TiCSA ran a webinar on 2026 advertising developments with Hannah and Liz from Medium Order. It was an hour lengthy. If you happen to run a tour, a cellar door, an lodging, a restaurant, or any type of visitor-facing enterprise in South Australia, here’s what issues. (Scroll down for visible slides that I used to put up a Carousel on Instagram.)
The headline
Authenticity is now the premium. AI-generated content material is flooding each feed, and audiences have turned on it quick. Coca-Cola launched an AI Christmas advert final 12 months and received dragged for it. Gross sales dropped over the interval. The phrase “slop” entered the Macquarie Dictionary awards due to how a lot lazy AI content material individuals are sick of seeing. What this implies for a tourism enterprise is easy. Content material that’s visibly made by an actual human, for an actual place, is now the factor that stands out. Not polish. Not manufacturing worth. Actual.
Vertical video will not be non-obligatory
Reels are 50 p.c of all content material consumed on Instagram. YouTube Shorts serves 200 billion movies a day. The common human consideration span is now below 9 seconds. If you’re nonetheless posting single nonetheless photographs to your grid as soon as per week, you might be posting for a feed that now not exists. The repair will not be an even bigger digicam. The repair is extra video, shot on a telephone, shot usually, and edited loosely. Tough is okay. Tough is definitely higher than slick proper now, as a result of slick reads as produced, and produced reads as sponsored, and sponsored will get scrolled previous.
Your employees are your greatest asset and you might be in all probability ignoring them
Posts from staff get twice the click-through price of posts from model accounts. Solely 3 p.c of staff truly put up, and those that do drive a 30 p.c raise in complete engagement for the model. Folks belief folks. They don’t belief logos. The takeaway is to not hand each employees member a script. Scripts are apparent and so they kill the factor you wished. The takeaway is to search out the one or two folks in your group who’re comfy on digicam, and construct a easy weekly rhythm the place they share one thing actual from the day. A behind the scenes second. A visitor story. A primary pour. That’s your content material technique.
The metrics modified and nobody informed the CFO
Likes and follower counts are useless as measures of efficiency. What issues now’s saves, shares to DMs, watch time, and replies. If somebody sends your reel to a good friend in a personal message, that’s value greater than 100 public likes. In case your reporting nonetheless leads with follower development, replace it. In case your board nonetheless asks for follower development, educate them. The platforms are rating content material by non-public engagement now, and so must you.
Communities and ambassadors beat influencers
Influencers nonetheless work, however the shift is towards smaller creators on sustained partnerships as an alternative of one-off large names. Even higher, the pattern is towards model ambassadors. Actual prospects who already love the enterprise, introduced in and celebrated. Person-generated content material outperforms influencer content material on belief each time. The job is to search out the folks already advocating for you and make it straightforward for them to do extra of it.
On-line and offline should marry
Customers, particularly the youthful ones, need actual world experiences. Meetups, activations, occasions. However the on-line group is how they discover the offline second, and the offline second is what they doc and ship again on-line. One feeds the opposite. In case your content material technique is just digital, you might be lacking half the loop. In case your occasions are solely bodily, the identical.
Blogs will not be useless. They’re how AI finds you
This one caught me. AI search engines like google like ChatGPT and Google’s AI overview pull solutions from someplace, and that someplace is more and more well-written weblog posts that immediately reply actual questions. If a customer asks an AI “greatest family-friendly wineries within the Barossa,” the AI is quoting somebody. Be sure it will possibly quote you. Write the weblog put up that solutions the query clearly, in plain language, and hold it present.
What I’d do on Monday morning if I ran a tourism enterprise in SA
Choose one employees member and begin filming them as soon as per week on a telephone. Cease reserving large annual shoots and begin reserving smaller, extra frequent content material days. Audit your final ten Instagram posts and ask what number of are reels. If the reply is below six, that’s the first repair. Write one weblog put up a month answering an actual query a visitor has requested you. And cease measuring likes.
The brief model of the entire webinar is that this. The viewers moved. Belief moved with them. The manufacturers that can win 2026 are those that sound like a human wrote them, seem like a human shot them, and behave like a enterprise that truly talks again.
If you happen to run a tourism enterprise and any of this resonates, here’s what I provide.
A $100 Adelaide Reel is the foot within the door, one vertical-first reel constructed for the feed that truly performs. An employee-led content material day the place I come on website, discover the individual in your group who belongs on digicam, coach them, and hand again a financial institution of content material shot on a telephone that appears like a human made it, as a result of one did.
Ongoing podcast and content material partnerships for operators who need a month-to-month rhythm as an alternative of a one-off. And in case you are studying this overwhelmed and unsure the place to start out, ebook a free name – quarter-hour on WhatsApp video the place I let you know what I’d truly do first.
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