maximilianne lejeune

EUROPEAN TOURISM OFFICES & SOCIAL NETWORKS

How to promote participation through Social Media?

We connect tourism offices in Europe together and with travellers all over the world.

Develop online information related to the main tourism offices in Europe.

Share information about the various tourist offices via our major social networks.

Collect data related to the development of e-tourism in Europe and provide this data to tourism offices to help them understand and improve their presence on social networks.

Organize, each year, the election of "Best European Destination", an event which has been attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors since 2009.

Provide ad-hoc travel guides online.

OUR ACTIONS

A STUDY OF E-TOURISM

Performance benchmarking and content analysis of 283 destination marketing organizations on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google +, Instagram, and Pinterest. Tourism offices included :

OUT OF 283 EUROPEAN TOURISM OFFICES OF THIS STUDY, 92% HAVE A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT FOR A TOTAL OF NEARLY 8 MILLION OF LIKES.

THE 3 MOST POPULAR DESTINATIONS ON FACEBOOK ARE AMSTERDAM, LISBON AND LONDON.

These 3 tourism offices represent 1,655,333 likes or 21% of the total of likes.

The 10 most popular destinations on Facebook represent 2,708,723 likes or 34% of the total of likes of this study.

Top 10 : Amsterdam, Lisbon, London, Strasbourg, Vienna, Paris, Val Thorens, Florence, Madrid, Zurich.

THE MOST « LIKED » AND « SHARED » POSTS ON THE FACEBOOK PAGE OF AMSTERDAM (N°1 ON FACEBOOK) ARE PHOTOS ABOUT THE CITY ITSELF, FUN AND FOOD.

NONE OF THESE PHOTOS BELONG TO THE CITY OF AMSTERDAM, THESE ARE PHOTOS FROM FOLLOWERS, TRAVELLERS, PARTNERS.

OUT OF 283 EUROPEAN TOURISM OFFICES OF THIS STUDY, 228 OR 81 % HAVE A TWITTER ACCOUNT FOR A TOTAL OF NEARLY 1,5 MILLIONS OF FOLLOWERS.

THE 3 MOST POPULAR TOURISM OFFICES ON TWITTER ARE LONDON, MANCHESTER AND AMSTERDAM.

These 3 tourism offices represent 345,178 followers or 25% of the total of followers on Twitter for this study

The 10 most popular destinations on Twitter represent 573,145 followers or 41% of the total of followers. .

Top 10: London, Manchester, Amsterdam, Sevilla, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Paris, Belfast, Leeds, Bristol.

VISIT LONDON (N°1 ON TWITTER) SHARES ALL KINDS OF INFORMATION: THEATRE, ACCESSIBILITY FOR DISABLED PEOPLE, PHOTO CONTESTS, PHOTOS OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY, SPORTS NEWS (BBC…) AND NOT ONLY INFORMATION ON TOURISM.

Good practices on Twitter :

- Adapted Header and logo : go on- Post every day - Follow all kinds of profiles and share their infos about your destination

A BIG PART OF ITS CONTENT COME FROM OTHER TWITTER ACCOUNTS, THIS IS PROBABLY THE BEST THING TO DO IN ORDER TO CREATE A REAL NETWORK OF FOLLOWERS.

YOUTUBE (CREATED IN 2005 AND OWNED BY GOOGLE SINCE 2006) IS THE SECOND SOCIAL NETWORK MOST USED BY EUROPEAN TOURISM OFFICES INCLUDED IN THIS STUDY (USED BY 82% OF THEM).

THE TOP 10 IS : SEVILLA, LONDON, MADRID, HELSINKI, LA PLAGNE, COPENHAGEN, VAL THORENS, DUBLIN, SÖLDEN, AMSTERDAM.

THE EUROPEAN TOURISM OFFICES OF THIS STUDY WITH A YOUTUBE ACCOUNT REACH A TOTAL OF 24,116,936 VIEWS AND HAVE 66,271 SUBSCRIBERS.

THE MEAN VIDEOS PER ACCOUNT IS 46 AND THE MEAN VIEWS PER VIDEOS IS 3,845 VIEWS/VIDEOS.

SHORT VIDEOS WITH YOUR STRONG SPOTS

GOOD PRACTICES ON YOUTUBE:

A TAGLINE

HEADER ADAPTED TO THE FORMAT

THE LOGO OF YOUR TOURISM OFFICE (IN FULL, WELL-CUT)

WHY SHOULD YOU BE ON GOOGLE + ?

GOOGLE REALLY ENJOY WHEN PEOPLE USE THEIR TOOLS (GOOGLE+, GOOGLE MAPS, GOOGLE 360° VIEWS,…) AND SO THEY WILL GIVE YOU A BETTER RANKING ON GOOGLE.COM

75% of European Tourism Offices of this study have a Google + account for a mean 344 subscribers per account.

The 3 most popular accounts totalise 43,810 subscribers or more than 60 % of the subscribers

Top 3 on Google + : London, Bilbao and Bastia

INSTAGRAM

The 3 most popular destinations on Instagram are Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm

From February 2014 to October 2014 their number of followers grew by 300% ( from 21,000 to 63,000 followers)

Instagram is a network with new users every day.

EXAMPLE OF GOOD PRACTICE ON INSTAGRAM : The tourism office of Auxerre, in France, organized a whole day dedicated to Instagram. The tourist office invited their Iinstagram followers but also local professional photographers , winemakers (they offered wine !) and the media and they just walked through the streets of Auxerre all day. (Photowalk).

- Total cost : 200 euros (for flyers), - The photos are now in the “images bank” of the tourism office. - This allows to move from virtual to real, to strengthen the network and to make people real ambassadors of this destination.

PINTEREST

The 3 most popular destinations on Pinterest are Oslo, Gdansk and Berlin.

From February 2014 to October 2014 their number of followers grew by 131% (4489 to 5907 followers).

Ladies love “pinning”: 97% of the Pinterest users are women.

PINTEREST IS GENERATING MORE REFERRAL TRAFFIC THAN YOUTUBE, GOOGLE + AND LINKEDIN…TOGETHER

ANALYZE YOUR SOCIAL NETWORKS AND EVALUATE THE IMPACT OF YOUR CAMPAIGNS OF COMMUNICATION :

E-TOURISM BAROMETER

10 Tips to strengthen participation through Social Media

Be online Be connected Be global Be plugged in Be social Be clean Be creative Be honest Be collective Be curious

10 TIPS TO STRENGTHEN PARTICIPATION THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

BE ONLINE

More than one out of three EDEN tourism offices members have a Facebook account (37%) for a total of 75,739 likes.

The 3 most popular destinations are : Karlovac, Clonakilty and Wild Taiga, they represent 28,411 likes or 37,5 % of the total of likes for the EDEN members

16,5% of EDEN members have a Twitter account for a total of 4,565 followers. The 3 most popular destinations are : Kuldiga, Waterrijk and Loophead, they represent 55% of

the total of followers for the EDEN members. 11 % of EDEN members have a Youtube account for a total of 102 subscribers. The 3 most popular destinations on Youtube are : Karlovac, Bohemian Switzerland and Sinj, they

represent 66% of the Subscribers for the EDEN members. 3% of EDEN members have a Google + account 3% of EDEN members have a Pinterest account0% of EDEN members have an Instagram account

BE CONNECTED

Follow various kinds of pages & accounts (Museums, Artists, Hotels, Photographers).Share the best information.Create a real network.

USE ON YOUR WEBSITE

Be global

ADD A FACEBOOK SOCIAL PLUGIN ON YOUR WEBSITE

Be plugged in

CREATE LINKS INSIDE YOUR SOCIAL NETWORKS .

Be social

TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEADER AND YOUR PROFILE PICTURE, GO ON OR AND CROP THE PERFECT HEADER AND THE PERFECT PROFILE IMAGE.

Be clean

USE THE LOGO EDEN IS GREAT USE A CLEAN CUT LOGO IS EVEN BETTER

Be clean

Be creative

DATABANK IMAGES IMAGE EDITOR

In order to promote their destination the tourism office in Champagne (France) made a big campaign (mostly in the airports) with this wonderful picture.

Be honest

The problem is that these great vineyards are located in the Napa Valley in California !!(Getty images).

Be collectiveUse the EDEN logo in your

communications on your website, on your business cards, your email signature, on your flyers.

38% of EDEN members display the logo on their website.

BE CURIOUS :FOLLOW THE BEST DESTINATIONS ON SOCIAL NETWORKS

(Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Youtube)

(Facebook, Google + Twitter)

(Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Youtube)

(Pinterest, Instagram)

(Facebook, Google +,)

(Facebook, Youtube)

(Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube)

(Facebook, Twitter, Website, Pinterest)

Example of good practice : Porto – European Best Destinations 2014

Contacted via Facebook Share on the Internet, Twitter,

Facebook, Online media, press & television

Number of online views in 5 days: 105,000 views

Number of online views in six months: 200,000 views

Total of views (Internet + television : +/- 8,500,000 views)

Production cost: 0 euro Atmos Film Production: Projects for the

next 2 yearsPorto: +13% of travelers in the first half

of 2014.

Be connected Search for local talents (photographers, video artists) Remove the barriers between the real and the virtualMobilize all your networks (social networks, press, partners, hotels, dance schools, photographers, artists, restaurants, national tourism office, …) in order to promote your destination.

LAST TIPS

m.lejeune@europeanbestdestinations.org