Tourist attractions up and down the country are keeping their presence and engagement up on major social media channels to make sure they're front of mind but who is doing it best?
This report from communications specialist Flagship Consulting charts the presence of the UK's top attractions awarding points (maximum of 200) for usability, functionality, interactions and visual assets.
The study, carried out in the summer, looks at Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube, Foursquare, tourist attractions' own blogs and websites. The top 10 attractions use all the channels above with the exception of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, which is not on Pinterest.
A few trends
- Attractions which present themselves as part of a group on social media channels (think Royal Historic Palaces or Tate) do better than for the same activity individually. This is because of variety of content across the attractions which extends reach to a wider audience.
- Imagery is key and tourist attractions that take advantage of it score well on all platforms.
- Links from website homepages to social sites also push scores up in terms of presence - the study highlights the clear signposting from the Science Museum as a good example.
- Top attractions are generating communities of people to spread the word on social channels with Kew's Facebook page cited for engaging interaction between users on gardening topics.
- Attractions that didn't score well are using social media as more of a promotion channel and fail to initiate or respond to conversations.
And the winners are:The Tate Modern emerged as overall winner across all social media channels scoring 135 out of the possible 200. Separating out individual social channels, the attraction was third on Facebook and third for its own-brand blog. The report praises Tate Modern for its variety of content as well as the variety across the group, levels of interaction and an 'exemplary' Pinterest board.
The National Media Museum takes second place with 126 points. It scores well for linking all its channels together to tell a 'graphical story' and sharing of information. Its spread of posts on Twitter is also praised although the report suggests it could reach out to followers more. Generally, it gets the thumbs up for targeting the UK as opposed to just its local base of Bradford residents.
Closely behind is the Science Museum with 125 points. The attraction scores well for levels of engagement and response time on its website but is marked down for its Facebook page not allowing consumers to post. The museum could also focus more on visual channels including YouTube according to the study.
The British Museum came in fourth with 114 points, scoring low for blog content and its Twitter feed and fifth was Kew with 111 points, which fell down for its lack of presence on Pinterest as well as low scores fro YouTube and Foursquare.
Maintaining momentum
The report also provides some tips on keeping engagement going and fans and followers coming back once tourist attractions have established a presence including:
- Using gamification and vouchers to continue to drive loyalty.
- Think about responsive design so consumers get an experience tailored to whatever device they are accessing information from.
- Consider the interactive experience before, during and after a visit to the attraction by using tools such as augmented reality and other 'spreadable content' to keep engagement going.
- Think about targeting specific posts and push notifications to specific audiences.
And the closing word from the report is whether social media presence will translate into increased visitor numbers for regional attractions as much as London-based attractions.
TripAdvisor is perhaps conspicuous by its absence from the report but Flagship tells us that while these are influential on tourists' decisions, it wanted to focus on brand-owned channels.
For the cost of a Tweet or mention on Facebook, the full Flagship report, which includes the top 50 scores can be downloaded here.