Mas Player crossing the stage at Trinidad Carnival 2014  Photo courtesy of Marcus O’Brien

Carnival is a worldwide year long business moving from country to country throughout the year.  In the UK our Carnival season is about to get underway, with fantastic events throughout the summer months in various UK cities – with the massive London Notting Hill Carnival taking place on bank holiday weekend in August.

Carnival in the UK is changing and evolving in terms of organisation and the road experience.  Each year there are more fetes, boat trips, Carnival Expo’s and other related events as well as the main events which provide a thrilling build up for all involved.

Bands are offering packages similar to how bands are organised in Trinidad and other carnivals overseas.  Key players in carnival are on a year long rotation of countries and events.

Social media is key in bringing this world together and for this reason there are many benefits to businesses promoting their events, bands, costumes, fetes as well as for the DJs and artists.  So which platforms will get you noticed?

Facebook

With the largest and most diverse online audience, Facebook is still a key player in online promotion.  Starting a Facebook Page and making sure you have set it up correctly with the right audience selected is important.

In terms of getting page likes, most people start with their friends first, and then join groups to promote their page organically.  The last and most beneficial option is paid for advertising.  In my experience, boosting page posts and creating audiences you want to reach is your best value and most effective option.  You can target your customers and the spend is reasonable.

Tip: You need to post relatively frequently and make your content engaging to ensure your audience continue to see your posts.

Twitter

My favourite network and very active across the Caribbean, UK and Carnival community generally.  Twitter works on Hashtags so you need to make sure your tweet has a good visual, web links to where you want to take your customer, tagging any relevant accounts and finally hashtag your key words to make sure your tweets get seen.

Tip: Follow key accounts associated with Carnival and Soca so you can build relationships with others, find key information which you can then share with your network and grow a valuable network for your business. 

Instagram

Instagram has always been popular with the carnival scene across the world.  Just like Twitter, you need to know your hashtags to get your posts seen.  You can use up to 30 hashtags and it is worth taking the time to find the hashtags that will be most effective for you.

Tip: You can download an app ‘Grama’ to help you with hashtag research but the best way is to type your hashtag into the search e.g. #Soca and see the associated tags and traffic against them. 

Promoting Carnival events? Create your own hashtag!

Promote your hashtag and encourage your customers, acts and all concerned to use it.  Research your hashtag before you use it to see if others are using it.

Your hashtag can bring a community of people together around your event on Instagram and Twitter.

Carnival is a visual feast so make the most of all photo and video opportunities to tell your businesses story.

Final bit of advice… don’t link facebook to twitter, and Instagram to facebook and twitter!  Why?  Your content will not display properly across the platforms, so if your message is important, your customers may miss it!

For information on the build up to carnival see: http://www.uksocascene.com

The post Are you in the business of Carnival? How Social Media can help you raise your profile appeared first on Ditzy Media.

The View, Coco Reef Resort, Tobago

Freshly back from my fourth visit to Trinidad and Tobago, I wanted to share what I learnt about how these beautiful Caribbean Islands are using social media for business and how this compares to us over here in the UK.

When I reflect back to planning our first visit in 2002, it took us ages to research and plan where we would stay. The internet was alive and kicking albeit on dial-up, and information from the Islands was quite basic. Finding accommodation and seeing reviews to ensure a good experience was quite a challenge then.

Moving forward to today, planning a visit could not be easier. Thanks to review sites and social media you can get a real flavour of the selection of resorts on offer, with testimonials from customers guiding you in your decision making process.

It was great to see so many local businesses in Tobago on Facebook and Twitter, and the use of hashtags to join up conversations was excellent. Tobago’s economy relies greatly on Tourism and social media has been embraced to showcase the beauty of the Island with great effect. We stayed at the beautiful @CocoReefTobago resort which I can highly recommend for anyone thinking of visiting Tobago.

A lot of smaller businesses don’t have a website, so Facebook seemed to be the basis of most promotion, and in this way this was quite a big difference to the way we use social media in the UK.

It was interesting that some of the mistakes made by businesses over here in regards to Facebook were also made in Trinidad and Tobago, particularly with businesses using profiles instead of pages to promote their goods and services.

Kiddies Carnival Saturday 14 February, Port of Spain

We always go to participate in Trinidad’s Carnival, famously known as the Greatest Show on Earth. Carnival is not just about the actual parades on the Monday & Tuesday, it is an entire season which always begins after Christmas. Trinidad’s Carnival is a pre Lenten celebration so the dates change each year according to when Easter is.

There are an amazing amount of Fetes which take the form of breakfast, day, or all night parties varying greatly in costs to attend. These parties happen all across Trinidad in the run up to Carnival, and the stars of carnival music, Soca, and DJs can be enjoyed throughout the season.

Carnival is big business. Social Media plays an increasing part in the promotion of the fetes and other Carnival events throughout the season.

Massy Trinidad All Stars
Winners of Panorama 2015

There are a number of national competitions which culminate into ‘finals’ in the days leading up to Carnival, covering the best Steel Bands, Costumes, Soca artists and Calypso singers.

The most popular platforms used in Trinidad to promote carnival were Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Hashtags such as #pretrinicarnival, #TrinidadCarnival2015 and #weon2015 helped build the excitement in the run up to and during the carnival itself.

Social Media is helping to bring the wider global carnival community together and certainly made a big contribution to the enjoyment and build up. 13 years ago, you would not have been able to jump on YouTube and learn the songs before you travelled, and reminisce once back home.

Carnival season now continues throughout the Caribbean, the US, Canada and of course our very own Notting Hill Carnival on August bank holiday.

Good Trinidad carnival social media accounts:

https://www.facebook.com/carnivaldiary

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Trinidad-All-Stars-Steel-Orchestra/26536277151

https://www.facebook.com/NCBA.Carnival

The post Social Media – from Eastbourne to Trinidad & Tobago appeared first on Ditzy Media.