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Lights, camera, action! [SME Advisor Middle East](SME Advisor Middle East Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Through the pages of SME Advisor, we've often talked about social media and offered strategies to maximize its positive impact on your business. For the first time, however, we showcase a business that has been leading a media revolution with its refreshing, yet powerful, 'social travel' template. Emirati brothers Mohamed and Peyman Parham Al Awadhi take us behind the scenes and tell us how Peeta Planet is going places… What attracted you to become entrepreneurs and start your own business? Was this something you had always wanted to do? We have both worked in the corporate world for several years and did our part. We always dreamt of owning our own business and being our own bosses, we're big foodies too! So that's when we decided it's time to embark a new challenge. This is really how everything started. Tell us a little about Peeta Planet. What was your inspiration behind Peeta Planet? How did this come about? Peeta Planet is a "social TV" travel show. We don't go to the tourist attractions and we don't use guidebooks; instead we opt for a more authentic experience, exploring and encouraging social travel; discovering cities through the lens and know-how of the locals. Wherever we travel, we make an effort to get to know the young, inspiring, local innovators and change makers, who are shaping their cities through their work – whether through art, music, technology, food or philanthropy. These proactive individuals and groups allow us to experience the cities through their eyes. Initially, Peeta Planet started off as a social experiment. We were planning a vacation to Sri Lanka, and after building a large and loyal following from our gourmet shawerma restaurant – Wild Peeta – we took to social media and asked our followers to plan our trip! We depended on our followers to book our hotels, recommend our food, sightseeing, activities everything! All the while live-tweeting with us on our journey using the hashtag #PeetaPlanet. Something clicked for us then: This was not just social media—it was social travel, a revolutionary idea back then. We saw a business opportunity, and a great experience and went forward with the idea. Who is the target audience of your TV show? Our audience consists of passionate people, who believe in the value of cross-cultural collaboration and dialogue; travelers, who are endlessly curious about the world; and change makers, interested in great ideas that are applicable on an international scale. So far, our primary viewership has been based in the GCC and the Middle East but thanks to the power of the internet and social media, we're gaining popularity in other markets as well including Eastern and Southern Africa, Latin America and Australia. While having a TV show seems – and is – quite glamorous, at the end of the day you are very much entrepreneurs running your own small business. How do you balance these two sides of your life? Between the two of us, we manage most of the day-to-day running of Peeta Planet, with Mohamed overseeing the creative and content-related aspects and Peyman overseeing more of the business, administrative and logistical functions. We are so lucky to have such an amazing team behind us, we are really one big family. We've travelled together, eaten together, taken on new adventures and experienced new things together. We don't know what we'd do without them! Do you plan to grow your TV show with the same business template as your retail business? Over the next few years we're hoping to bring Peeta Planet to television networks and screens across the world, and spread the Power of the Peeta further. We plan to increase our Arabic language integration as well, and add new features to the show and brand that will help keep it fresh, and up the game in terms of engagement and interaction. Your company is a classic example of using social media to leverage business growth. Can you share a few secrets behind your social media strategy? We strongly believe that the secret really lies in 'Engagement'. We engage our followers in everything we do, we make them part of our decisions and through that, we have become one big 'tribe'. People don't want to keep hearing what you are saying all the time, this is not what social media is about. Social Media is all about give and take; you share, communicate and engage, this is how the story keeps going. We currently have about one million followers across social media platforms with more than ten million online impressions since the show's inception. Our audiences increased by more than 500 per cent over the past year with many other pages tripling or doubling in followers, and we believe the numbers will keep growing. So I guess we're doing something right! Working closely with social media, and technology in general, can have its fair share of challenges as well. For instance, bandit messaging or unhappy customers and so on. How do you deal with such situations? Being a social media driven show, we rely on our followers engagement so when we get any negative comments or feedback, we adapt a more personal approach. We take all our followers comments and opinions and try to understand why they are negative and then turn them into positive. Like we said, it's all about engagement. It is worse to ignore or delete negative comments, than embrace them and deal with them and try to turn things around. During your extensive travel, do you find yourself learning different things that you eventually implement within your business to improve it? Every day on the road is a new adventure, so to list the things we've learned would be bit difficult! However, we noticed the one thing that was common with everyone we've met would have to be passion. These people are so passionate about what they do. We tell the stories of amazing young innovators and how they've beaten the odds to achieve great things with limited resources. So we try to always stay passionate with what we do. You've recently announced a partnership with DTCM. Tell us a little about this initiative. We are currently filming #MyDubaiTrip, where we partnered up with Dubai's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), to produce a 12-episode travel series for the Emirate of Dubai and conduct the world's largest tourism campaign bringing the top Instagramers from around the world to experience thoughtfully curated itineraries created by some of Dubai's leading social media personalities. What are some other exciting plans in the pipeline? What can your viewers and followers expect in the months to come? We are partnering up with Instagram on a very exciting project. We will organise something called an Instameet, celebrating Instagram's 4th anniversary. So basically, an Instameet is an event where people gather in a pre-determined place, at a set time, to take photos then upload them to Instagram; it also a time and place for them to meet and mingle with other serious instagrammers in their community. We also always have exciting projects ahead, so stay tuned! As entrepreneurs, what were the biggest challenges you faced during your initial stages? We wouldn't call it a challenge, but the most vital thing for us was building and sustaining a fully organic community. Creating a strong and loyal following is the key to our business. What is some advice you would give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their own business? Be passionate, trust in what you are doing and trust in the process. Starting your own business is never an easy and smooth thing, but it is part of the process and you should enjoy every moment of it. Be present; be present with all things new and don't be afraid to embrace them. Be relevant, and always make sure that you listen to your audience and see what they want out of your business. You were recently seen at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). What was the experience like? It was so surreal, we still don't know how this happened! We hosted what was considered to be the most important panel in the conference. We had Matt Damon and Gary White on our panel, former President Clinton opening the session and President Obama giving the closing remarks. It doesn't get better than this! It has been such an amazing experience, just being part of this event and having the opportunity to share our story, and those of others who are doing their part within their communities – truly fulfilling. We met some of the most interesting and important people in the US and from around the world. We definitely feel blessed to have been part of CGI this year, and we'd love to participate again in the future. (c) 2014 Corporate Publishing International. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |