Do you want to know how to build your tourism brand on Twitter? Cities and Nations have begun to realize that social and sharing features are essential to preserving their history, art, and culture as an efficient tool to build brand identity. I have compiled 6 tips to building your tourism brand on one of the top social media platforms, Twitter. I have done countless hours of research and examined plenty of city and nation case studies. This is why I would like to provide this knowledge in a clear, concise and easy to understand webinar. This webinar is for all Travel and Tourism professionals (travel agents, travel journalists, travel hospitality, museums) and most importantly those who work within a city or nation tourism board.
- 1. Hosted by, Valencia Davillier Jackson Travel and Tourism
Media Professional and owner of Creative Vie Media
2. Valencia Davillier Jackson Travel and Media Professional
Owner of Creative Vie Media 3. Cities and nations are beginning to
realize that social sharing features are essential to preserving
their history, art, and culture and is an effective tool to
building their brand identity. This webinar compiles 6 tips to help
build your brand identity using Twitter. The following material is
for all Travel and Tourism Professionals especially those who work
within a city or nation tourism board. 4. The mission is to inform
and educate travel and tourism professionals on the principles used
to increase city awareness, travel and engagement. Twitter basics
and fundamentals will be covered. Why a travel destination should
use Twitter as a real time concierge. Why meaningful content is
key. What consists of meaningful content. How to preserve your
history, art, and culture using Twitter to promote what makes your
destination unique and stand out. How to properly use hashtags to
build your city brand. 5. Twitter is not just a numbers game. Many
brands have discovered that Twitter is a powerful tool used to find
and engage with your audience. Many jump onto Twitter for the first
time and discover that they do not get an instant following to
their Tweet and soon learn that they must develop this following 6.
Many then go to Google and search for things like how to get more
followers on Twitter I am here to inform you that it is not how
many followers you have, but how RELEVANT your followers are.
Having 20,000 followers who do not respond to your content is
equivalent to climbing Mount Everest and shouting your content and
claiming all of Nepal as your target audience. 7. The take a way
here is that more engaged Twitter followers is better than the
number of followers. Building a relevant Twitter following comes
down to these four principles: 1. ind and Follow relevant people 2.
weet content that will be relevant to your target audience 3. ngage
with your audience 4. romote your Twitter account through other
channels 8. Your target audience is out there. Lets go get them! To
begin you need a strong, clear, and concise profile. Its kind of
like how we clean our house before guest come over. This begins
with your profile photo. For cities and nations it is important to
have a photo that truly captures the history, art, and culture of
your destination. What makes your city unique? What sets if apart
from another destination? 9. You have 160 characters to use for
your bio so its important to get creative and let people know why
they should be following you! For my bio I decided to use Valencia
Jackson founder of Creative Vie Media. A bold and clever travel and
tourism branding, PR and multimedia agency guaranteed to boost
tourism while preserving culture It is clear, concise, states what
makes me unique, and my passions. 10. Now it is also important to
note that you can also find relevant followers by using third party
boards. For instance, Twellow and WeFollow will allow you to search
using industry, location or keywords. You can use these tools to
search for your own industry as well as the industry of your ideal
customers. 11. Next it is important that you Tweet engaging
content. You can set up Google Alerts to get daily updates of all
things that are interesting to your audience. For example, for
travel and tourism the alerts can be your city or nation name. Yes
its that simple! 12. Sharing media is also a key to engaging and
building your city and tourism brand on Twitter. For instance,
share photos and media of festivals, museums, and historical places
of your city and nation. Make sure to display images of the people,
cuisine, nightlife and culture. 13. Cliffs of Moher in Western
Ireland 14. For instance, the Cliffs of Moher is a very unique and
popular image that sets Ireland apart from other European
countries. These Cliffs are Irelands most visited attraction Up to
one million people visit the Cliffs a year. 15. Engage! Engage!
Engage! You must also be proactive and engage with others on
Twitter. Follow and respond to others. It is important to get in
the conversation and let people know you are out there and
interested! Also, being part of the conversation gets you in front
of more people. 16. Getting involved in Twitter chats is another
way to increase engagement. You can find a long list of chats in
Google doc Finally, it is essential that you promote your city and
nation through other channels. Talk about your Twitter on your
blog, Facebook, website, YouTube and through email. 17. This can be
done by using simple follow me call to actions on your sites, email
signatures and email newsletters. Next we will discuss the
importance for a city to use Twitter as a real time concierge. 18.
The Louvre 19. For this segment we are going to use the city of
Paris as an example. Rich in history, art, and culture Paris seems
to combine all things that make a destination truly unique in an
elegant and breathtaking way. Samantha Shankman stated Destinations
should be heavily investing in real time social engagement to build
brand awareness, improve visitor experiences and share meaningful
content that fuels inspiration. Destinations that dont are missing
out. 20. Travelers around the world are now relying on apps to help
with their travel experience. Many are reading TripAdvisor reviews,
downloading local discovery apps and asking friends for
recommendations. Many cities and nations are missing out on
preserving and promoting their destination via social media in real
time. 21. A perfect example of this would be the number of
destinations on Skift that reply to tweets in less than two hours.
There are more than 450 destinations on Skift, but only 12
destination marketing organizations respond to tweets in less then
2 hours. Can you imagine the benefit have having your tweet
responded to in real time while waiting in line to visit The
Louvre? Imagine the experience and impression left in the travelers
mind about the city and its attractions. Now we know that 2 hours
is not fast enough for those seeking real time information, but it
is a step in the right direction. 22. Visit Seattle, Visit
Melbourne and Welcome to Yorkshire are the top three destinations
that do respond to Tweets within a two hour window. So far we have
covered basic Twitter fundamentals for cities and nations, and the
importance of using Twitter as a real time concierge as a tool to
enhance the travel experience. In our next segment we will touch
base on why meaningful content is key and what exactly is
meaningful content for a travel and tourism audience. 23. In PR,
Marketing and Social Media there is a saying Content is king Well
if content is king it is essential to know your audience and
provide them with meaningful content that will interest and engage.
We all know if can be a bore to read a Tweet from a tourism board
that is basically schedules with dates and times of upcoming events
and festivals. 24. It should also be noted that it is real
difficult to create one voice for a destination that is diverse and
filled with history, art, culture and attractions. Content
marketing is the most effective marketing online. So what is
content marketing? Content marketing is to give information of
value with the goal of having a conversion. 25. What you publish
about your city and nation has to be meaningful to your audience.
It must be of value. Your content has to frame value to your
audience and value is a perception held differently in everyone.
Thus, making this tricky. A very good way to put this is simply to
state that meaningful content is an experience. 26. Meaningful
content can take on various reactions. For instance, the reactions
can range from sharing your content, traveling to your destination,
buying your tourism book and so on. Why is action important? Well
it is action that leads to beneficial results. 27. With meaningful
content you earn a true fan and a true fan is going to tell someone
about your city, your blog, your Twitter account and so on. This
cycle repeats itself over and over thanks to the reach of Twitter
and social media. Many tourism boards have turned to a clever idea
of having a character display their content and engage with their
target audience. 28. A good example of this would be the Banff
Squirrel (Banff is in Canada) The Banff squirrel crashed a tourists
photo and the tourism board used it as a marketing strategy. Banff
squirrel is now the face of tourism for the Canadian town and park.
29. Banff Squirrel crashing tourist photo 30. Getting your voice
heard takes creativity and using this squirrel as the face of
tourism is a creative, and innovative approach to city branding on
Twitter. The Banff Squirrel turns to Twitter to spread news about
his hometown. He has the 18th most active and 52nd most followed
Twitter account of the 250 destinations on SkiftSocial. 31. He
sends an average of about 13 Tweets a day And he is actively
following and replying to his followers. Banff squirrel has now
engaged with plenty of followers. They range from National
Geographic to Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models. 32. In order to
make your destination stand out it is essential to curate its
history, art, and culture. The first step in doing so is to make
sure your content is geared towards local attractions and
activities. It is also extremely important to make sure you use
proper hashtags. We will discuss this further in our final segment.
33. In addition you to to engage and follow the right audience.
Seek individuals who are passionate about travel, tourism, history,
art, and culture. Also seek tourism companies, boards, travel
magazines, television networks and so on. And most importantly
increase your meaningful content. Share information about museums,
landmarks, nightlife, cuisine, nature, and many other items that
bring awareness to what makes your city or nation special. 34.
Curating Culture Rio De Janeiro 35. Another strategy to curating
your history and culture would be to retweet what others are saying
and sharing about your city. One clever way to do this is to begin
your Tweet with RT (which means retweet) @(the company, or person
you are retweeting) For instance, RT@legalnomad You can always
simply hit retweet, but that doesnt really help you the
destination. You want people to see your name. 36. It is essential
to determine what percentage of your Tweets will be about business
and what percentage will be items that simply draw attention from
other sources. For instance, quotes, trivia, jokes etc I have a
simple three step rule in curating history, art, and culture. 1.
ducate 2. lluminate what makes your city unique 3. ake them travel
37. Finally make sure to tweet about your destination and retweet
other blogs, newsletters or relevant information. We are now
approaching the final segment of the webinar and although it might
simple real simple it is very important to master the #hashtag 38.
The hashtag is an mportant way to organize information on Twitter.
A hashtag turns any word or phrase you chose into an immediate
searchable link. This is important because it allows you to follow
conversations based on that keyword. Anyone can make a hashtag at
anytime. Once a hashtag is created other Twitter users can use the
hashtag in their tweets to build on the conversation. 39. The
hashtag began with Twitter but it is now on other social media
platforms. It is important to note that spaces are a complete no
no. A good way to differentiate between words is to use capital
letters. For example, #RioDeJaneiro A hashtag can add context,
humor and voice. 40. For example, #passtheguinness was a hashtag
used by Ireland Tourism to promote Saint Patricks Day activities.
The best practices for hashtags consist of keeping it simple. Two
to three hashtags is enough. You dont want to go overboard and look
like spam. Next be specific. It most be relevant to the topic. 41.
Finally you want to make sure there is context. Dont just tweet a
hashtag. The following slides provide two examples of well used
hashtags. 42. #hashtag #istanbul #bluemosque 43. #hashtag #bavaria
#germany 44. In summary Twitter is a popular tool for cities and
nations to showcase their history, art and culture. It is a
platform used to build city brand awareness in a very cost
effective manner. Great Twitter content is essential to engaging
and increasing your target audience. Using Twitter as a real time
concierge is something not many tourism boards do, but should. It
increases the travelers experience and provides a level of service
unlike any other. 45. Curating photos, publication articles, media,
video, and other items relevant to your citys history, art, and
culture will increase tourism and display what makes your
destination unique. Content is king. It is important to provide
meaningful content of value. And finally dont forget the simple
#hashtag. It is a wonderful way to organize information, add to and
join conversations. However, when using the hashtag make sure to
keep it simple, specific, and provide meaningful context. Thank you
for taking time and I hope these simple steps help guide you as you
build your city and nation brand. Once again I am Valencia
Davillier Jackson. Travel and Tourism Media Professional and
founder of Creative Vie Media. I hope you enjoyed and took away a
couple concepts to apply to your city brand campaign. 46. Email:
[email protected] and [email protected]
Website: creativeviemedia.com and valenciajackson.com Twitter:
@creativevie Facebook: Creative Vie Media 47. Leydon, Tom. (2008).
Travel and Tourism Marketing. 15 Twitter tips for Tourism
marketing. Sevin, Efe. (2013). Places Going Viral: Twitter usage
patterns in destination marketing and place branding. School of
International Service. American University, Washington District of
Columbia: Emerald Publishing Group. Scott, Levy. (2014). Retweeting
Content to Build Your Brand on Twitter. Clark, Brian. (2011). Are
You Creating Meaningful Content. 48. Hiscott, Rebecca. (2013). The
Beginners Guide to the Hashtag. Burke. Fauzia. (2012). Twelve Ways
to Build Your Brand and Promote Your Book On Twitter. Travel Spike.
(2010). Promoting Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Brand on Twitter.
Wexler, Adam. (2012). Building Twitter Targeted Followers: How to
Build a Meaningful Audience Without Advertising.
