BLOG
Maui Jim Ocean Shootout 2018
We genuinely love what we do, especially when work means providing social media support for the Maui Jim Ocean Shootout at Kā’anapali Beach!
The annual two-day event sees watermen and women from all over the world competing for a $50,000 purse in 10 individual sprint races and a team relay race. This is across a number of ocean sports, including; Surf-ski, OC-1, SUP, Prone Paddleboard and Swimming.
This was our fourth consecutive year working on the Shootout for competition host Kāʻanapali Beach Hotel. Working closely with race athletes, Maui Jim and the Kāʻanapali Beach Resort Association, we covered the event’s social media live on Instagram and Facebook.
Our weekend also saw us providing coverage for the 14th annual Wa‘a Kiakahi, an important event organized by the Hawaiian Sailing Canoe Association (HSCA) that welcomes sailing canoe crews from across Hawai‘i. Over the course of three days here in Maui, the crews race against each other and share their knowledge about the history of traditional Hawaiian sailing canoes with the public at Ka’anapali Beach.
Such a fun few days at Cake Media Maui!
Staying on Top of Social Media Trends
Do you find it hard to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of social media? With the release of new platforms, features, updates and the continuous shift in algorithms, remaining on top of online trends can be tough, not to mention time consuming.
However, being informed is crucial when it comes to being a successful online marketer. To give you an insight into how we stay up to date to best serve our clients, we have some suggestions for keeping you in touch with what's new in social media.
Blogs and News Sites
Blogs and social news websites offer a fantastic way to stay well versed in online trends. Subscribe to blogs or check back weekly (once a month if you are really short on time). Our favorites include:
* Buffer Blog – Thoughts on Social Media and Online Marketing
* HubSpot
Google Alerts
A simple, powerful way for keeping up to date on industry news, your own business and competitors is Google Alerts. In short, you will be alerted by email every time Google discovers new search results for the topics you want. Ask for alerts on the social media channels that you use, receive news about industry changes and monitor your own business (and who is talking about it) online. Trust us, you will save A LOT of time!
Sign up here
Twitter may be in decline but we find that it is still a highly valuable resource for staying abreast of what’s happening in the news and across social media. We like to choose who we follow, shall we say, “wisely” and what could be easier and less time consuming than following industry leaders and scanning their 280-character tweets? Don’t forget that checking out what’s trending on Twitter can be helpful too. As well as Buffer, Social Media Examiner and those mentioned in the blog section above, profiles we get a lot out of include:
* Mashable @mashsocialmedia
* Wired @WIRED
* Social Media Today @socialmedia2day
* AdWeek @Adweek
* Tyler Anderson @tylerjanderson
Podcasts
Podcasts are one of the best ways to stay briefed on industry updates. If you feel like there is not enough time in the day to add any more to your to-do list, podcasts could be the medium for you. Maximize your time by listening to a pod while you’re driving, taking public transport, having your morning coffee, taking the dog for a walk, anything – that is really the beauty of podcasting, you can take them with you anywhere you go. Our personal choices include:
* Social Media Social Hour Podcast with Tyler Anderson
* The Science of Social Media from Buffer
* Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield
* Social Pros by Jay Baer and Adam Brown
Cake Media Turns One!
Cake Media turns one this week, happy birthday (cakeday?) to us!
We have learned a lot over the last 12 months, as we’ve navigated the ups and downs of being a brand new business, not to mention wearing the many hats it requires. From accountant, to human resources department to contract negotiator to social media manager, graphic designer, editor, photographer and more, we do it all. It has been an interesting learning curve to say the least.
However, more than anything, the last year has been FUN. Being able to do what we love and to work together (in Maui!) as sisters, it really doesn't get better than that.
Not to mention, we have connected and worked with some incredible individuals and companies here on the island and we feel incredibly privileged to have had the opportunity to do so.
Thank you so much to all our clients, family and friends who have helped and supported us in getting Cake Media off the ground. We couldn't have done it without your words of advice, cups of coffee, child and dog sitting, patience, encouragement, slices of cake, referrals and—it would be remiss of us not to mention—your likes, shares and follows on social media.
We have made so many great relationships over the last year and we can’t wait to see what comes next.
Thank you for visiting our site and here’s to the next year of Cake Media!
Laura and Jenny
Social Media and Branding for New Maui Clients
It’s been a busy start to 2017 and the weeks feel like they are flying by but we are beyond happy with how this year has started off, with so many cool new projects and clients.
The first we’d like to mention is a slipper/flip-flop company called Ha’awi. This is a new Maui venture owned by three fantastic, inspiring and ocean-loving women who wanted to create a fresh slipper brand, inspired by their love for Hawaii. Their vision is not just limited to designing attractive and beach-ready footwear but also to perpetuate Hawaiian values and the spirit of aloha, while giving back to the local community. To say that we were inspired by their vision when we first met is a huge understatement.
Funnily enough, we initially met the trio of women behind Ha’awi shortly after they’d paid a visit to one of our other clients, Star Noodle. While eating at the restaurant, they saw the 30 Acts of Aloha t-shirt that Jenny had designed in mid-2016, found out about us and got in touch. You’ve got to love those kind of connections.
After meeting to discuss the project, we were thrilled when Ha’awi chose to work with us, using Jenny’s graphic design and branding skills to come up with a series of logos to launch the new company.
A sample of Cake Media's design work for Ha'awi.
There will be plenty more news coming up about Ha’awi in the future but for now, remember the name! We know that this Maui startup is going to be huge.
Elsewhere, we feel very honored to reveal that the Old Lahaina Luau is now one of our clients. In late January we started managing their social media across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, with the focus on driving engagement, organic follower growth and customer service.
Performers at the Old Lahaina Luau.
This Luau is owned by Na Hoaloha Ekolu, the parent company of Star Noodle, Leoda’s Kitchen & Pie Shop and Aloha Mixed Plate. It’s a phenomenal organization and we are deeply grateful to them for the work they have sent our way.
We genuinely love what we do—creating and sharing fresh and unique content, interacting with followers, writing and design, assisting with customer service and getting to be creative every single day. For us, there really is nothing better.
We’ll soon be bringing you exciting news about our work with a swim/activewear company, based in West Maui. Stay tuned for more details!
Thanks for visiting, Laura and Jenny
Let’s Talk Hashtags
As online marketers, we regularly get asked about hashtags—where did they come from, why do we use them and how do we use them across different social media sites?
In this blog post, we hope to answer some of those questions.
First of All, Where Did Hashtags Come From?
Already in use on internet chat rooms where the use of a pound sign would categorize topics into groups, hashtags first gained traction on Twitter where they were used to search for content. It all started here, when techie Chris Messina proposed their use in August 2007:
Initially the idea was rejected, “[Twitter] told me flat out, ‘These things are for nerds. They’re never going to catch on,” Messina told The Wall Street Journal's Elana Zak in 2013.
However, Messina started using the # symbol and convinced some of his peers to do the same. During the Californian wildfires in October 2007, Messina managed to encourage others to label their tweets using the hashtag #sandiegofire. With the subject widely discussed and easily trackable on Twitter, they began to take off.
Fast forward to 2009 and Twitter fully embraced the hashtag, adding hyperlinks to the tags and integrating a search box into profile pages so users could discover even more content.
Eventually hashtags were adopted by Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and well, just about anyone…
Why Do we Use Them?
In the simplest terms, hashtags are just like keywords and adding them to your posts will help you to share your content with a much wider audience.
They will also help you to research your target market, categorize your posts, publicize your campaigns and enable you to find relevant content and communicate with other brands and influencers.
Your online visibility will grow through the correct use of hashtags and and your follower count and number of likes will improve as a result.
How to Use Them
One of the most important parts of using hashtags the right way, is doing your research. Before you start using them to market your brand, try and find the hashtags that are popular and relevant to your industry and location. Make a list and refer back to it every time that you post.
For example, if you are a restaurant in New York City, search for popular hashtags that relate to food and drink in general and then food and drink found specifically in NYC. If you are a real estate business on Maui, find hashtags that are relevant to both real estate on Maui and Maui as a destination.
Whatever you do, don’t use hashtags that have no relevance to what you are posting such as tagging Nike in a post about your restaurant, just to get eyes on your content. Don’t make your hashtags too long (people will not read them and won’t be inclined to reuse them) and don’t use spaces or punctuation.
Also, remember that every social media platform is different and your hashtag strategy should be catered to the channel that you are using. For example, Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post. However, we wouldn't dream of using that many tags on Facebook.
In fact, we wouldn't recommend going above 20 tags on Instagram—the overuse of hashtags is not a good thing, it appears spammy and devalues the quality of the post. A gorgeous picture with somewhere between 15-20 tags is the best formula for us. Check out the leaders in your field, take a look at influencers and find what works for you.
When hashtagging on Facebook, you must take care not to over-tag or engagement will plummet. In our marketing, we try not to hashtag every single Facebook post and when we do, we keep it to a minimum of between one and three tags.
When it comes to Twitter, try and limit them to two per tweet. You only have 140 characters to work with in the first place and studies (courtesy of Quicksprout) have shown that tweets with 1-2 hashtags have 21 per cent more engagement!
That's it for today's blog and we haven't even touched on hashtags for Pinterest, YouTube, Tumblr and more (#sorry). Although we have only scraped the surface of hashtag use in this blog, we hope that it can help you in your social media marketing efforts. If you are still confused and would like our help, contact Cake Media today.
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful weekend!
Laura and Jenny