New Zealand 100% Pure Facebook page reaches 400,000 likes

Tourism New Zealand's consumer Facebook page - New Zealand 100% Pure - has surpassed 400,000 likes. The milestone has been reached on the back of social media campaigns to grow the online community that 'likes' New Zealand.

Since running the MyNZ, Ski North Island and MasterChef Australia social media campaigns over the past three months, significant growth in Facebook likes has been achieved in the Australian (+43 per cent), US (+28 per cent), UK (+27 per cent) and German (+17 per cent) markets.

"These campaigns have been our first social media focused campaigns utilising Facebook applications and we're delighted with the results so far," said Tourism New Zealand Chief Executive Kevin Bowler.

"More online community engagement increases our ability to entice people to visit New Zealand, to drive more traffic to newzealand.com and to generate more referrals and bookings for our partners."

The importance of Facebook as a channel for promoting brands is covered in a current imediaconnection.com article which states, "more and more each day, it's becoming apparent that a significant portion of the user web experience starts and ends with Facebook. If brands want to garner the attention of consumers, they need to be in front of them where they spend most of their time, and it's no secret that we spend more time on Facebook than anywhere else."