South Sea Cruises

South Sea Cruises

Fiji’s iconic South Sea Cruises group, including Malamala Beach Club, Blue Lagoon Cruises, South Sea Sailing and Awesome Adventures, offer a variety of day cruises, resort connections and overnight cruises in the picturesque Mamanuca and Yasawa Islands.

With Maverick Digital’s savvy social media strategy focussing on building awareness and consideration, we’ve elevated their organic social presence using thumb-stopping, wanderlust-evoking content – with a resounding increase in reach and engagement.

Client

South Sea Cruises Group, Fiji

Project

Content & social media
Storytelling & SEO

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Understanding brand voice and persona

Each of the five brands has a unique product offering and a distinctive brand profile, so it was vital for us to tailor the platforms and messaging to the correct audience.

Malamala Beach Club and Awesome Adventures have youth-focussed brands, that want to see punchy posts with beautiful blue skies and clear waters to brighten up their feed. For these brands, we adopted a playful tone of voice with plenty of blissful beach shots – accompanied by plenty of emojis of course.

For Blue Lagoon Cruises, the older audience are much heavier Facebook users, and enjoy more factual posts about Fiji’s natural wonders, interesting facts about the boat, and the opportunity to reminisce about their previous travels.

By engaging in regular social listening – we’ve gained a strong sense of how the audience is responding to our content and what they want to hear – meaning we’re able to take on the role of ‘content scientist’, experimenting and making adjustments accordingly in a dynamic manner.

Inviting interactions, sparking conversations, and cultivating a community

Organic social media is a two-way street – and content should always encourage conversations, not be a hard-sell. Whether inspiring users to tag their travel buddies, share with us their favourite cocktail, or make them ponder the ultimate dilemma – paddleboard or kayak? – it’s this kind of immersive content that has really struck a chord.

As part of this, the team regularly react and respond to comments – which encourages users to interact more regularly, and our proactive approach to responding to comments can help build brand trust and credibility.

On Blue Lagoon Cruises, our posts are all about strengthening brand loyalty, with previous guests relishing at the chance to feed their nostalgia and become lured to return – some for their third or fourth cruise!

Including links in Facebook posts and Instagram bios, as well as soft-sell CTA’s, has also helped foster the user journey – with customers able to continue the path to purchase, or to find out more.

Utilising user-generated content

As we know in the tourism industry, word of mouth is our best referral tool. That holds true in social media, with user-generated content being some of the strongest digital assets a brand can have. From re-sharing stunning stories on the daily, to repurposing tagged posts with a fresh new angle and some innovative copy, it’s helped add a variety of voices to South Sea Cruises’ feeds.

And of course, if it’s a celebrity endorsement or influencer content – like when the cast of The Bachelor Australia or Married at First Sight visited Malamala Beach Club – then a few extra tags and mentions can be all it takes for a re-shared post to go viral.

Building audiences and generating leads

Malamala Beach Club’s re-opening post-Covid was a highly hyped-up affair – who wouldn’t want to spend a day at the world’s first island beach club? Through our ‘5 days of giveaways’ series leading up to the re-opening, we attracted a record 2,300 entries – and netted over 1,000 new followers across Instagram and Facebook, with no boost or budget behind it.

Seek out that ‘wow’ factor

Now there’s no perfect formula to producing out-of-the-park social content every time, but by regularly asking the question – will this stop the thumb – we’ve curated a feed of visually-striking content to really showcase Fiji at its finest. From content that includes people (so the viewer can imagine themselves in the shot), to compelling short-form video that provides an immersive insight into the experience, or even simply showcasing a different angle or perspective of a much-loved shot – there’s no denying that without great visuals, you can’t produce great content.

Celebrating topical events like International Day of Happiness, Earth Day, and sharing Fijian words and phrases all helps our content stand out and show relevancy – including shouting from the rooftops when borders and resorts re-opened!

The results speak for themselves – with engagement on the rise MoM across the board, and Instagram reach increasing for Malamala Beach Club by 44%, South Sea Cruises by 50%, and Blue Lagoon Cruises by an incredible 441%, compared to the period before we took the reins.

Interested in strengthening your own organic social media presence, building brand awareness, and fostering an online community, unique to your experience? Get in touch with us to explore our social media retainer options – including how EDM’s and blogs can be added for a complete content marketing solution.