Andrea Vahl said
3 months ago: This is the first post of a series we will do to give @cnsholidayhomes a Facebook Page Makeover. We’ll start with some overall feedback and thoughts and then they will work on those points and we will have some additional feedback and more tasks as we continue the process. We don’t want to give them too much to do at one time!
I also want to make sure this is open for others to chime in with suggestions and thoughts. I talked to Lizzie about her and her husband’s business and got a little of the back story here:
Background information:Lizzie and Nick have been in the tourism industry a long time. They started their current business: http://www.cairnsholidayhomes.com.au with one property that they rented out and then other people started asking them to rent and manage their properties. They currently have over 20 properties that they manage.
They started their Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/CairnsHolidayHomes in 2010 and currently have 663 Likes and 6 Talking about This (1%).
She ran an ad campaign and got a lot of Likes but most of the people have not been active on the Page.
She would like to get more engagement, grow the Page, and have that turn into more business.
Currently her business consists of tourists who are renting houses for vacation, and some miners from Papau New Guinea who rent short term. They also get some business from people relocating. She said typically they don’t have a lot of repeat business because people go to other places for holidays since there are so many places to go.
They don’t have a newsletter but have about 2000 e-mail addresses from past clients that they currently don’t use. They do have a blog and blog sporadically – they are getting ready to redo their website.
The surrounding area of Cairns has about 160,000 people.
Initial Thoughts:
About Section:We did already talk a little bit about being listed as a Local Business. The benefit is that you get to choose the Vacation Home Rental category but the downside is that since you operate out of your home, you don’t want checkins and you lose the About section “real estate” on the front of your Page to tell more about yourself. But I think that is ok for now.
I like how you’ve listed all your properties with a little bit about them there. Do you have some testimonials from clients? I would add one or two testimonials as well in your General information section or just under it.
Cover photos and Photos
I like all the photos you are posting. I like the way you change the cover photo out regularly with a caption. I think an idea for the future is to get photos from local people. Do you get referrals from people in town who are having visitors? In any case, that will help some of the engagement is to ask people to share their photos with you so that you can posts them as a cover photo.
TimelineYou are posting fairly regularly but there are some large gaps. I think if you can figure out a way to post almost every day (weekends are ok to take off) that would help the engagement numbers too. The score is a rolling 7 day period so if you don’t post for 5-7 days that affects the engagement.
You can easily leverage some of the other Pages you Like by sharing some of their photos such as the ones on http://www.facebook.com/holiday.in.australia or http://www.facebook.com/cairnsgreatbarrierreef
To get more engagement on your posts, try adding more questions. Ask people what their favorite part of their vacation was or what their favorite spot to eat in Cairns.
Leverage the e-mail listThis task is a little larger so I don’t want to add this in as a “must-do” but I think we are missing an opportunity to connect with the 2000 plus past customers. Many businesses thrive on referrals and I think by re-connecting with these people will result in more referrals and possibly repeat business. So I would recommend something like MailChimp or Constant contact to begin a monthly newsletter. Then you can also invite these people to connect on Facebook so you are popping up into their minds. Starting with the people who already know you and like you will be a great way to grow your page quickly.
TasksTo re-engage with your audience, for one week, I’d like you to post every day at least once (twice if possible). Every post should have some type of question in it. So if you post an article or something about your location, have a question.
One of your posts should be a call for photos. Ask people to post a good Cairns photo that you will use as your cover photo next week. You may not get anything and that’s ok – we are just experimenting with what we can do.
Every day, take 2 minutes to look at your Page Home Feed. Post 2-3 comments on other Pages that you have Liked. Let’s see how that might affect your Page as well. Just say something nice on their posts, commenting on a photo or news. We may target specific pages later but let’s try this for now.
You Page is basically very nice looking Page, I don’t have any major suggestions of things that are wrong. I like the way you are using Notes and I think we can add some Apps coming up next but I don’t want to give you too much to do right away!!
So what other tweaks to people have immediately? I’d love to hear the thoughts from our Club Members too!!
