Client: Cocos Keeling Islands
Location: Cocos Keeling Islands, Indian Ocean
Project Date: 2018
Project Type: Paid Social & Content Strategy
Cocos Keeling Islands sit 2,750 kilometres northwest of Perth in the Indian Ocean. Twenty-seven coral islands. Two atolls. Two inhabited. The rest? Untouched.
World-class diving, spectacular snorkelling, exceptional fishing and kitesurfing, all wrapped in some of the most unspoilt coastal landscape on the planet. By any measure, CKI is extraordinary. The problem was that not nearly enough people knew it existed.
💡 80,000 followers. One remote island destination. Zero luck involved.
The Challenge
Distance is the obvious obstacle for a destination this remote. But the deeper challenge was awareness. CKI was a world-class product competing against destinations with far bigger marketing budgets and far shorter flight paths. The digital communities were small and the paid media strategy was underdeveloped.
We were brought in to change both.
The Approach
We built a social media advertising and content strategy from the ground up, designed to close the gap between what CKI offered and what potential visitors understood about it.
The work covered three areas:
- Content creation and management. We developed a content direction aligned to the destination’s identity. Sharp, visually-led, built around the kind of imagery and storytelling that makes a place feel reachable, not remote. Every post was designed to earn a share, prompt a save, or start a conversation.
- Digital and social media advertising. Facebook and Instagram advertising was structured to grow awareness at scale. Targeting was built around the right traveller profile, not just reach for the sake of reach. Creative was tested and iterated against performance data, not instinct.
- Campaign analysis and reporting. Every decision was backed by numbers. What was working got more budget. What wasn’t got cut or reworked. That discipline is what separates an advertising campaign that compounds from one that burns out.
💡 Working on a destination’s social presence?
Here’s how we approach content strategy for tourism brands.
The Results
When we started, the Cocos Keeling Islands had 5,000 social followers.
We took them to 85,000.
That is an 80,000-follower increase for a remote Indian Ocean destination competing without the advantages of proximity, brand recognition, or a major carrier. It was built through strategic content, disciplined paid media, and a clear-eyed view of the data at every stage.
What this means for you
If you work in tourism or hospitality, this is what good paid social looks like. Not follower counts as a vanity metric, but as proof that the right audience, reached with the right content, will move.
Distance, obscurity, niche product, remote destination. None of it is an obstacle when the strategy is sound.