Case study · Paid social and content · Indian Ocean · 2017
How we grew Cocos Keeling Islands’ social following from 5,000 to 80,000
A remote island destination with a product to rival anywhere, and not nearly enough people who knew it existed.
16x
growth in the social audience, 5,000 to 80,000
56%
more Facebook page likes in five weeks, March 2017
59,825
people reached in one week, up from 468
Client
Cocos Keeling Islands
Where
Indian Ocean, WA
When
2017
What we did
The brief
Twenty-seven coral islands, two atolls, two inhabited, about 2,935km north-west of Perth. Diving, snorkelling, fishing and kitesurfing in some of the most unspoilt coastline anywhere.
The problem was awareness. The social audience was small, paid social was underdeveloped, and the competition had bigger budgets and shorter flights.
The work
We built an advertising and content strategy from the ground up. Content made the islands feel reachable, not remote, and every post was built to earn a share, a save or a conversation.
Facebook and Instagram ads went after the right kind of traveller, not reach for its own sake. We tested the creative, kept reading the numbers, and moved the money to whatever was working.
The result
When we started, the islands had 5,000 social followers. When we finished, they had 80,000: sixteen times the audience, for a remote destination a long way from anywhere, with no famous name.
In five weeks from February 2017, the Cocos Keeling Islands Facebook page grew from 7,809 to 12,193 likes, a 56% lift, once paid social switched on. In April our Facebook ads made 26,773 impressions at 18 cents a click, and on Instagram, posts held an engagement rate of between 6.8% and 9.7% a month from March to May.
The takeaway
Distance and obscurity are not the obstacle. A weak strategy is. The right audience, reached with the right content, will move.
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