Our Best Face Forward

In order to stay relevant with our base and to provide them with the services that keeps them coming back for more, we need to ensure that we leverage our presence online as effectively as possible. For that we need to contend with two competing trends that have emerged in the online realm: media convergence, or ‘the flow of content across multiple media platforms’ that has resulted in much of our content becoming consolidated into fewer outlets, and the myriad of platforms that have sprung up due to rising tech-literacy and lower barriers to entry. 
 

So we need to cast our net wide; we need a fairly extensive online presence so that we can reach our audience in the places they congregate. As we’ve mentioned previously, we will be using Twitter as a means of facilitating engagement with our audience. Through the use of hash tags we can invite them to contribute their own content by way of stories and advice. But Twitter is also useful because it allows us to drive traffic towards our other online properties. We can also use Facebook for this purpose. These sites are invaluable because that is where most young Australians spend their time. 

Of course, it’s no use funneling traffic if we don’t have a primary destination that will be the base of all our operations. This function will of course be served by our main website/blog. To build the actual site we have decided to use Tumblr because it allows a large degree of customisation and also have a very active community that frequently shares content between users. As for the layout of the site, we can take our cues from other sites. What we’d like to do for our site is to offer a variety of services, such as reviews for different sites and how-to guides. For ease of navigation we’re going with a tab system at the top of the page buttons with leading to the different pages, similar to what Tripadvisor has. 

We could also use a feature used by Travel This World, a travel blog on Tumblr that allows users to choose their destination through dropdown menus. 

Similar to Travel This World and sites like Pinterest, another option we can choose is a canvas layout that is more pictorially dominated. 

Images are more easily digestible and can get our points across more quickly. With each individual post, we will be opening up the comments feature for the readers to discuss each post and add their own thoughts.