Stats revealed for Hamilton Island Instameet social media PR project: 800,000 ‘likes’
By @laurenepbath_ih Jody Johnston Instagraming sunrise at Passage Peak
The strong results of an Australian-first social media initiative by Hamilton Island supported by Tourism Australia have been shared by the organisations for the first time.
Last year’s Hamilton Island Instameet saw American and Australian users of Instagram invited as guests to the resort for its first Instameet. A short YouTube documentary on the event has also been released:
Instagram is a social media service mainly used via smart phone. It allows users to easily take pictures, apply filters and share them on Instagram or other platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
The aim of the project was to allow the natural beauty of Hamilton Island to provide multiple picture opportunities for the Instagramers to share with their followers.
Among the numbers shared by Hamilton Island and Tourism Australia was that the photos receiving a total of more than 800,000 “likes”. In addition, more than 50 of the pictures were featured on Instagram’s “Popular” page which appears on all users’ feeds.
The pictures also generated 17,500 comments.
Glenn Bourke, CEO of Hamilton Island, told a briefing that he had been sceptical about the project beforehand, but he said: “It’s been the best bang for buck PR initiative we’ve ever done. The best I’ve ever seen in my working life.”
Nick Baker, executive GM of consumer marketing for Tourism Australia, added: “It’s much better for consumers to hear it from people who are out there, than from ourselves.”
Baker said that a key to successful tourism marketing is persuading tourists to share their own stories. He said that a priority in the coming months was to lobbying the travel industry of the benefits of offering free wifi as a means of helping people share their stories. Baker said that Tourism Australia was potentially seeking a technology partner to help.
The next Instameet will take place at Hamilton Island this May with Instagramers from the UK on the guest list along with four Australian competition winners.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Is that a freakin’ atomic bomb going off on the horizon?
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800k likes, which leads to?
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so 800,000 likes and how many tourists????
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I also liked Hamilton island campaign although have no intention of going there. Would be interested to see the conversion numbers amongst the target or indeed the breakdown. Often a lot of kids in third world countries.
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Ms PR – I’ve followed this campaign and it looks like it’s about increasing brand awareness and deeper consumer engagement. I personally thought it was great, really unique and loved looking at all the images. Certainly made me want to go.
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My question is 800,000 likes a fantastic positive sentiment towards……Hamilton Island or a beautiful creative picture ? I will go with the latter! Still waiting for someone in my digital department to prove” likes ” lead to sales…..
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sounds great it made you want to go Kate….but will you go?
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@client
Don’t you understand? Social media is the future. You HAVE to be a part of the conversation. Don’t you get it?
I must sigh and roll my eyes at you.
Then I will send you an ominous 4 minute you tube clip with stacks of infographics pointing out how if facebook was a country it would be bigger than uzbekibekibekibekistan.
Aren’t you feeling the fear of missing out?
PS – Sorry to all of you social media people who aren’t twats. It’s just those of you that build these infographics and preach how now one gets it but “them” gives the rest of you social media people a bad name.
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I thought this campaign was an amazing! What a fantastic idea to bring attention to a brand on the global stage – whether they are liking the image or the brand the fact that they are looking and confirming interest by ‘liking’ would indicate a successful brand awareness (engagement) in my mind. I congratulate the forward thinking team for bringing this one to life let alone coming up w it, expect we will see more of this kind of quirky twist on comps thanks to the online dimension!
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A “like” is NOT a business metric
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Kimberly – a ‘LIKE’ and comments aren’t too different to PR generated, you know good old editorial, which is very measurable. They all lead to increased brand awareness, consideration and deep engagement. Oh no one seems to have touched on advocacy, which this campaign seemed to utalise well. Have a digital presence is key and these guys seem did something different, and it worked.
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