How social media works in destination marketing? a content analysis on Twitter
Year: 2011
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Twitter is a service that individuals and businesses in many industries are embracing, with the \ngrowth of the social networking sites and its ability to deliver real-time information to \nthousands of people instantly. Twitter is a microblogging platform developed in 2006. \nMicroblogging is a system of communication or an Internet-based publishing platform that \nconsists of sending short text messages with a maximum length of 140 characters through \ntools such as Twitter, created specifically for this function. Its purpose is to discover what’s \nhappening at a given time, share information with other users or offer links to other web sites. \nTourism is one of the sectors with a very close relationship with the new information and \ncommunication technologies. For destination marketing organizations (DMOs) or convention \nand visitors bureaus (CVB) marketing has changed dramatically in the last five years with the \nadoption of online techniques. As marketers have gained more experience, they have seen \ngrowing success with interactive tools such as social media. The aim of this research is to \ndescribe how destination marketing organizations in Europe are leveraging Twitter to reach \npotential visitors. This exploratory study also seeks to ascertain a more in-depth look at how \nDMOs/CVBs in Europe use Twitter and a detailed snapshot into the types of interactions that \nare occurring with their customers by analysing their tweets. \nIn this research, data were collected from only DMOs/CVBs in Europe on Twitter. Tweets \nposted by DMOs/ were content analyzed and compared. All tweets of DMOs/ were coded by \ntwo independent coders to determine intercoder reliability. Tweets were categorized into 11 \ngroups (Announcements, Information about local travel deals, Information/news about local \nbusiness, (Unique) Information about destination/travel, Contests, Replies/messages to \nfollowers, Links to website, Social tweets, Encouragement to write and share \ncomments/photos, Re-Tweets and Other). The implications of this research include that \nmicroblogging is a potentially rich avenue for DMOs to explore as part of their overall \nbranding strategy. Customer brand perceptions and purchasing decisions appear increasingly \ninfluenced by web communications and social networking services, as consumers increasingly \nuse these communication technologies for trusted sources of information, insights, and \nopinions. Finally, 10 pieces of advice are presented for destinations which decide to \nutilize Social Media.
Authors: Ali Yaylı, Murat Bayram, Ümmühan Bayram
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3162087726