Social media gives Hinchinbrook a boost

Hinchinbrook MP Nick Dametto at local Ingham business, JK’s Deli.

LOCAL businesses, community groups and charities can all benefit from utilising the power of social media, says Hinchinbrook MP Nick Dametto.
Mr Dametto has been prolific in using his Facebook and Instagram pages to share the best of his electorate with his followers.

“When I took the leap into politics, I decided to use the skills I had learnt from running a successful business page. I feel a huge part of my role is to sell and promote our region,” he said.

“This is why you will see me liking, sharing and tagging locations, local businesses and positive people on both my personal and political pages.”

Mr Dametto said it was no secret that social media had “become an integral part of our everyday life”, the power of which could be harnessed to promote local businesses, events and charity work in the region.

“Being a good businessperson doesn’t start and finish at your shop’s front door. It’s about getting to know your fellow business owners and their products and making a concise choice as to who to send your customers to once they’ve left your store,” he said.

“When I was running my jet ski tours business, I found an effective way to sell my tourism products were through a business page on Facebook and Instagram.

But what can be difficult is finding new ways to display your product in a way that keeps your audience or followers engaged.

“When it comes to content, it’s important to mix it up. It’s not all about the hard sell (ie.”buy my product and get a free set of steak knives”) but instead could be just a nice picture of our region with a soft sell like your product conveniently in the foreground.”

Mr Dametto said all local businesses could benefit from liking and following other business pages in their area on Facebook and Instagram to engage with them.

“Liking and sharing their page helps push their product beyond their followers and helps widen the drag net when it comes to fishing for customers,” he said.

“Other businesses will notice what you’re doing and start to do the same. After all, activity breeds activity and the same goes for positivity.”

Mr Dametto’s own MP Facebook page now has more than 3000 likes and a reach that can vary anywhere between a few hundred people to more than 20,000 per post.

“I’m humbled that people are engaging on such a large scale with my page. It’s important to be connected at all levels with the community you serve, including our fantastic local business owners and community groups,” he said.

“We can all do the same – push positive agendas and feed off each other’s success. Let’s move Hinchinbrook forward together.”