This document discusses various social media platforms and how they can be used for tourism promotion. It provides statistics and descriptions of Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Facebook allows users to connect and share content with friends and businesses. It has over 800 million active users who are increasingly accessing it via mobile devices. Twitter is a microblogging platform where users share short messages called tweets. It has over 200 million users who are highly engaged. Pinterest is a photo sharing site that is growing rapidly and driving significant traffic to websites. It allows users to curate and share images and products. The document outlines opportunities and risks of using each platform to engage audiences and promote tourism destinations.

1. and now
?!
Keeping Up with the Ever-changing
Social Media Landscape
Texas Forts Trail Tourism & Preservation Round-Up
March 5, 2012

2. About MeMe
About

3. Benefits of Social Media
• It’s FREE!
• Builds deeper relationships
• Increases brand awareness
• Broadens your network
• Helps SEO
• Increases website traffic
• Can help reach journalists/media
• Empowers fans to be viral ambassadors
for your brand
Source: Social Media for Tourism Pros

6. What Is Facebook?
• Social networking service that allows users
to connect to friends and businesses
• Share content, links, photos, and videos
• Comment on others’ activity
• Remember: Personal profiles are for
people, not businesses. Develop a fan
page instead.

7. Facebook Stats
• Over 800 million active users
• Fastest growing demographic is women 55
years old and up
• Average user is connected to 80
pages, groups, or events
• 50% of active users log onto Facebook daily
• 350 million+ users access Facebook from a
mobile device
– This group is 2x as active as those who don’t
Source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

8. Guess what?
has changed.
… again.

9. From This …

10. … To This!

12. What Is Twitter?
• Free social networking and micro-blogging site
that allows users to send and read messages
known as “tweets”
• Tweets can have no more than 140 characters
& are delivered to the author’s subscribers,
known as “followers”

13. Twitter Stats
• 200+ million users
• 460,000 new users sign up daily
• 50% of active users use their mobile phone to
tweet
• Twitter users are 3x more likely to follow a
brand on Twitter than any other social
networking site
Source: http://blog.hubspot.com

16. You May Have Seen This

17. But Have You Seen This?

26. Pinterest Positives
• Traffic, traffic and more traffic
– Pinterest has grown 4000% in the last 6 months
• It has SEO secret sauce
– Each photo pinned can be linked back to a specific
product or more information on your website or
blog
• Incredible engagement
– Average user spends 88.3 minutes on Pinterest
• Cross promote with other social media
channels
• So easy to use

27. Pinterest Bookmarklet

28. Pinteresting Possibilities
• Use Pinterest as a focus group
– Look at what your followers are pinning. They
volunteer information on their interest, dreams,
and passions.
• Generate leads
– Link to landing pages that contain forms for
downloading content you want them to have
(visitor guides, calendars, PDF documents, etc.)
• See what’s been pinned from your website or
blog
http://pinterest.com/source/AddYourURLHere

30. Photo: andyarthur on Flickr

31. Pinteresting Pitfalls
• Remember Napster?
– Some consider Pinterest to be an enabler of illegal
activity.
• Possible copyright infringement
– Almost all Pinterest images posted by users were
copied from other websites without permission.
– Pinterest just released “NoPin” code that allows
content owners to keep their photos from being
pinned.
– Others see it the same way as Xerox, VCRs, or DVRs.
• Pinterest shifts accountability to the user

32. Questions?
Old School:
• Phone – 512.473.3513
• E-mail – sarah.page@lcra.org
New School:
•Twitter - @ColoradoRiverTr (work), @pagetx (personal)
• Facebook – facebook.com/ColoradoRiverTrail
• Flickr – flickr.com/groups/ColoradoRiverTrail
• Foursquare – foursquare.com/coloradorivertr
• Delicious – delicious.com/pagetx
• Slideshare – slideshare.net/pagetx