Tourism Social Media

Rather than become disillusioned with social media, because there’s no denying the millions of people buying and conversing online, the question remains: What is the best way to reach them?

BlackEnterprise.com has outlined five reasons your brand’s social media strategy isn’t working, and what you can do to improve it:

When it comes to social media, male and female behavior is very different.

People travel from all over the world to walk the Freedom Trail in Boston, see the autumn leaves turn in Vermont and New Hampshire and eat lobster in Maine. A new campaign involving tourism officials in three states to the south and west of Boston is aimed at peeling off some of those visitors and attracting new ones to a region they have dubbed "SoNew."

Picture yourself strolling through Peddler’s Village with friends, searching for treasures in the destination’s many stores. Or perhaps a tour of Bucks County’s 10 wineries is more your speed, sipping Rose Bank Winery’s cabernet sauvignon or Unami Ridge’s chardonnay.

Or maybe you’d rather picture your children giggling with Elmo at Sesame Place or riding the carousel at Giggleberry Fair.

Get the picture? Visit Bucks County hopes so.

And the county’s tourism marketing agency is hoping those pictures will draw even more visitors to Bucks this year.

State tourism officials are taking advantage of the blockbuster success of “Iron Man 3.”Much o f the movie was filmed in North Carolina. Filmmakers transformed coastal Wilmington, small-town Rose Hill and suburban Cary into California, Tennessee, Florida and even Afghanistan for the high-tech adventure.

Has social media obviated the need for some or all of these? After all, anyone can tweet, anyone can start a blog (that's for sure!), anyone can set up a Facebook page, pin it to Pinterest, and share photos on Instagram. So do we need all that traditional marketing stuff?

It’s time to hire your content marketing chief, a.ka. marketing maven, and you’ve got a big problem.

For one, you’ve never hired a content marketer. Secondly, you’re not exactly sure what a marketing maven is. Finally, you have little or no idea as to what a content marketer’s skill sets should be.

In the past few years, there’s been a real transformation in the way people consume information and communicate. Fueled by the mass adoption of social platforms, this transformation in consumer behavior demands that the ways we market also evolve. This is especially true in business-to-business where brands compete in a content-flooded environment with countless information sources to capture buyers' attention.

As he expertly navigated the labyrinthine corridors of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence,  Eugenio Giani claimed he had no doubts about Dan Brown. "Tourism is down in Florence by 10%, and if this new book does well, we will get that 10% back," he said.

The tourism industry has changed dramatically with the overwhelming emergence of social media platforms. Due to the nature of a travel product – it is experiential, and often a material commitment in terms of money or time – people have long shared their travel experience and social media just facilitates this.

'Celebrate Tourism in Santa Fe' event. The 'Celebrate Tourism Santa Fe' event Thursday at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Clyde Mueller/The New Mexican.