Practical Social Media

Instagram, Twitter and Facebook all provide an effective platform for practical social media. Keeping images fresh, relevant and compelling elevates the game beyond practical to viral. Being in the right place at the right time with connected social media contacts takes the game across the next stage of media.

Saturday morning in Cape May presented a breathtaking sunrise. It would not be the first time one of my sunrise images caught air time.  It’s no secret that I post a lot to social media platforms like Facebook and twitter. When NBC40 was on the air, the morning weather man Adam Rutt  would often pick up my pictures from beach walks as background for the forecast display. You can read about one instance here.

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This past Saturday morning I uploaded a fifteen second video to my Instagram account cookecapemay. Instagram limits video length to fifteen seconds. I clearly described that the video was from Poverty Beach in Cape May. I even used the hashtag “#” with the word sunrise and Cape May. Hashtags are a great way to make images and terms searchable.

Several of my followers are news related agencies.  Jennaphr Frederick from Fox 29 in Philadelphia is one of those followers. Timing as it were, Jennaphr was probably online at the same time I posted. Timing is everything. Jennapher sent me a  message to email the video to the weekend producer at Fox. I complied.

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What happens after that is entirely out of my control. A brief email exchange about details and location and voila-the 8:00 AM edition of Fox Philly weekend edition opens the segment with my fifteen second video and a great narriative of when and where it was taken. The anchors were enthralled and spoke highly of Cape May as a destination.

I don’t know what the Nielsen ratings say about a Saturday morning edition of Channel 29 and I don’t know what a thirty-second spot on the station costs. What I do know is that in a city with little or no municipal support for destination marketing, practical social media works.

The lesson here is that big business and small business in Cape May must maintain a connected and engaged social media presence. The engaged part is the important part. The appearance of being willing to help media outlets with information and images makes an impression. It works for me.

To read more about making great Instagram images read Nikki Novo’s latest blog on the subject here.

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1 Comment

  1. February 10, 2015 / 10:44 pm

    John, I love, love this story. You do it for the love of putting out great content, and you’re returned the favor by getting additional coverage. Your gifts are always with no string attached, and that’s why you get such great results. That’s so inspiring. Thank you for sharing.
    And, of course, huge thank you for sharing my story. I so appreciate you.