Circa 1886 Video Podcast
To keep locals and tourists informed of seasonal menu changes at AAA Four-Diamond, Mobil Four Star Circa 1886 restaurant in Charleston, S.C., Step Ahead Web Strategies recommended a series of video podcasts. To date, we have produced two podcasts, one for winter 2007 and the other for summer 2008. Each podcast features Executive Chef Marc Collins discussing his current menu, displaying sample dishes and offering cooking tips.
We posted both podcasts on more than 20 popular video sites, including YouTube, AOL video, Google video and many more. As of summer 2008, the winter podcast has had more than 3500 views, while the summer podcast produced more than 250 views in just one month. Both podcasts have brought customers to the restaurant, asking for the items they’ve seen in the video.
Myrtle Beach and Charleston Area Podcasts
To help clients gain more awareness among potential visitors to the Myrtle Beach and Charleston areas, we produced Podcasts that highlighted area events that would be of interest to tourists. For our Myrtle Beach National client, who owns a number of resorts and golf courses in the area, we created the “Beach Buzz,” a seasonal podcast that also provides information on various packages at their resorts, as well as updates and information on their hotels. By including this information with helpful details on things to do in the area, we were able to highlight our client, while still providing useful information to tourists. In a year’s time, the Podcast averaged nearly 400 downloads. Listen to a sample Beach Buzz Podcast here.
For the Charleston area, we also created a Podcast to highlight several different clients all within the tourism and hospitality industry. Each season, the “Lowcountry Lowdown” podcast features the top area events happening during the covered months but also includes information about related client properties and events. Similar to the “Beach Buzz,” the success of this podcast was easy to track and had more than 1,300 downloads for the spring edition alone! Listen to a sample Lowcountry Lowdown Podcast here.
Breakaway Adventures Blog 
Finding the perfect vacation destination can sometimes be overwhelming, and travelers are increasingly seeking out others’ opinions and experiences online before booking trips. To take advantage of this trend, we suggested that our client, Breakaway Adventures, a tour company specializing in walking and cycling tours in Europe, allow its clients to maintain blogs of their trips which would be posted on the company’s Web site.
Lyn Mettler created the first such blog to record her daily experiences of Breakaway Adventures’ Gozo cycling tour. With pictures and a detailed and candid account of her trip, visitors to the Breakaway Adventures Web site can see firsthand from a real traveler just what the trip is like. These blogs can be archived beside information about the trip for site visitors to read when considering a tour. It’s also great way to bring increased traffic to their site by listing the blog on a variety of directories. As of October 2007, more than 1200 people had visited the blog and even posted a few encouraging comments!
Keep It Clean Online Video
How do you brush your pet’s teeth? This is a question we encountered with our client Keep It Clean, the creator of the KEEP IT CLEAN™ Pet Dental Kit. With the majority of dogs developing periodontal disease by the age of three, we thought it was important to create an easy-to-understand video with simple brushing instructions for pet owners.
With the help of veterinarian Dr. David Steele and his friend Enzo, we produced this video, which we posted on some 20 popular video sites, including YouTube, AOL video, Yahoo video and many more. The video is accessible to anyone who searches for pet toothbrushing instructions on these sites and on the Web. We also started a viral email campaign, encouraging everyone we knew to forward to the video and pass the along the message that brushing a pet’s teeth can extend its life.
The video is not only a great educational tool, but a unique way to promote the kits by driving viewers to the company Web site for more information. The number of views continue to add up on all the Web sites where it’s available with more than 4,500 hits on YouTube alone.
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