Marketing

You might have noticed on social media and in the press that it's Something Day or Week almost every day? Whether it's Dry January, Black Friday or Take Your Pet to Work Day, there's always an 'awareness day' with a hashtag trying to grab attention.

You might have even tried to use one of these hashtags to give your own social media a boost? I've put together a few ideas to help you use awareness days more successfully. 

First things first.

What are 'awareness days'?

For decades we've used …

I don't think I remember a time when so many people were so exhausted. Almost everyone I meet or see on screen say they're just so tired, either because of stress, hard work or illness. I had a lot of messages when I wrote this blog about getting over difficult humps. There's clearly something in the air. 

I've been thinking about how we can somehow ease the strain and make life easier.

There's an answer: it's simple.

Or rather simplifying is the answer. 

I've started to simplify all kinds o…

Instagram has recently made two changes which are likely to make a big difference to users.

Firstly, you can now log in to your account and post to Instagram directly from your computer so Instagram is no-longer mobile-only.

The second change is that now everyone can add links in Stories. This used to be something only available on verified accounts or those with a given number of followers but is now being rolled out everywhere.

To add links to your Stories, you need to use the Link sticker …

I love twitter for the variety of topics  on there and the many useful links I often find, but I rarely suggest businesses use it to promote their businesses. Whenever I look at Google Analytics for tourism business websites, twitter seems to refer very little business.

Twitter is brilliant for one thing though: generating free media coverage.

Journalists love twitter. They use it to gather stories, spot trends, find new contacts and – most importantly and useful for you – to ask for informati…

Do you sometimes struggle to think of good things to post on social media? It can be hard to try to find different ways of saying "Look at my business, come and visit!" without boring people or feeling like you're being too pushy (you're not!).

Here are some different types of social media posts you can use to promote your business, engage visitors and make your feed more interesting. Using a combination of these will help build engagement and followers. But don't forget to do numbers 6 and 10 …

Actually I’m not exactly suggesting that you should make your customers cry but the fact you’re reading this demonstrates the power of emotions.

Many believe that marketing is expensive or difficult. It really isn’t.

Avoid being bland.

Make an impact by being memorable.

Develop a strong emotional appeal.

Make people feel something.

That’s all you need to do.

There are many ways to do this, no matter what it is that you need to ‘sell’.

Telling a story or giving a little information that c…

Ask any tourism business what's their most effective, lowest cost marketing method and they'll almost certainly answer 'word of mouth'. It's easy, it's free - and it 'just happens'. Or does it?

Most businesses just hope for word of mouth publicity and recommendations from satisfied customers. They do a good job, and hope word of mouth referrals will follow. Now we have 'word of mouth on steroids', in the form of social media so it's become even more important to impress.

Surprisingly few peopl…