We’re about to unveil a few adventure and remote filming collaborations and needed help keeping everyone informed (as our expeditions alone keep us busy enough!). So we sought a talented marketing graduate to join our team for a short while to kick-start our efforts – before he leaves us in the New Year to pursue his own adventures. Please welcome Mustafa, our Social Media and Marketing assistant.
Who are you?
Hi there! I’m Mustafa, the new member of the Secret Compass team based in Bristol, UK. I’m helping marketing to increase our social media profile across all social and professional platforms. Having graduated with a marketing degree and a CIM Professional Diploma, I’ve started up my own online music PR platform, called CreativeSessionsPresents, and can’t wait to help Secret Compass fully integrate into the fast-paced digital world.
What drew you to Secret Compass?
I will be embarking on my own travel adventures next year. Working with a company that spearheads the adventure travel market with its pioneering expeditions and extraordinary adventures has certainly got me pumped! Ground-breaking world firsts such as shooting the world’s first MTB film in Afghanistan and white-water rafting the White Nile in South Sudan are the type of things that drew me to Secret Compass. The chance to market unique adventures to Sierra Leone, Panama and Kamchatka, and to work alongside some of the best people in the industry, is a real privilege.
Why is Social Media relevant and exciting?
Social Media has revolutionised the way we communicate online and is a mandatory marketing tool in the business world. From small coffee shops to large corporations, everyone uses it to target new markets and increase their business. At the moment there are over a billion people on Facebook and over 300 million people on Twitter.
Secret Compass is a small but rapidly growing business. We are finding our feet, fostering great relationships with existing members of our online communities and trying to forge new relationships with a digitally engaged and discerning public. We’re using our social media channels to find and target new team members by providing them with relevant, interesting, intriguing and share-able content.
Which channels are you active on?
Secret Compass is on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube and Google+ with the aim of informing both our existing and new team members of what we do while improving our SEO. We encourage interaction via group discussions and inspire and inform others with our weekly travel quotes, live team updates from our expeditions, photography and forthcoming film and event alerts.
We’ve also just launched a brand new SecretcompassTV Twitter channel in addition to our usual Secret_Compass adventure and expeditions feeds, to cater to this more focussed niche; our TV and film work in remote areas is definitely something we’d like to expand.
What communities are you active in?
I ensure that pages on partner sites such as Explorers Connect, Escape the City and Outdoor Hire are all up to date, and we’re about to feature on two more sites, Epiclist and GoMagma which will improve our online visibility. The number of bookings and enquiries is already increasing since we’ve focussed on our social media side, with vast interest for Kurdistan, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone in particular.
Has Secret Compass changed your world view?
Definitely! The world is truly a remarkable place with many untold adventures waiting to be discovered and I’m only just beginning to grasp this. Hopefully my marketing work both with CreativeSessionsPresents and Secret Compass over the coming months can take me that one step closer to achieving the extraordinary myself.
Where are you going next?
I will be travelling for the very first time to North America (Canada) later next year. CreativeSessionsPresents has steadily grown over the past year with growing international interest. I can’t wait to see what lies in store, what adventure awaits in the music world and in the beautiful country that is Canada!