Together with the HSMAI Curacao Chapter, we organized a presentation: ’How to use Social Media to improve your business’.
November 26th, over 50 people from various branches, showed their interest in this topic by coming to Floris Suite Hotel to join the presentation.
As the speakers, we touched several social media (platforms) such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We addressed the various benefits of using social media for business purposes.
Together with us, a panel of social media users (consisting of Bram Reukers from Heineken, Jerry Gesser of Stradius and Stefan Dubbeling of Floris Suite Hotel), was ready to answer questions of the audience.
At the end of the presentation, it turned out that the interest in using social media is there, but that sometimes the know-how is not.
One important question from the attendants was: Could you organize a training for people who want to use social media, but just don’t know how or where to start?
And of course we would be happy to do so. We will send an update to all people who expressed their interest in this training as soon as possible. Read the rest of this entry »
NEW YORK, NY (November 16 2009) – The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) will recognize Dragonfly Media with TWO Bronze Adrian Awards for web marketing excellence for its winning entries in the 53rd annual Adrian Awards Competition, the largest and most prestigious travel marketing competition globally.
HSMAI will pay tribute to Dragonfly Media during the 20th annual HSMAI Adrian Awards Gala, a black-tie affair attended by more than 1,000 hospitality, travel and tourism marketing executives, on Feb. 1, 2010 at the New York Marriott Marquis.
Dragonfly Media is located in Curacao and specializes in Web design, web development and internet marketing. The company is owned and operated by Joost Schrier, Oscar Fuentes and Bo Loefstok – Schillemans and was established in 2006.
Dragonfly Media is recognized with two bronze awards for CASHA’s website www.apartmentscuracao.com and the website www.jacuracao.com, both in the category web marketing.
The website www.apartmentscuracao.com is a promotional website for the Curacao apartments and small hotels association (CASHA) and www.jacuracao.com focuses on the wedding & honeymoon market in Curacao. Read the rest of this entry »
On November 1st, 2009 local radio station Dolfijn FM will celebrate it’s 7th birthday. One part of this birthday party will be the launch of their new and improved website (made by DGF). Leading up to the website’s launch every Tuesday Egon Sybrandy will call one of the Dragonflies in his show ‘De Lunchbox’ at around 12:45.
The idea is that every week we will discuss one of the many cool features of the new dolfijnfm.com. This includes features like the integration of iTunes, Twitter & FaceBook, the ways of interacting with the site’s visitors and - of course - the new design.
We are currently in the design approval phase and will probably move on to actually building the site next week.
Chicas Curacao is a photo production and casting agency that recently started working in Curacao. A fun and energetic group of Chicas (girls) that provide casting services for advertising agencies and photographers, models for art productions, props etc.
They have been working for some months now and we run into the name ‘Chicas’ every now and then. photographer Daphne Vermeulen, our strategic partner when it comes to photography, works with them a lot.
Today, they surprised us with a delicious lunch, to get to know us and Advertising/Publishing agency Bas Kok better. What a nice way to leave an impression!
At 12:30 Marijn, Gitva and Marcia walked in, loaded with grocery bags and set the table. We chatted, laughed and are excited to work directly with them in the future.
Thanks & good luck Chicas!!!
A few minutes ago the new and improved curacao.com went live. Contrary to popular belief here in Curacao we did NOT design this website. The new curacao.com is completely the work of the TIG Global Destination Marketing team. DGF has been involved with the content and defining the ways of advertising on the site, but that’s about it for our work.
Note: if you still see the old website, don’t fret. It takes a while for the ISPs around the world to update their caches. This should not take more than 24 hours.
The first thing you notice when you see the new website is that it’s big and bold. The colors are vibrant, the font is large and the buttons are big. The new design captures not only part of the spirit of the island, but it also speaks to what people expect of a Caribbean island. No classical symphonies and sipping grappa in a garden here; this is salsa and cocktails on the beach.
Besides a great design and tons of content, the new website also has some interesting features. With the booking widget tourists can instantly book their trip through Travelocity, with the Vacation Matcher they can get hints about what to do on Curacao, with the discussion boards they can give each other tips and the list goes on.
Yesterday the people of Curacao voted on ratification of the autonomy deal Curacao’s government made with Holland. In a very tight race the “SI” option won, allowing the restructuring process of the Netherlands Antilles to move forward.
The choice was limited; “SI” or “NO”, but the last few weeks the referendum was about the only thing people could talk about. We followed the discussions and campaigns in the newspapers, on tv and radio and -of course- online.
This referendum was the first major political event on Curacao that saw the battle being waged on the internet alongside the traditional channels. So, what happened online? Read the rest of this entry »
The other day we came across a video on YouTube about how Sears - apparently - sucks. The video is some guy ranting in his kitchen about Sears’ customer service. It’s done in a very simple way (it looks like he put his camera on the counter top) and nothing much is going on in it. Just 1 guy raving about his dishwasher….
The reason I’ve placed it here is the amount of views and comments this video has gotten. At the time of writing this video was viewed 32,847 times and got 263 comments. Even worse (for Sears that is); when you search on YouTube for Sears it’s in the 8th place (in 5th if you search for Sears dishwasher). And if you search for a Sears dishwasher in Google there are 3 results on the first page with complaints about Sears.
I don’t know Sears intimately but my impression of the company right now is not a very good one…
This week Washington is the scene of HSMAI’s Leadership Conference. At this conference chapter leaders from around the world come together to meet each other, discuss common issues and invite renowned industry leaders to share visions and best practices on key hospitality issues.
At last night’s “Best of the Best Awards” Gala HSMAI Curacao’s Director Steven Damiana and President- Elect Rosann Jansen were awarded with the best Small Chapter in the categories of Websites, Communications & Customer Interaction Program.
We are very proud of the HSMAI Curacao Chapter for this superb achievement and we’re doubly proud because DGF built the website and our own Bo Loefstok-Schillemans is VP of Communications at HSMAI Curacao.
Just like in the rest of the world Twitter has grown exponentionally on Curacao. Over the last 2 months dozens (hundreds?) of people here have opened a Twitter account and are happily micro-blogging/twittering away.
One of the latest additions to Twitter on Curacao is the local radio station Dolfijn FM. They inaugurated their account today under the moniker @dolfijnfm and appear to be very enthusiastic about it. They even put a widget with their updates on their website the same day.
This afternoon we suffered an invasion at our office. They weren’t little green men or the police but something much more sinister; the Kooyman Gifts & Garden Wedding Fair Invitation Team!
The reason they invaded our, already pretty chaotic, office was to deliver VIP invitations to their Wedding Fair opening on April 3rd. To get some promotion going for this fair they put two beautiful people in a wedding dress and tuxedo, hired a big Lexus and went to the media and their contacts.
This is a really good example of creating some good buzz on a local level. Sure, you can only reach so many people in a day this way but these people all tell their friends, blog/twitter about it, put it on FaceBook, etcetera. The word-of-mouth factor is not to be underestimated when you do something original like this.
