Scotland keeps calling me back
Fort William for mountain bike events. Innerleithen and Glentress for social media workshops with DMBinS. And now, further north than I’d ever been: Aberdeenshire. A new place, a new crowd, and another room full of people ready to actually do something with their social media.
NEAT is a genuinely exciting project. At its heart, it’s about transforming Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen into world-class destinations for adventure tourism, from mountain biking to kayaking, wilderness cooking to snowsports. Will heard about me through the DMBinS team: Ed and Colena had passed on some kind words and he was happy to extend the invite north. I was delighted to say yes.
What to expect when I walked into the room?
Well Tunnocks teacakes of course (one of the main reasons I love teaching social media workshops in Scotland).
When I walked in, I didn’t know quite what to expect from the crowd. What I got was brilliant: mountain bike touring companies, MTB apparel brands, a climbing wall business, kettlebell fitness instructors, outdoor wilderness cooking experiences. An absolute cross-section of Aberdeenshire’s adventure scene, all gathered in the NEAT building, all with the same underlying question: how do we actually make social media work for us?
The energy from the off was warm, friendly, and genuinely curious. These weren’t people who needed convincing that social media mattered. They just needed someone to cut through the noise and give them something actionable.
I’ve made some changes to how I present workshops
Here’s the thing about running workshops, (and I’ve done this before) I could spend a morning trying to download eleven years of social media experience into people’s heads, or I could pick four things and do them really, really well. I went with the latter.
We focused on four content formats that genuinely move the needle on Instagram right now: Stories, Carousels, Reels, and the latest features the platform has been pushing (hello Instagram Instants). For each one, we didn’t just talk about it, we got into templates, tested things out, and by the end of the session people were actually creating and posting in real time.
That last part produced one of my favourite moments of the day. A few of the attendees posted content during the workshop and had it reposted by big MTB brand names (including Melon Optics). That’s not a small thing. That’s a local outdoor business in Aberdeenshire getting their content amplified by a brand with a serious following, on the same day they learned how to make the post. That’s the whole point.
The questions were brilliant too. The session stayed casual and interactive throughout, hopefully no death-by-PowerPoint, we had lots of chats and ideas were flowing all over the show. The kind where someone asks something that makes the whole room lean in because they were all wondering the same thing. Also, I loved that the attendees were complimenting each other on the good work they are doing on social media currently.
What I saw in Aberdeenshire
Will made an observation the afternoon before that stuck with me. Too often when you travel for work, you see the airport, the event space, and nothing else. He wanted to make sure Aberdeenshire actually got a chance to make an impression, and with his NEAT hat firmly on, he made sure I took in a bit of the tourism while I was there. The Water of Feugh, Burn O’Vat and a wee pub that had a toy train chugging around the dining room! A bit of fresh air and some real Aberdeenshire scenery before we even got started. Having never set foot in the region before, I left with a completely different understanding of what these businesses are actually selling.
What’s next?
I’d come back in a heartbeat. There’s real appetite in this community for continued support, and NEAT has built something worth being part of. The adventure tourism sector in the North East of Scotland is growing and the businesses in that room deserve to be seen.
If you’re an adventure tourism business looking for practical social media support, or you’re thinking about how workshops like this could work for your own community or organisation, I’d love to hear from you.
This workshop was delivered in partnership with North East Adventure Tourism (NEAT). Find out more about the project at northeastadventuretourism.com
