Social Media Best Practices

A recent issue of The Wanderlust Report presented a case study of “The Best Job in the World” social media campaign, an ROI story the Wanderlust team hoped could link real outcomes from the use of social media in destination marketing. The campaign’s results formed the beginning of Wanderlust’s Social Media Best Practices list for destination, resort and attraction marketers.


“The Best Job In The World social media campaign achieved some impressive results,” stated Mark Shipley, President and Chief Strategist at Wanderlust, “including 8.4 million site visitors, 34,680 job applications and an amazing 20% boost in Queensland tourism while the rest of the country and industry dropped. The campaign also revealed some important ideas to keep in mind when considering an investment in social media. Here are some the best practices we identified.”


Don’t try to make it viral
Think big, but keep in mind that very few social media campaigns break through. If you are lucky enough to get on the wave, ride it for all it’s worth. Six weeks is a short timespan, and when it’s over, it’s hard to maintain that kind of momentum without the money to pay for it.


Planning and execution are key
The Best Job In The World campaign was highly orchestrated. Timing was critical. It was a tough time for the tourism industry and they had planned phases to draw out results. It was important to launch before the Obama inauguration to avoid getting lost, but take advantage of the lift from ‘Australia,’ the movie. They had to alter their plans on the fly whenever opportunities arose.


Set goals so you can measure success
The Queensland marketing team struggled with setting goals for the campaign as they had never undertaken anything like it and there were no benchmark metrics to consider (one of the biggest challenges with social media). They were spending a lot of money and expending significant effort, so they needed to define what would constitute success. Their constituents and partners would demand it.


They finally settled on a goal of 400,000 total visitors to The Best Job In The World website (as of the end of October, they had exceeded 8.4 million visitors from every country in the world), with 1-3% applying for the job (2.8% actually applied).


Don’t try to fake it: you’ll get caught
At the start of The Best Job In The World campaign, Cummins Nitro seeded the website with a video story about a woman who tattooed an advertisement for the Great Barrier Reef on her arm to win the job. According to Chris, their intention was to give an example of the kinds of videos they were looking for from applicants.


Unfortunately, when word got out, the social networks took over and the accompanying anger went around the world in no time. It took several days of damage control (using additional unplanned resources) and a public apology to eventually quell the storm.


Wanderlust’s search for ROI success stories
Queensland successfully used social media as a part of an integrated destination marketing campaign to drive traffic to their website and visitors to their destination. And after almost a year of searching, Wanderlust got their first ROI story from another source and the start of a social media integration best practices list for destination marketers.
If you have other social media ROI success stories or best practices to offer, please add a comment to Using Social Media In Destination Marketing in the Wanderlust Report.


About Wanderlust
Wanderlust provides marketing and branding expertise to destinations, resorts and tourism attractions. We uncover what drives people to choose where they go and build integrated marketing programs to attract them — using the internet, social networks, direct marketing and mass media.
Contact: Mark Shipley
Phone: 518-272-2500

Email: [email protected]