The post Mapping your media visits to a social strategy appeared first on Tourism Currents®.
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
Winston Churchill
We’ve been talking a lot lately about mapping (connecting) your overall marketing strategy to your online communications efforts. If you’re a destination marketer, your overall strategic goal is to bring more people to your area and increase awareness of your community.
A key component within your strategy is working with the media – which includes travel writers and bloggers – to get coverage that attracts attention and visitors. What is your strategy when working with those who come to showcase your area, and how do you track your results?
For many, the media strategy is simply “one and done.” The writer comes to the area, writes a story, departs, and then you check how well that story resonated with the audience after it’s published.
Having that type of strategy is NOT going to help you in the long run. That is NOT a social strategy, and most importantly, it is NOT a good marketing strategy!
Here are some ways to get more traction and interaction with your media visits.
Before Arrival
As soon as you know media is coming to your destination, attraction, or hotel, connect with them on the social media sites that they use. Converse with them, publicize that they are coming, and give them some online love. Let your community know that you have media coming to town and encourage them to connect and say Hello online.
A tweet from a DMO that announces and welcomes a visiting travel blogger who specializes in snowbird destinations.
You want to let the media know how welcome they are in your town, and to also give them a good sense of what they will find when they arrive. In the weeks/days prior to arrival, it’s your job to generate social chatter regarding the upcoming visit and get your community excited about who is coming.
Strategy Measurement: If you haven’t done so already, set up a community hashtag for all to use, then set up a free Tagboard to easily follow the action of the hashtag (Tagboard covers most social platforms so you won’t miss a hashtagged post anywhere).
Make sure everyone knows to use the hashtag!
When the Media Is in Town
Welcome them online. Make sure everyone knows their schedule.
Tip: be sure to leave plenty of time for them to be social online. Don’t cram every last minute of their day with things to do. Leave ample time for the writer to write, post, and interact online. Let your online community, your physical community, and the media enjoy each other.
Strategy Measurement: In addition to the tracking on Tagboard, be sure to retweet, repost, and interact with the real-time social conversation happening. Track engagement through social sharing stats. If you’ve laid a solid foundation for the writer’s visit, there will be plenty of people talking about plenty of things.
After the Media Leaves
Not only will the media provide great content for you once articles are posted or published, but the real-time experiences and social sharing they did while visiting your area can provide lots of online content for you for weeks after the visit, as you recount and share their interactions with your community.
Ask others to share their experiences too, and remember to keep using the hashtag. Meanwhile, don’t forget to keep your relationship with the media going. You’ve worked hard to cultivate the relationship prior to their arrival, you worked hard to make sure the media accomplished their goals when visiting you, and now you need to continue to work hard to stay connected with them.
You want that media person to come back again, and to keep you as “top of mind” as possible.
Strategy Measurement: The easiest way to measure here is by keeping track of how many others keep the online conversation going about the writer’s visit. The “harder” way (but a way to dig deeper into how well your strategy worked and see which links are sending referral traffic) is by using the Google Analytics on your website and/or blog.
Find out which links refer (send) you traffic, including your media person’s coverage, by looking in your analytics under Acquisition –> All Traffic –> Referrals.
Remember, the relationship doesn’t end when the media leaves. You have a wonderful opportunity to keep growing your connection if you stay social. The final part of your media strategy is to treat these relationships as more than just the media, more than just an online connection; at this point you can now consider that person a friend.
Have anything else to add? Leave a note down in the comments; we’d love to hear what you think!
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TBEX Asia travel blogger and online travel media conference in Bangkok, Thailand, October 15-17, 2015
Want to connect with international travel media and travel bloggers, particularly those who have audiences in Asia that fit your marketing strategy? It’s not too late to consider attending or sponsoring TBEX Asia, October 15-17, 2015 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Even better, here’s a code to knock 20% off of your ticket price for any TBEX —>> TourismCurrents20
For years, we’ve been proud media sponsors of TBEX events because we think they’re the most effective way for tourism organizations to connect with hundreds of online travel media people, all in one place.
We also recommend TBEX North America (October 28-30, 2015 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, followed by a unique TBEX At Sea networking cruise October 31-November 7, 2015) and TBEX Europe (July 14-16, 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden.)
The post Mapping your media visits to a social strategy appeared first on Tourism Currents®.
