The Challenges of Interaction
At our Vancouver PR agency, we’re big fans of Ragan.com and we love surveys and reports. That means that today was a great Monday, when I saw the daily Ragan PR news come in and there was a piece entitled 3 Social Media Challenges For Communicators To Face by 2015. And it is backed up by a report.
If you are interested in building an online community or network, this is an important piece to read. It has some solid information on the benefits and challenges, and along with being able to download the entire report, you can also download a tips and hints document.
#Blog4NZ blog post
AHA Creative Strategies is participating in #Blog4NZ, a three-day blogging extravaganza that spotlights New Zealand as a fabulous tourist destination. (To see other tweets and posts from travel bloggers around the world, visit Twitter here.)
As the Canadian PR agency for Tourism New Zealand, we connect with Canadian travel journalists on a regular basis. We work with Tourism New Zealand to create the opportunity for leading travel journalists to visit New Zealand and to share their experience with their readers and/or audience. Recently, we have been fortunate to have received coverage about New Zealand in The Toronto Star, Canada AM, The Vancouver Sun, The Globe and Mail, Sympatico.ca, Canoe.ca and The Discovery Channel and many others.
Without fail, what we hear back from travel journalists that visit New Zealand is how incredible the country is, how beautiful the landscape is, how delicious the food is, how amazing the wine is and how many things there are to do in New Zealand. One of the fabulous things about New Zealand is that there is something for everyone.
Below is an article that we wrote and distributed free of charge to media across Canada. Hope you enjoy it!
Five Things You Might Not Know About New Zealand
You probably know New Zealand for its adventure, adrenalin, and the great outdoors, but there are also a lot of interesting things that most people might not realize. Here are five fun, funky, and unforgettable things about the land of the long white cloud.
North Island’s Napier is known as the “Art Deco City” and maintains that title because of the local Art Deco Trust. The buildings in Napier underwent massive reconstruction after an earthquake in 1931, which almost leveled the city. Art Deco was in fashion at the time and it greatly influenced the rebuilding. Now Napier and South Beach in Miami, Florida are considered the two best preserved Art Deco towns in the world.
New Zealand is predator-free, which means no cougars, bears, wolves or snakes. A walk in the forest is much less worrisome than a stroll in the woods in North America. There’s nothing waiting up around that bend except more flora and fauna, and perhaps a waterfall.
New Zealand travel and social media
We, at AHA, are taking part in #Blog4NZ, a three-day blogging extravaganza designed to highlight how spectacular New Zealand is as a travel destination. This initiative was created to help restore travel to New Zealand after the tragic earthquake that hit Christchurch in February. While this isn’t a travel blog, we do quite a bit of travel PR at our Vancouver PR agency. Since Tourism New Zealand is one of our favourite clients, we thought we would focus on posts on New Zealand for the next three days as a show of our support for the youngest country on earth.
This campaign showcases the value of connecting with stakeholders online. The objective of it is to engage travellers, to showcase New Zealand and to move those interested in visiting New Zealand to buy a plane ticket, book accommodations, and begin researching activities in New Zealand. #Blog4NZ is a grassroots campaign that will allow travellers to connect with other travellers, with travel bloggers, with other like-minded people who can (and will) authentically tell them about the things to do in New Zealand.
I have had the opportunity and privilege to travel a great deal for both professional and personal reasons. I have been to some amazing places and, with few exceptions, can always find something to marvel at in any destination. Having said that, New Zealand is one of the most incredible places on earth. Full disclosure (again) – at AHA, we are the Canadian PR agency of record for Tourism New Zealand. My love for New Zealand isn’t because they are a client – they are a client because New Zealand is a fabulous place to visit.
We are currently planning a trip to New Zealand. It will be my fourth visit and Paul’s first. As we map out our itinerary, it looks like our trip will include a visit to the artistic community of Waiheke Island – just a short ferry ride from Auckland – for wine and olive tours and tastings; Rotorua which provides a look into Maori culture, the opportunity to check out boiling hot pools of mud and, of course, to visit the lovely Dorian and Ann at Volcanic Air Safaris and take a trip to White Island – an active volcano; and the amazing Hawkes Bay, which includes the art deco city of Napier, and the start of the Classic New Zealand Wine Trail (a must do for wine drinkers). Hopefully we will also have the opportunity to tour the world-class golf resort Cape Kidnappers and, of course, have a glass of wine with one of our favorite Kiwis, the fabulous Annie Dundas. Then we’re off to Queenstown for TRENZ 2011, New Zealand’s tourism trade show. In Queenstown (another breathtaking place) we’re hoping to zipline at Ziptrek Eco Tours (the same company that has the zipline in Whistler, BC), and we will have to stop for a burger at FergBurger (best burgers ever!). I am looking forward to showing Paul around New Zealand.
New Zealand is a magical place. We hear how incredible it is all the time from the travel journalists that we work with – and these folks travel for a living! While the cities in New Zealand offer a vibrant, cosmopolitan experience, you are never too far from getting away from it all and getting out into nature. New Zealand offers a unique combination of feeling a little like home (especially for us Canadians) and yet being totally different from anything we’ve ever experienced before. The people of New Zealand are at the heart of it all. They are helpful, open, friendly and have a wicked sense of humour. Being a tourist in New Zealand brings life to that cheesy saying about there being no strangers, just friends you haven’t yet met.
Crisis Communications
AHA Flip Cam Friday – March 18, 2011 from AHA Creative on Vimeo.
In today’s video, Ruth talks about what an organization needs to do when it’s in a crisis.