‘World’s biggest social media team’ to reveal secrets of success at CommsCon
The mastermind of Tourism Australia’s social media strategy is to share insights into how the organisation became the most talked about global destination on Facebook, Google+ and Instagram at next month’s CommsCon conference.
Jesse Desjardins, head of social media at Tourism Australia, will talk about how the organisation has embraced social media and in doing so turned its followers into advocates for the country.
Desjardins
A Slideshare presentation on some of the techniques behind Tourism Australia’s social media strategy has had more than 65,000 views since Desjardins uploaded it on Friday night.
Desjardins has been with Tourism Australia since 2010.
Tourism Australia’s Facebook page currently has more than 4m likes.
Tourism Australia MD Andrew McEvoy said: “Ultimately, we want our four million Facebook fans, the 23 million Australians who live here and the 6.1 million people who visited last year to become part of the world’s biggest social media team and ambassadors for our country.
“In tourism promotion, compelling content is king. Our job at Tourism Australia is as creator, co-creator, curator and syndicator of this content. The more operators willing and able to become part of our social media team, to share their great tourism experiences and demonstrate Australia as an aspiring travel destination, the better.
Toruism Australia has been putting increasing emphasis on using social media projects to deliver PR wins. Earlier this month its YouTube parody of Jim Telfer’s Everest speech to promote the Lions tour generated mainstream media coverage in the British press.
CommsCon takes place in Sydney on March 14. The event is designed for communications and public relations professionals. Further details are available on the CommsCon website.
Great read.
One of the few organisations doing social right.
Brilliant – big fan and have huge respect for Tourism Australia’s social media successes! There is no doubt they are leading the way and I look forward to hearing Jesse speak.
Totally agree with Andrew McEvoy’s comments too regarding creating compelling content and using social media projects to deliver PR wins…case in point with the recent Hamilton Island Instagram project and Tourism Canberra #humanbroshure project.
The team are evidently doing a great job.
At the same time, talk to anyone who has been to Oz, however lives overseas and pretty much all love it here, want to come back, to either live or holiday.
Couple that with the fact that the sheer range of amazing images, many user generated, which can be gathered by this social media ‘hub’ and shared with the world, will create engagement (a picture tells a thousand words.)
Aussies are also passionate about Stralia and will like the page, because it says ‘Australia’ (fckin oath we will) again as will foreigners because they had such a great time here backpacking, or on hols etc.
Do the same team have any other projects they are working on? So we can see some of their apples as well as their oranges?
Am I saying that it is easy to promote the wonderful country of Australia (sun, surf, outback, clear blue sea’s and skies, weird wildlife, not in recession compared to Europe / US etc) on social networks? Perhaps? Certainly compared to say, Belarus anyhow… 😉
I love the pages and subscribe to them, however just throwing in a little realism (is that what it is called?) ‘Australia’ is not like ‘CommBank’ or ‘Vodafail’, now is it………
Awesome resource – thanks Tourism Australia!
Encouraging article. Proud to be waving the Australian flag online!
Jesse is a legend. Only a matter of time before he gets poached by the private sector. Cute too.