and i think it would be really worthwhile going out of your comfort zone and traveling to a region that you haven't traveled to before because it's a pretty special place and people fly from all around the world to come and check out south australia and they they never leave disappointed so getting familiar again with what's in your backyard it's changed a lot um and yeah the money that would go into tourism businesses certainly sort

of um yeah helps to reignite the economy again fantastic thank you so much and we'll be back at 1 45 with ben teo talking us through content creation thanks kelly thanks georgie see you guys at 1 45.