On Twitter, businesses do not have very much information about their followers; instead, they bombard them with a variety of information hoping that something will be of interest due to low entry costs. The frequency with which each DMO posts to each individual platform also varies, and can be attributed to several factors and strategies.
An important category of the content analysis was whether or not the analysed posts contained original information versus information that had been provided previously. Figure 2 a and b represent the frequency with which VisitBritain publishes repeated content in comparison to the other DMOs. Distribution of tweets by country, June Figure 3 a and b demonstrate that there is no general pattern of how many times the combined DMOs post per day.
It is apparent that DMOs contribute much more often to Twitter, although some DMOs have more systematic strategies to how many times per day they post. The frequency with which DMOs post and the overall total they post per month is only one important element of their social media strategies. Another key element is to what extent the DMOs user their social media platforms to interact and engage with their consumers.
Interaction with consumers Gretzel et al. The Internet, and social media, are often additional tools to be used in conjunction with, not always as a replacement for, older strategies. However, this sort of sharing happens on a personal level. Intervie- wees suggested that organisations are often less comfortable with consumers voicing their opinions, criticisms and ideas, and frequently use the site to advertise and promote as they do in other forms of media.
Downloaded by [Bournemouth University] at 20 March Figure 2. Distribution of repeated information by VisitBritain on Twitter versus distribution of repeated information by all other DMOs combined. Figure 3. Frequency of Facebook and Twitter posts during the month of June While there were multiple ways to advertise festivals and events before the advent of social media, this is a good example of using social media to implement traditional, pre-existing marketing methods.
Number of daily Tweets from the Spain Twitter account, June What about you? What is your favourite sausage? Over the course of June , some DMOs contributed considerably more interac- tive content than others.
But across both platforms, the majority DMOs, such as, the French and Spanish Tourism Boards, demonstrated similar levels of interactive posts on both platforms. Others, such as the British and Mexican tourism boards were much more interactive on Facebook than they were on Twitter.
The only tourism board to have a higher percentage of interactive posts on Twitter than on Facebook was the Malaysian DMO. However, on both platforms the number of interactive posts was very few. There are a number of reasons to suggest that the level of each DMOs interactivity on Facebook versus Twitter is not coincidental, but stra- tegic.
Facebook allows the usage of media rich content that encourages users to interact, like, comment, share, and engage. In addition, Facebook allows fans to post their own experience and content on the organisation page and hence create a much stronger sense of community.
Table 6. Figure 5. Downloaded by [Bournemouth University] at 20 March Figures 5 and 6 demonstrate that postings on Facebook were over three times more interactive than updates on Twitter. They are not, like Facebook, easily categorised by posting, but instead, by the time the comment was posted. For businesses, this complicates being able to easily comprehend and measure feedback.
Furthermore, Twitter does not allow users to easily view comments from other users whom they do not follow. While the user to whom the comments are directed, in this case the DMO, can always view replies, other users will not be able to unless they are following the user who has replied. A retweet is the Twitter equivalent of for- warding an email- it simply re-posts information that has originated elsewhere previously.
Most DMOs interviewed mentioned the ability to measure consumer sentiment via social media. Current Issues in Tourism 15 Table 7. Degree of consumer interaction with Facebook and Twitter posts. Facebook Twitter Average no. For instance, when the Spanish Tourism Board places a post on Facebook, it reaches over 15 times more people than an update posted on Twitter.
Facebook reaches more people since given the frequency with which Twitter users update, each time a Downloaded by [Bournemouth University] at 20 March user logs in there are numerous updates organised by the time in which they were posted to scroll through whereas on Facebook, it is not uncommon to see all the updates from any given day.
Even though the DMOs are communicating to a much larger audience when using Facebook, it is easier to interact with this audience given the lack of saturation of other postings and organisation of the commenting system.
Interaction on Twitter is used more effectively for current content and for communication of what is happening now. After analysing 1. Social media and DMOs Wang et al. It is therefore important for organisations to include as much rich content as possible, while providing the necessary information to their consumers.
However, as the frequency with which the DMOs posted and the degree of interaction they displayed varied between Twitter and Facebook, so did the nature of the content included.
Content came almost exclusively from the DMOs themselves, not other users. Though Flickr is a natural choice for sharing photo-content, Facebook and Twitter could be used more often to share user Downloaded by [Bournemouth University] at 20 March content and create a stronger sense of collaboration and community.
VisitBritain integrates their Flickr account with their Facebook account. Posts often redirected users to another website. Therefore, when users access the website, they tend to, and want to, stay on Facebook.
VisitBritain seeks to engage with their Face- book fans without bombarding them with information and links to external websites. Tweets cannot exceed this limit, so providing a hyperlink which can be automatically shortened to contain less characters allows the distribution of more information. While Facebook and Twitter enable the user to interact and converse with large groups of people, DMOs are still using these social media devices as promotional tools.
Figure 6 depicts the type of promotional information DMOs included in their Twitter and Facebook posts and tweets. These categories were not mutually exclusive, and many updates promoted several things simultaneously.
In promoting destinations, events, attractions, or websites, it is also in the best interest of the DMOs to provide as much information as possible. Given the brevity of a Facebook or Twitter post, DMOs often linked to more information, or used the space to provide key pieces of information.
An example of factual or historical information is a tweet that provides dates and opening hours of a local festival, or information about the history behind a particular national holiday. The majority of information posted was factual in nature. However, the representation in Figure 6 for how often Twitter was used to promote another social media outlet is skewed by some of the DMOs doing remarkably better than others.
The Twitter account of the author of the post is also featured in the post, as several UK travel journalists work in conjunction with VisitBritain to maintain the Super Blog. DMOs strive to make the most of each and every post by including rich media Downloaded by [Bournemouth University] at 20 March and helpful information.
The frequency, interactivity, and nature of posts all contribute to form the overall social media strategies of the selected DMOs. While some patterns exist, no two DMOs operate their social media accounts in precisely the same way.
Other factors also contribute to the overarching social media strategies such as the organ- isational structure of the DMOs. DMO organisational structure and social media Wang et al. Consequently, it is expected that DMOs adoption of social media platforms will be varied. In some cases, there might be several accounts organised by language. VisitBritain, on the other hand, manages only one account. For example, a Facebook post could be set to appear only to those who have publicised on Facebook that they speak Portuguese or only those who have set their location to Brazil.
Which role or job title should be responsible for managing the DMOs social media efforts varies drastically from organisation to organisation.
Substantial insight into how the DMO feels about social media can be gained from understanding what roles are associ- ated with managing a social media strategy. The French and British DMOs are the only ones to differentiate the roles according to social media platform. The French DMO respondent referred to the employee who manages Facebook as Commu- nity Manager, and explained that this job title was similar to the digital marketing titles at VisitBritain.
At the time of the interview July the respondent already had a greater part of their job con- sumed with maintaining B2B and B2C relationships via the social media channels. At the majority of DMOs, the management of social media was seen as a marketing role. The delegation of duties involved with managing social media contributes to the varied strategies of the analysed DMOs. Related to roles and responsibilities is funding, which also differed between the DMOs.
Yet there were still some common themes associated with the funding of their social media strategies. Though each region of the world used to have its own marketing budget, it is now based in London. The VisitBritain respon- dent, however, feels that social media has delivered far more results. During the three weeks this advertise- ment ran, the number of fans for the German Facebook page increased During this period, the advertisement netted 2.
The respondent acknowledged that this was a very disappointing result given the money spent. This is one reason why the German Tourist Board is considering outsourcing their social media efforts to an agency that can better organise the accounts and invoice them on a less-frequent basis.
To create engaging, creative applications via Facebook requires outsourcing to Facebook application development companies, such as Betapond. Whether or not DMOs will have the necessary funds and technological skills to develop these types of applications in the future is unclear.
Some social media strategies simply lack the funds. This notion that television commercials are out-dated and ineffective is not uncommon in social media literature. According to Borges , p. The Turkish Min- istry of Tourism and Culture respondent explained that it only ran one, month-long televi- Downloaded by [Bournemouth University] at 20 March sion spot in the UK once a year, during January and February, due to increased bookings during those months.
In contrast, the France Tourism Development Agency had no plans for television commercials. DMOs are looking for other ways to spend their marketing budget more effectively, and social media often stands out as particularly effective. Audience development and social media If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populous in the world Qualman, Social media reaches people at a scale and speed larger and more quickly than pre- vious communication mediums.
Accordingly, the diversity of social media users is enor- mous and it is evident from this research that DMOs are actively looking to engage two markets through social media- the youth market and businesses and trade professionals.
Interviewees suggested that social media is predominantly used by the younger generation. For that reason, many companies are hesitant to participate in social media if their markets are not focused on the youth segment. However, the number of adults using social networking websites such as Facebook is increasing. But the younger generation are the focus of many of the DMOs.
This campaign was geared wholly towards a younger clientele. Part of the campaign involved partnering with Eurolines, the European coach service. The respondent noted that this par- ticular campaign was so successful based on Euroline bookings into France that they repeated the same campaign in Similarly, VisitBritain also partnered with student travel companies STA Travel and low-cost airline Air Transat to develop a Facebook application based competition geared towards students.
The users then had to search for their partner, using the help of their online network, and the winning pair won an exclusive trip for two to London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Cardiff, or Liverpool Fenrich, Likewise, the respondent from Tour Spain explained that given the majority of their Facebook fans are younger, it guided their decision to sign an agreement with the football team Real Madrid to use sport heavily on the Facebook page.
Visit Mexico has also created a campaign for the youth market. Though social media usage is no longer limited to teenagers and students, DMOs are actively employing social media as a means of engaging with these markets.
A content analysis has been performed on the websites and social media pages of the destination management organisations of Mozambique, Indonesia and Australia that have been used as a case study. The analysis is based on the 8P marketing theory and a conceptual framework for social media has been created during this research.
The results showed that developed countries use more marketing instruments and they use social media most frequently. Furthermore, the results showed that developing countries are more advanced in destination marketing via social media than emerging countries. Social Media as a Destination Marketing Tool. Social media are gaining prominence as an element of destination marketing organization DMO marketing strategy at a time when public sector cuts in their funding are requiring them to seek greater value in the way marketing budgets are spent.
Social media offers DMOs with a tool to reach a global audience with limited resources. The aim of this study is to explore the usage of social media among the DMOs of the top 10 most visited countries by international tourists. Social media has a special significance for the activities of destination marketing organisations DMaOs.
The basic prerequisite for this is an adaptation to technological changes that range from the use of the Internet to publish Web sites and advertisements towards the use of social media. Destinations marketers can use social media before the travel inspire, inform, engage , during the travel facilitate at destination and after the holiday remember, share and engage.
Non-acceptance of the use of social media by DMaO will cause a decrease in their competitive advantage. The risk associated with using social media that is particularly highlighted is the lack of relevant researches.
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