Presentation about Visit Indiana their social media efforts. Presented at Fusion Alliance - December 2, 2011

1. December 2, 2011
Visit Indiana & Social Media (Case Study)

2. Jeremy A. Williams
Email: JeWilliams@VisitIndiana.com
Phone: 317.232.8897
Twitter: @VisitIndiana
Twitter: @JeremyAWilliams
Blog: VisitIndiana.com/blog

3. What Will We Talk About Today?

4. Indiana Office of Tourism Development
• Marketing arm for leisure tourism in state
• Stand alone agency reporting to Lt. Governor
• Staff of six
• Current budget - $1.9 million from the general
fund
• Private revenue - $1.3 million

5. Tourism is Big Business in Indiana
• Indiana hosts more than 62 million visitors
annually
• Visitors spend more than $10 billion
annually
• Tourism industry supports more than
257,000 jobs in Indiana

6. Changes in Marketing
• Pre-2009 •2009-present
• $4.8M agency budget • $1.9M agency budget
• $1M+ traditional media • $0 traditional media
marketing budget marketing budget
• $100k research budget • $0 research budget
• $50k online ad budget • ~$200k online ad budget
• Extensive budget approval
process

7. Marketing Strategies
• VisitIndiana.com
• Online marketing
• Consumer permission e-mail
• Social media
• Publications
• Advertising coop program
• Earned media

8. Publications
1. Indiana Travel Guide
(500,000 copies)
2. Indiana Travel Map
(500,000 copies)
3. Partnership with ISFA
for Indiana Festival
Guide

9. Social Media
• Strategic growth from 2009 through 2011
2009 2010 June 1, ‘11 Nov 17, ‘11
Flickr VI Members 292 381 400 409
Group Photos 6,759 10,184 11,030 11,825
Facebook Members 948 4,026 5,125 6,332
Twitter Followers 3,570 6,155 7,652 13,812
Foursquare Followers n/a 4,483 10,160 14,309
Indiana Visitors 70,000 136,000 65,000 212,000
Insider Blog (annual)

12. Indiana Insider Blog
• 6 staff members
• 3 paid bloggers, 15+ contributors
• 40+ Butler University Student Bloggers
• 40% more visits in 2010 than 2009
• 82% ahead of 2010 so far in 2011

13. 481,600 visitors over 3.5 years

14. Why We Created the Indiana Insider Blog
• Provide insider tips and information on things to do in Indiana
• Use real experiences from real people - not marketing-speak or
press releases
• We wanted to create an outlet to more easily get info to consumers
• VisitIndiana.com is primarily listings - not enough long-form content
• Gives us tremendous flexibility
• Blog would be free
• Great for SEO

17. Social Media Research - Blog
We surveyed readers of our blog in July, here are our findings:
• 43% of respondents read our blog as often as new posts are created
• Over half share posts occasionally - typically through email
• 68% of readers travel to/within Indiana at least every couple months
• Top content our blog readers are looking for:
• Unique destinations
• Discounts
• Local food
• Day trip ideas
• Insider info

18. Blog Examples for Other Industries
• community.ally.com
• Blog about industry topics with very soft sale
• Banking fees, federal regulations, money management, etc.
•lillypad.lilly.com
• Blog about industry topics like public policy, advocacy and partnerships,
corporate responsibility and even work-life at Lilly

19. How Will Blogging Help Your Clients?
• Your clients are the subject matter experts in their business
• Search Engines love frequently and recently updated content
• 70.45% of Indiana Insider Blog traffic via Search in past 12 months
• Easily updated with up-to-date info
• Once it’s up, very easy to manage
• Content stays live long after the post is written
• 4 of 10 top posts in 2011 were written in 2008, 2009 or 2010.
Our blog is the content engine
that drives our social strategy

20. Which Platform to Choose?

21. Broadcast Your Posts:
Twitter Facebook
• Twitterfeed • RSS Graffiti
• Quickly pushes new posts to Twitter • Immediately pushes new posts to FB
• Add extra copy/hashtags to each • Hook up to your bit.ly account
tweet • Feeds through with image and post
• Hook up to your bit.ly account summary
• Allows for Google Analytics Campaign
info

22. • Copy points here copy points here
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23. Facebook Stats - 2011
• More than 800 million users
• 50% of active users login on any given day
• Average user has 130 friends
• People spend over 700 billion minutes/month on FB
• Roughly 20 hours/month per user
• Users average 23 minutes per Facebook session
• Avg. user connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
• 250 million active mobile Facebook users
Sources: All stats from facebook.com

25. Social Media Research - Facebook
We surveyed our Fans in July, here are our findings
• 85% of respondents became fans because they clicked on the Facebook icon
on VisitIndiana.com
• 34% share posts from Visit Indiana Facebook page often
• 37% saw posts from Visit Indiana daily
• 47% saw posts from Visit Indiana several times a week
• Top content our Facebook followers are looking for:
• Discounts
• Insider info
• Day trip ideas
• Unique destinations
• Timely events

26. Facebook Examples for Other Industries
• facebook.com/AllyBank (23.6k likes)
• Ally uses Facebook to post their blog entries, ask questions (about
potential features/non-specific financial questions), talk about new
features and post timely updates
• Facebook allows a visible, easy to follow way to interact with customers
(more easily digestible than Twitter)
• facebook.com/StateFarm (176.7k likes)
• State Farm also uses Facebook like Ally does, they post information
about contests and promotions and to ask questions of their fans to
engage and drive fan interaction

27. How Will Facebook Help Your Clients?
• 800 million people - your clients WILL have an audience on Facebook
• Facebook allows for easy-to-follow, public interaction with customers
• Useful for keeping fans up to date on company news, product launches
• Customer service tool
• Share exclusive news, discounts and info with fans – they expect it
• Push blog posts to Facebook – these are some of your most engaged fans
• Don’t be creepy – no Facebook Stalking!
Remember: Facebook is a broadcast
medium that enables two-way conversation
(so ask and answer questions)

28. Measure: Facebook Insights

30. Twitter Stats - 2011
• 5 ½ years old
• 200-300 million users1
• Took 3+ years to reach 1B tweets (Mar ‘06-May ’09)2
• Now 1B tweets are sent in just one week2
• Twitter users are the most influential online customers, their influence spreads
across all areas of the internet.3
Sources: 1. bbc.co.uk; 2. blog.twitter.com ; 3. ExactTarget SFF Research (2010)

32. Social Media Management tools
TweetDeck HootSuite
• 200 million users1
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Sources: 1. bbc.co.uk

33. 46% of Tweets from Mobile Devices 1

34. How Will Twitter Help Your Clients?
• Twitter users are the most influential online customers – influence spreads
• People are already talking about your clients on Twitter
• Useful for keeping fans up to date on company news, product launches
• Share exclusive news, discounts and info with followers
• Push blog posts to Twitter – post at different time of day/week
• Retweet relevant content and have conversations with followers
• Customer service tool

35. Social Media Research - Twitter
We surveyed our Followers in July, here are our findings
• 60% of respondents followed @VisitIndiana because they saw our name
mentioned in a tweet in their stream
• 14% followed us because of a Promoted Tweet or Promoted Account
• 61% saw tweets from @VisitIndiana at least daily
• 14% retweet content from @VisitIndiana often or very often
• Top content our Twitter followers are looking for:
• Discounts
• Unique destinations
• Local food
• Day trip ideas
• Insider info

36. Measure:
• @ Mentions and Direct Messages
• Retweets (how many times were you retweeted?)
• Inbound links to your website via Twitter
• Some trackable via twitter.com or t.co
• Append campaign tracking metrics to links you send out.

37. Twitter Examples for Other Industries
• @Citi (11.7k followers)
• "This is the Citi Communications account, tweeting from our global HQ.
Here you’ll find news, announcements and thought leadership from the
world of Citi."
• @CitiBank (6.1k followers)
• "Special offers, ideas for managing your financial life, and other updates
from Citibank"

38. Twitter Promoted Tweets

39. Twitter Promoted Accounts

40. Resources
• Presentation: bit.ly/visitindiana-fusion
• ExactTarget Research: bit.ly/ttc-sff
• Tourism Tech Corner: VisitIndiana.com/TechCorner

41. Jeremy A. Williams
Email: JeWilliams@VisitIndiana.com
Phone: 317.232.8897
Twitter: @VisitIndiana
Twitter: @JeremyAWilliams
Blog: VisitIndiana.com/blog

42. December 2, 2011
Visit Indiana & Social Media (Case Study)