Take it or Leaf it

Melbourne in Autumn is spectacular. With the temperature dropping a little, the winter fashion hitting the stores and the city filling up with colourful Autumn leaves. We’ve decided to celebrate not only Autumn, but also the city of Melbourne in our latest competition.

Here’s how to win:

• Become a Fan on our Facebook Page
• Go to a favourite hangout or landmark in Melbourne (or your hometown)
• Take a creative or funny photo of yourself or a friend holding an autumn leaf (or leaves)
• Post it to Caroline Serviced Apartments Facebook Page: Here’s how to do this!
• Get all of your friends to ‘Like’ your photo. Fan Photos can be found on the left hand column, beneath our photo albumns, information and list of Fans.

The photo’s with more than 50 ‘Likes’ or votes will all be included in our Autumn YouTube Video as finalists and also go into the draw to win…..

• Two nights accommodation in our 4.5 star luxury apartments
• A surprise ‘Welcome Pack” on arrival
• A winery tour of the Yarra Valley for 2 people
• 4 x Daily Metcards (Public Transport passes)

Anna from our Brighton property getting into the Autumn theme

In this competition we would love for some of our in-house guests to get involved:

To be instantly included in our finalists, you must take a photo within one of our apartments at either South Yarra or Brighton. Show off your room, your balcony or your view!

All finalists will be announced on Monday 10th May via our YouTube Channel, and the winner will be chosen at random from the finalist entries on 17th May 2010.

Only one photo entry per person, so get creative and have some fun… and send us your best autumn leaf pic!

• For a Summary of the competition Requirements, check this PDF: CSA Autumn Leaf Competition Summary
• For Full Terms and Conditions, see this PDF: Take it Or Leaf it Rules

After reading this great blog post (from Jade Craven & ThinkTank Media) on Twitter Lists, we put together all of our new found knowledge to try to make some sense of this new feature of Twitter…

How do we use Twitter Lists?

Twitter lists have made it so much easier for us to categorise the people or companies that we follow on Twitter. We have created lists based on industry, geography, clients, connectors and activities in our area.

Industry

This has helped us group together all of our peers (accommodation providers) around the world. We can easily keep up with trends in our industry.  We use this to see how other hotels are utilizing their Twitter accounts, and also to find some really useful links on marketing or industry trends. It actually has reinforced to us that we are leaders amongst our competitors, as we have created a Twitter community that we engage with on a daily basis.

Geography

Our business is located in 2 areas of Melbourne. So we have created one list for South Yarra businesses and another for the Brighton area. We’re hoping to increase these lists as more local businesses get on board with the power of Twitter, but so far it is fairly limited, and not as useful as it could be. If we had more businesses to add to these lists it would be a fantastic opportunity to cross-promote other businesses and create close relationships that help bring more people to our local areas.

Clients

At Caroline Serviced Apartments we have a number of large corporations that send their employees to stay with us whilst working on projects in Melbourne. This Twitter list has only a few of our clients on it, at this early stage and we hope to find more of them utilizing Twitter in the near future.  We hope to be able to follow and provide support for the company progressions.

Connectors

There are a number of Travel Bloggers and Twitter networking events that we can bounce off to improve our profile within Social Media platforms. Travel Bloggers may even be able to use our accommodation for a review on their blog, or offer our accommodation as a prize in their own competitions. Twitter networkers such as @tweetupmellers is an invaluable source of people that we’ve met face-to-face. Although it’s great to chat to people online, there really is something to be said for meeting people in the flesh! Now we’ve met lots of the people at TweetUpMellers, they also now have a connection in the accommodation industry in Melbourne, so that they can recommend us to their clients or friends. Connecting is all about sharing!

Activities

I made a separate list for Melbourne Activities after discovering several individuals or companies who have some outstanding content on things to do in Melbourne.  At our Brighton Property we provide  ‘daily news’ for our guests with suggestions of activities and restaurants , so this list is a great source of ideas! It provides a ‘locals’ perspective on some cool things to get involved in around Melbourne.

It’s a good start…

Although some of our lists are more useful than others at the moment, we see the  potential that some lists can bring. Now all we need is more businesses and good connectors to become involved in Twitter!!! It’s not as scary as they may think!