How Many 'Likes' Equals an Actual Visitor to a Destination?
Skift Take
Social media has been the darling of destination marketing for the last five years, but you may be surprised how those impressive Facebook and Twitter numbers translate to actual visitors.
Destination marketing organizations have had some spectacular social media growth over the last six years.
The average year-over-year growth between 2006-2012 for Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, Twitter, WordPress, and Google+ is over 900%. That's 900% growth per year across all platforms. Everyone with a social media presence should have amazing growth -- even if they're not that good at it.
The big question is: how do social media efforts translate into boots sandals on the ground? Social media has been around long enough to compare social data with arrival data, so let's have a look.
May as well start with Australia, the reigning world social media champ with 5.9 million likes on Facebook. Their social media explosion occurred in 2011 and has been continuing to grow since. Between 2010 and 2011, their international arrivals increased by 3.8%. In 2012, when their Facebook fans jumped from 1.2 million to 4.1 million, international arrivals increased by 1.3%. In 2013, international arrivals increased by 4.9%. Those growt
