© 2014 Zuum

October 2014

How Tourism DMOs Are Using InstagramAnalysis of the posting calendars, engagement levels and campaign themes of 9 state tourism DMOs.

Executive Summary❖ Brand post engagement rate averages on Instagram are 5.48% compared to .39% on Facebook, and .

04% on Twitter

❖ Instagram pages on average are growing followers at over 8% for the month of October, compared to .62% for Facebook pages.

❖ Between Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, Twitter gets the most posting volume, but the least engagement.

❖ Pure Michigan’s Instagram page generated more engagements than their Facebook page, despite having less than 20% as many followers.

❖ Pure Michigan’s top campaign theme #upperpeninsula featured community-generated content.

❖ Reporting period is for the entire month of October, 2014

❖ State DMOs in the report: Alaska Travel News, Explore Georgia, Go Hawaii, I Love New York, Pure Michigan, Texas Tourism, Visit California, Visit Colorado and Visit Florida.

DMOs are engaging on Instagram

1: Like many industries, tourism brands are getting the best social media engagement on Instagram.

Chart: Global Engagement Rate Leaderboard

Total engagement on Instagram is approaching Facebook

1: Pure Michigan page is already generating more engagement on Instagram than on Facebook.

In a previous report, Zuum highlighted 7 major consumer brands generating more engagement on Instagram than on Facebook.

View Report

Chart: Global Engagement Leaderboard

A big difference between Facebook and Instagram

1: On Facebook, brands have fans but are having trouble engaging them. On Instagram, engagement is high, but in this case it’s the 5th highest network in terms of average fan count.

Chart: Global Fan Leaderboard

Facebook fan growth rates seem to be stalling

1: Facebook pages averaged only .62% fan growth for the month of October. None of the 9 DMOs has over 1.24% growth for the month.

Chart: Facebook Leaderboard

Instagram pages are experiencing explosive growth

1: The average growth in fans for the month was 8.45%. The lowest page, Visit California, at 3.41%, is still over 2.5 times greater than the fastest growing Facebook page.

Chart: Instagram Leaderboard

Twitter posting volume isn’t producing engagement levels

1: Twitter gets the bulk of posting activity,

2: while generating only a sliver of engagement relative to Facebook and Instagram.

Brands may need to reconsider how much effort is going to Twitter, relative to it’s impact.

Chart: Content Analyzer

Network performance comparison for Pure Michigan

1: While Pure Michigan is putting only a small percent of their posting into Instagram,

2: engagement on Instagram shadows both Twitter and Facebook.

Charts: Posts by Day and Engagement by Day

Instagram posting volume averages 1 post per day

1: The average posting volume for all brands is 31 times for the month of October.

2: Visit Colorado posted 67 times, and still maintained near average engagement rates.

Chart: Posting Volume - Instagram

Posting times and engaging times are out of sync

1: The most engaging times are early and late in the day.

2: The most engaging days are weekends and near weekend days.

Brands are pushing content during work hours, but people are engaging during non-work periods.

Chart: Posting Times - Instagram

Note: All brands charted on the same GMT-6 time zone

Instagram-leader Pure Michigan

1: The most impacting brand on Instagram in this report, Pure Michigan shows similar trend for higher engagement during non-work hours, although they’re also getting good engagement throughout the day.

Chart: Posting Times - Instagram

Note: All brands charted on the same GMT-6 time zone

Campaign themes for October

DMOs frequently employ hashtags for various campaign initiatives.

Chart: Campaign Explorer - Instagram

Pure Michigan’s #upperpeninsula campaign

1: A strong-performing campaign, #upperpeninsula had an average per-post engagements-to-fan-count ratio of almost 9%.

Chart: Campaign Analyzer - Instagram

Getting the community involved

1: Utilizing fan photos is a great way to build community, while also selling the region’s natural beauty.

Chart: Top Brand Posts - Instagram

© 2014 Zuum

Be notified when reports like this are available from Zuum: get.zuumsocial.com/socialintelligence/

For more information about Zuum’s capabilities and pricing, please contact sales@zuumsocial.com

ZuumSocial.com

Subscribe