Your customers are likely to be taking LOTS of photos of their experience with you, especially if you work in the tourism industry.

These pics could be a great in helping you promote your business as UGC (User-generated content) is much more credible than photos you post yourself.
Instagram is a great social media platform as it is so visual (and you can post pics onto Facebook with just one click).

So, how could you use the photos your customers take of your product/experience?
The easiest way is to ‘repost’ them.

Is reposting legal?
It’s not legal to repost an image without asking permission to the owner of the image as they have the copyright. 
What you can do though, is generate a branded hashtag with your business name and add it to your profile. Say something like: Tag #smartrainingnz to share your photos with us and give us permission to re-post. 
If you then repost the photo, make sure you credit the image to the owner.

How to repost?
You need to find a separate app to repost photos to Instagram as it is not possible through Instagram itself.
There are a number of apps your can use to repost an image. I use “Repost for Instagram”. If you use Buffer.com for your social media scheduling, you can also repost through this software.
Promote your hashtag
Ensure you promote your hashtag clearly:

• On your Instagram profile
• On your website
• On your promotional material 
• On social media
• On your signwriting, vehicles, clothing/uniforms etc.

Have a go! You’ll increase your following and increase credibility because your customers are sharing their experiences of your product!

NOTE: Final plug for the Tourism Business Success Programme starting on the West Coast (NZ) with the Strategic Planning Day on 18th Oct 2018. Don't miss it!! Go to www.smartraining.co.nz for more info. 50% funding available.
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Till next week, Marijke

Sending  your customers a long link, such as a google map location, doesn't look very user-friendly. 
For example:
www.google.co.nz/maps/place/1+Ballarat+St,+Queenstown+9300/@-45.0327461,168.6583389,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0xa9d51d8136d4fbad:0xf9434d5b68db6127!8m2!3d-45.0327461!4d168.6605276?hl=en .

Another example of a long url is a link to your Tripadvisor review page . Sending this link to your customers to encourage reviews is a great idea, but the long link looks terrible.

But don't despair! It's very simple little tool to  shorten your url.

It’s called the Google URL shortener. Just go to: https://goo.gl/

Cut and paste the long URL in the box and click SHORTEN URL. The shortened URL is now: www.goo.gl/SJaKVv   ​. That looks a lot better, doesn't it!

​Till next week, Marijke.

Did you know that around 40% of adults use google voice search on their mobile every day (and the younger demographic even more)? 

Google also recognises where you are. So, if I do a voice search: "Where can I find a Mexican restaurant?", Google gives me the Mexican restaurants in Queenstown (as this is where I'm based).
Or: "What are the local walks?", Google gives me a list of websites where walks are listed. 

Voice search is growing at a fast pace and it's important and easy to optimise your website content for voice search.

Here are a few tips:

• Ask yourself: What would my customers ask google to find my business or want to know about my business?
• Add a FAQ page (frequently asked questions) to your site with the types of questions your customers would ask
• Use a conversational tone in your website content
• Longer phrases or questions are common, compared with the shorter searches in text search.
• People use voice search mainly for local content and information, so make sure your Google listing is up to date (opening hours too!) 
• Try out voice search to find similar businesses as yours and see what comes up!

Till next fortnight, Marijke

Three years ago, my sister and brother in law attended a wedding in Lecce, Southern Italy. The whole wedding party stayed in the same hotel.

Once back home, the hotel sent out email newsletters to their client database (incl. my sister) every few months.

Last month, my sister and her husband took the kids on holiday to Southern Italy. And guess where they stayed? In the same hotel. And they booked direct!

Do you think they would have stayed there if this hotel hadn’t stayed in touch with them? Definitely not. They would have looked on booking sites for the best deal and probably wouldn’t have remembered the hotel as they have stayed in so many other places in the last few years.

Are you losing too much business to Online Travel Agencies or your competition? Then it's time to learn how to grow your direct bookings and sales through email marketing.
Email is still the best way to get your message to customers and prospects. Email marketing yields an average ROI of 4300%, which is much higher than any other marketing method.
Did you know that an email message is 5 times more likely to be seen than a Facebook message?
I have used email marketing successfully for my clients and my own business over the last 16 years and have now developed these new courses (Starting with Mailchimp and Advanced Mailchimp). These courses are approved by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and 50% funding is available for qualifying businesses.
The first series will be held in Queenstown and Te Anau in October 2017.  
Click here for more information!

Many (tourism) businesses are using Instagram to promote their products. Great images and short video clips are a powerful way to get your message across.
But did you know you can also advertise on Instagram? Just like on Facebook, you can target specific audiences with relevant ads.

The key is to learn how to do this yourself. Even if you outsource it, it's still important you know how it works.
Thankfully, Instagram has created some fantastic resources and tutorials.
Go to: https://business.instagram.com/getting-started/#why-instagram

Set some time aside every day for a week or so to learn a valuable new skill that could be of great benefit to your business!

Till next week, Marijke