Tasmanian Whisky, Hobart
Rob Burnett
Social media essentials
Social media can serve different purposes depending on your business objectives. Learn how to harness it's power to broaden your reach.
- Awareness: Give people exposure to your product through reach and views.
- Consideration: Show people your value proposition and what makes your business different through your social meda. This stage moves customers from awareness to decision making.
- Conversion: Give someone the tools through your social post to book now through link clicks and profile views.
Your social strategy
- Decide on your goals for social.
- Map out your business's unique stories and categorise them.
- Choose your channels.
- Based on your resources, decide what formats to use to best tell your stories and meet your goals.
- Set a realistic calendar for posting and use in-platform scheduling.
- Set attainable benchmarks based on previous performance and competitors.
- Review monthly, learn and adjust.
Remember: it is supposed to be fun. Consistency is key, have a plan you can commit to and do not try to be everywhere at once.
Treetops Adventure Hollybank, Underwood
Tourism Tasmania & Rob Burnett
Choosing your platforms
You do not need to be everywhere to be effective. Focus where your audience is:
- Instagram: Visually engaging content that inspires and connects through photos and short videos.
- Facebook: Connects people and communities through updates, groups and shared interests.
- TikTok: Entertainment and discovery through short form, trend driven video content.
- YouTube: Long and short form video for education, entertainment and storytelling.
- Pinterest: Inspires planning and creativity through visually curated ideas.
- Reddit: Builds communities around shared interests through user driven discussions.
Permission to Trespass, ArtsCape, Wynyard
Mason Doherty
Creating effective social content
- Keep it simple: Low production value content is gold. Focus on entertaining, educating or inspiring. Be authentic, it cuts through.
- Find your angle: Keep your eye on trends that make sense for your brand. Find your own unique angle or way to join a cultural conversation.
- Stay true to your tone of voice: Adhere to your own guidelines and prepare content in a way that is audience first.
- Use your team: Or if you have the resources, enlist a freelancer. iPhone quality is fine.
- Leave room to be agile: Have a plan but be open to in the moment opportunities.
- Tools for content creation: Canva, CapCut, Edits for Instagram, or in platform tools to schedule posts.
Safety first
If you are filming or photographing in Tasmania's wilderness areas, please read our bushwalker safety advice on Discover Tasmania to stay safe and help protect our environment, and check out our tips on how to get a great shot in our filming, photography and visual resources section.
Ghost mushroom, Freycinet National Park
Luke O'Brien Photography
Content formats that work
- Static images: Simple but effective for communicating key messages, easy to produce. Use good lighting, well framed shots and sharp focus.
- Carousels: Multiple images or videos in a single post are great for guiding storytelling and product showcasing. Give people a reason to keep moving through the messages.
- Short form video (Reels): Reels appear in a dedicated feed for non followers (great for reaching new people) as well as in the main feed for people following you. Add music and text overlay to help with discovery.
- Long form video: Great for in depth storytelling that builds connection or inspires action. Keep people engaged with a strong storyline and visual diversity. Have a strong hook and stay on topic.
- Stories: Perfect for in the moment content that does not live on your profile grid, product or business updates and behind the scenes content. They can be very low production value and can link directly to your website. Aim for three to seven stories in a 24 hour period.
Southern Sea Ventures, Turrakana / Tasman Peninsula
Tourism Australia
Writing effective captions
- Lead strong: Lead with an attention grabbing sentence that stops the scroll. Keep it clear, concise and with an interesting hook.
- Optimise for social search: Weave your target keywords naturally into captions and on screen text. Use alt text and image descriptions. Hashtags no longer boost reach, but they help categorise content and signal what a post is about.
- Use post features: Tag people, locations and other relevant features for maximum visibility.
- Drive community engagement: Use copy that encourages people to respond, whether it is a question, prompt, or a call to share their experience. Remember to monitor your content and respond. Meaningful engagement builds connection and boosts your post's reach.
Analysing performance
- Use in-platform analytics to guide you on the best time to post and the type of content your followers are interested in based on performance.
- Set your benchmarks based on past performance and the goals you have.
- Link results back to your original goals (awareness = reach and views; consideration = engagement, shares, saves and watch time; conversion = link clicks and profile views).
- Review monthly, learn and adjust.
Increase your reach
Learn more about improving your digital discoverability.