The document discusses the results of a survey of over 100 destination marketing organizations regarding their social media challenges and practices. Some key findings include: 1) Most destinations have small social media budgets under $25,000 while allocating less than 10% of total marketing budgets to social media. 2) Popular budget allocations include paid promotion (39%), content development (29%), and human resources for engagement (28%). 3) The biggest challenge reported is finding time to manage multiple social media platforms, with staying up to date on trends and technologies as the second largest challenge.

1. Social media
challenges in
destination
marketing
Frederic Gonzalo

3. Earler in 2014, we
celebrated Facebook’s
10th anniversary, LinkedIn
boasted more than 300
million active users while
TripAdvisor now has more
than 175 million reviews.

4. We have come to expect
seeing travel & hospitality
stakeholders managing
accounts on Instagram,
Pinterest, Twitter or even
Google+.

5. In other words, social
media marketing has
moved beyond bells
and whistles and is now
the mainstay of a
sound digital strategy,
along with having a
transactional, mobile-optimized
website and
a clean database for
frequent, automated
emails and/or
newsletters.

6. But while social media is now
recognized as important, in
particular within the travel
vertical, managing it remains a
constant challenge.

7. BEST PRACTICES
During its most recent annual summit in
Vegas, DMAI (Destination Marketing
Association International) shared the
results from a recent study conducted
by Development Counsellors
International, surveying more than 100
individuals responsible for social media
marketing at destination marketing
organizations across North America.

8. Some findings were real eye-openers,
confirming what many
observers suspected: while social
media are considered important
for a majority, budget allocation
remains marginal, at best.

10. This chart shows that 71% of
destinations surveyed must deal
with a social media marketing
budget of less than 25,000$.
Perhaps even more surprisingly,
99% of organizations have a
digital marketing budget, yet only
60% have a dedicated envelope
for social media activities.

12. This second chart
demonstrates beyond any
doubt how social media are
under-represented in the big
picture of digital marketing
budgets.

13. Roughly 76% of destinations
allocate less than 10% of
their total marketing budgets
to social media, regardless of
the size of the digital
marketing budget to being
with!

14. So how are social media budgets
spent? Some very interesting findings
here, shedding light on some best
practices by destinations in their social
media efforts.

15. According to the survey, most
popular budget allocations are:
39% in paid promotion:
promoted tweets, Facebook
ads and promoted posts, etc.
29% in content development:
graphics, writing, photos and
videos, apps.

16. 28% invest in Human Resources
for engagement.
18% spend on contest
initiatives.
13% spend their budget on
monitoring tools such as
Radian6, VocusSocial, Sysomos,
etc.

18. One eye-opening finding is
that destination brands with
intermediate social media
marketing budgets seem to
be the ones outsourcing this
function the most.

19. In particular organizations
with budgets within the
25,000-50,000$ bracket, 83%
of which outsource their
social media activities,
handing it over to agencies
and/or freelance experts.

20. We are not so surprised to
see that destinations with
the smallest budgets tend
to keep activities in-house,
since budgets are scarce
to being with.

21. Nevertheless,
it is somewhat
surprising to
find out that
virtually one
out of every
three DMO
outsources its
social media
activities.

24. Finally, when surveying what
are today’s top social media
challenges face by DMOs,
again I was somewhat
surprised not to see some
concerns rank higher, i.e.
maintaining engagement, or
budget constraints.

25. In fact, the biggest
challenge seems to be
one shared by many
industries alike, and not
just in marketing: time, or
a lack therof.

26. Over 30% of destination
marketing managers
identified time as a key
challenge, specially with new
social networks and mobile
apps creeping up all the time
and despite of softwares that
help managing it all.

27. It’s no wonder the second
biggest challenge is to stay
abreast of new trends and
technologies that can help
making sense of it all.

28. In fact, attending industry
events, conferences and
participating in various training
and webinars is a key
component of staying on top of
evolving trends and finding out
the tools and tech to help
managers in their everyday
chores handling social media
activities.

30. One last word. Return on
investment (ROI) is almost always
a key performance indicator in
most organizations, yet it remains
elusive in particular in destination
marketing, where direct sales
are not core to their business
model (compared, say, to a
hotel, restaurant or
transportation).

31. Nevertheless, it’s surprising to see
only 8.1% of respondents
identifying this challenge as key.

32. Does it make it less important to
measure? Of course not, but it
does reflect how difficult it
remains to “prove” social media
campaigns, and that destination
marketing organizations have
integrated different ways to
address this concern in some
shape or form.

33. Do any of the above results
surprise you? I would love to
hear your comments in the
section below.
Click here for more on this DMAI report

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