Why Visit Philly Asked Its Social Media Community to Fill in the Gaps


Skift Take

Travel brands need to be more proactive in asking for their fans' opinions because Facebook and Twitter analytics don't tell the whole story.

For the past three years, Visit Philly administered surveys to find out about the effectiveness of its social media efforts. Like many tourism boards, Visit Philly has a history of surveying visitors offline and online. However, out of the top five U.S. destinations on SkiftIQ, Visit Philly was the only one that consistently polled its social media community -- on Facebook and Twitter -- and did so over three years. If such surveys can be considered a best practice, it is one that is not necessarily practiced by top performers. Marketing efforts may need to catch up in segmenting customers' reactions to various types of advertising as more content is optimized for print, online, and social media. Facebook and Twitter offers analytics about impressions, interactions -- likes, shares, comments,