[JUDGING] Kiwi Girl Mullaghmore
Section: Social Media Strategy: Brand
Organisation Name: Kiwi Girl Mullaghmore
General Strategy Questions
Name Of Brand Client
Kiwi Girl Mullaghmore
Name Of Brand Client Copy
Yes – this entry is for Kiwi Girl Mullaghmore's ongoing social media strategy, rather than a specific campaign.
Personpeople Who Led This Campaign
Declan Kilgannon
Do You Use Alt Text In Your Images And Caption Your Videos
We have recently started captioning our spoken video content so the words appear on screen as we speak. We have not historically used Alt Text consistently on images, but accessibility is something we are now becoming more conscious of and improving.
What Objective For Campaign
The objective was to build a genuine community around Kiwi Girl, our customers and what is happening in Donegal Bay, rather than using social media simply as an advertising platform.
We wanted potential customers to see the experience through the people actually having it. If a customer shares a great wildlife encounter, a photograph, a Reel or a story, that is far more powerful to us than Kiwi Girl telling people how good the trip is.
At the same time, we wanted our social media to become somewhere people could follow what was actually happening in Donegal Bay – wildlife arrivals, unusual sightings, conservation stories and the everyday experiences aboard the boats.
The commercial objective was simple: build an audience that is genuinely interested and engaged, so that when we do have a new trip or availability to offer, we already have a community listening.
Ultimately, we wanted social media to help grow the business without losing the authenticity that made people follow Kiwi Girl in the first place.
Outline Your Strategy For This Campaign
Our strategy is built around a simple idea: let our customers do most of the talking.
We encourage customers to share their own photos, Reels, Stories and experiences and, where appropriate, we collaborate with or share their content. Potential customers are therefore seeing the experience through the eyes of people who actually had it – creating a genuine “that could actually be me” feeling.
Instagram and Facebook are both important because the audiences are different. Some customers naturally share on Instagram, others live on Facebook. We don't create different stories just for the sake of it; we let good content travel across both platforms and allow each audience to respond in its own way.
We mix customer experiences with real-time wildlife news, conservation stories, collaborations and occasional updates about trips and availability.
There is no paid social advertising or boosted content behind the strategy. The wildlife, our customers and Donegal Bay provide the stories. Our job is to bring those stories and the audience together.
What Were The Outcomes For This Campaign Metrics Next Question
The biggest outcome has been that social media has become part of how Kiwi Girl grows, without feeling like advertising.
Customers regularly share their own experiences, tag us and collaborate with us. This gives us a continuing stream of genuine content and introduces Kiwi Girl to their own friends and followers as well as ours.
Our audience has become a community that follows what is happening in Donegal Bay, not just what trips we have for sale. Some of our most successful posts have had nothing to sell at all – simply wildlife news or an extraordinary experience from the Bay.
That community has a real commercial impact. When we launched our Fish Supper–Sunset Cruise organically through social media, every trip sold out and demand exceeded the places we could provide.
More broadly, our social channels allow us to introduce new experiences, announce availability and communicate directly with an established audience without paying to reach them. If social media is busy, our booking portal is busy.
Perhaps the best outcome is that the strategy has become self-sustaining: people see our customers' experiences, book with us, have their own experience and often share it afterwards – becoming part of the next Kiwi Girl story.
The result is not simply followers or views. It is trust, customer advocacy, proven demand and bookings, created organically around the actual experience
What Are Your Metrics For This Campaign Real Metrics Please
The strategy is entirely organic – €0 has been spent on paid social advertising or boosted posts.
Recent examples include:
• A wildlife collaboration generated 237,594 views from 55,501 viewers, with 14.2K likes, 319 reposts and 851 saves.
• A simple real-time update from Kiwi Girl about two orcas arriving in Donegal Bay generated 213,323 views from 33,603 viewers and 218 new followers. There was no wildlife footage – just me driving the boat home telling the story.
• Our Fish Supper–Sunset Cruise launch generated 103,666 views across Instagram and Facebook – 19,134 Instagram / 84,532 Facebook – with 1.5K likes, 150 comments and 211 profile actions.
Most importantly, every Fish Supper–Sunset Cruise sold out and demand exceeded the places we could provide.
These figures demonstrate reach, engagement, audience growth and actual sales – all generated organically.
Is There Anything Else You Want To Add Be Brief
Kiwi Girl is a small owner-operated marine tourism business, not a marketing department. Most days the person running the social media is also the person driving the boat, meeting the customers and witnessing the wildlife.
That has shaped our strategy. We don't go looking for content to fill a social media calendar – the customers, the wildlife and Donegal Bay provide the stories.
We have learned that people respond far more strongly to genuine experiences than to us telling them how good our business is. So we let our customers do much of the talking and use our platforms to amplify their experiences.
Even when we have something to celebrate ourselves, we try not to make Kiwi Girl the centre of the story. The wildlife, the Bay and the people experiencing it come first.
There is no advertising budget behind the results in this entry. They have grown organically from a simple approach: be there, share what is happening, involve our customers and tell the truth.
Social media has become more than a way of selling trips. It has become a community around Kiwi Girl and Donegal Bay – and commercially, that community has become one of our greatest assets.
