Digital Media Update
Social Media
We are continuing to grow audience engagement through our social media platforms. We have recorded thousands of new ‘Followers’, ‘Likes’, ‘Shares’ and a myriad more ‘Comments’, showing an exponential upward trend of social media and digital audience engagement across all platforms. To encourage this rise, we created reusable, branded social media selfie boards which we intend to use throughout the ‘I Love Summer’ Summer activation campaign and future SCTIE events.
We have also increased our multimedia content significantly to showcase more tourism offerings and various investment opportunities. These have been shared over WhatsApp to encourage brand and tourism awareness. We post, upload, and backlink marketing material daily. Our drive is to post more detailed information on investment packages over the coming months, as well as adding a new Tik Tok account for SCTIE.
We encourage you to follow and share our SCTIE social media accounts, which include:
Website
The destination website visitor growth over the last three months has been substantial. In September 2022, the site received 4 095 visitors, increasing to 7 456 visitors between November and 12 December, with 15 926 page views. This is compared to only 950 visitors at the start of September 2021.
To maximise exposure, our websites are constantly updated with new links while being search engine optimised. We have also redesigned the Destination website to make the digital Visitor Information Centre (VIC) more accessible for viewers.
For ease of reference, we restructured categories so visitors could search by ‘Towns’, ‘Explore’ (offerings), while highlighting the ‘Events’ calendar and introducing all of our KZN South Coast ‘Golf’ courses. All listings have been updated and promoted.
To highlight the accessibility to amenities, we constantly upload and index articles on new travel routes and offerings to the KZN South Coast. We encourage you to visit our websites and check out our up-to-date ‘Specials’ page, ‘Media’ page and other shared articles, and to share information with us to include.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
We have seen a significant rise in optimisation ranking for all our digital assets. We also perform quarterly and annual comparisons, adjusting accordingly to ensure peak performance. This also creates a larger web presence for us, attracting a global audience.
Explore the KZN South Coast app
We have connected the app and destination website so they work with one content management system (CMS). This cost-effective solution ensures the app’s content is continuously updated as the website changes. We have also published the new update, which carries additional functionality and landing page aesthetics. Downloadable icons for the app are found across the SCTIE websites with a call to action encouraging downloads. There is a view to monetising this platform in future.
Database
To ensure we continuously communicate with owners and operators, we updated our database with close to 600 listings. The digital cross-checks of each listing and telephonic follow-ups ensured our operators are kept in the know and can give us feedback at any time. We have also extended database categories, diversifying our communication platforms to include, among others, SMS push notifications and investment newsletter information.