Wego Indonesia Talks About Its Award-Winning Social Media Strategies

Travel website Wego Indonesia won an award for best social marketing strategy at the social media-oriented Eye For Travel Awards Asia in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Shashank Nigam, the CEO of Singapore-based aviation marketing strategy company SimpliFlying, who is a member of the judging panel for the awards, commented on the choice:

Wego Indonesia tackled a very basic challenge in the Indonesian travellers’ mindset – that there are more destinations than just Bali and Lombok.

We talked with Graham Hills, the managing director of Wego Indonesia, about how the team’s social media strategy won them this award. He said that Wego’s localization effort in the country was an essential part of it. The company hired two community managers who are very well connected in social media, and also an editorial team comprised of four writers for the website’s travel blog called Travel Editor’s Desk.

He explained three particular social media campaigns that the team implemented.

1. Travel Photo Contest – Ini Indonesia!

Meaning “This is Indonesia!”, for this Wego Indonesia campaign, the startup asked fans to upload their best photos of Indonesia that they personally took. Over 6,500 photos were submitted and a gallery was created and integrated into Wego’s social media channels for future use, to further promote destinations within Indonesia. Five winners accompanied by Wego Indonesia’s community manager experienced a five-day trip to Wakatobi on a photo assignment.

2. Vaastu Video

Together with Hifatlobrain Travel Institute in Jakarta, Wego Indonesia created a travel video called Vaastu to inspire exploration and travel within the country. Vaastu is Sanskrit for ‘direction,’ and the video was promoted on social media channels and on the team’s travel group pages on Vimeo and YouTube. The video notched up thousands of views and got good feedback from Wego’s fans.

3. Facebook Milestone Campaign

To celebrate Wego Indonesia’s achieving 250,000 fans on its Facebook page, the team held a campaign to ask fans to share their most unusual experiences on an aircraft. The prize was a fully paid trip to Bali. Those entries can further be used for PR purposes and Travel Editor’s Desk stories.

Currently, Wego Indonesia’s Facebook page has around 280,000 fans. The company’s Twitter page has 10,000 followers.