In today’s digital world, the options available when choosing social media marketing channels can be mind-boggling. Which channels will work best for your destination? How many? Where do you post what? These are just some of the questions you may have when marketing your destination. Luckily, we are here to help. Here are some tips and insights on what’s essential to attract visitors.
To start off, it is important to focus on quality over quantity. Evaluate your capacity as an organization to ensure you do not overcommit by taking on too many platforms. Success on social media ties directly to fresh, frequent, and consistent content. For this reason, if you are just venturing out, we suggest starting out with two platforms, building community, and introducing additional social media channels when capacity allows. If you already have a handle on your social strategy for a platform or two, add new channels one at a time to be sure you tweak content and approach to what works on that specific channel, and bring the level of all efforts up a notch.
With this in mind, let’s dive into different social media marketing channels, their specific benefits, and potential uses for tourism marketing.
Inspire & Excite through Instagram:
Instagram is a great platform for consumers to draw inspiration and start planning trips to destinations they want to visit. With photo and video sharing, lives, and reels, Instagram allows potential visitors to experience the emotion of your destination, making it a popular channel to search for travel inspiration. Additionally, your tagged photos on Instagram can provide visitors with user-generated content from their peers, giving an authentic glimpse into the vibe of your destination.
Reach Giant Audiences through Facebook:
With a whopping 179.5 million users, Facebook consistently ranks high in popularity and engagement. It’s a great platform for storytelling and promoting events. Use video whenever possible on Facebook; the research shows that two to five minute videos earn the most engagement of all posts. Facebook’s events feature provides a central hub for your events where you can include all the details, and it is also easily searchable and promotable. Include a call to action (especially links in posts) to increase effectiveness on Facebook.
Connect with Business Travelers on Linkedin:
Linkedin’s B2B focus is a great place for sharing your organization’s meetings, updates and news. Linkedin is specifically useful for sharing accolades and awards, as well as for recruitment for destination marketing organizations.
Share Your News on Twitter:
Twitter is a great platform for sharing events, news, and concise content that fits within the platform’s 280 character limit. News sharing is a huge offering for Twitter, with some studies showing that 73% of Twitter users in the U.S. get their news from the platform. When using Twitter to market your destination, it can be beneficial to interact directly with your audience through use of hashtags, polls, and Q&As.
Share Your Sense of Place on Pinterest:
Pinterest’s resurgence in popularity was one of the unexpected effects of the pandemic. The platform’s usage has grown since 2020, with a 26.8% increase in monthly active users between quarter four of 2019 and 2021. This increase is likely brought on by the home renovation trend during COVID. As we continue to come out of the pandemic, Pinterest has become a fun place to research and get educated, and is a great platform for consumers to draw inspiration and plan future travels and purchases. Pinterest boards can highlight your destinations’ picturesque views, exciting attractions, and delicious food and beverage offerings, making it a great way to draw visitors in.
To learn more about selecting the best marketing channels for your destination, contact [email protected] for more information.