Inside New York City's eleven tourism Twitter accounts

Why is NYC & Company not a leader in social tourism promotion?

It has eleven tourism-related Twitter accounts, but doesn't openly discuss its social strategies or engage with visitors on a large scale.

The city's official tourism marketing organization uses Twitter to promote events including restaurant week, the CitiBike launch, sports events, and museum openings. Of the eleven Twitter accounts dedicated to promoting travel to the Big Apple, nine target visitors from individual countries.

NYC & Company's main twitter accounts @nycgo and @nycgo_press are the most followed and most active accounts.

The @nycgo account has more than 86,000 followers and sends out an average of 5.1 tweets a day. The @nycgo_press has a significantly lower following (3,517) and half the tweet volume at 2.7 daily tweets.

NYC & Company's country-specific Twitter accounts have fewer than 2,000 followers and are slightly less active than the main account, tweeting between 0 and 3.5 times a day.

Engagement

In general, destination marketing organizations are less engaged than airlines and airports on social media. NYC & Company follows this trend.

The accounts primarily serve as a megaphone for sending out updates and links on NYC events. Accounts occasionally retweet news or photos, but rarely reply to followers.

In a two-week period, @nycgo replied to only two tweets.

NYC & Company also refuses to be social about any of its social media strategies. The organization has twice declined to share any insight into how many people run the accounts, how the accounts are managed, or the specific goals of its social media presence.

Most recently, Caroline Peck, Communications Coordinator at NYC & Company, told Skift, "The social media accounts are important tools for our international offices and the strategy is proprietary information."

Foreign accounts

Each of NYC & Company's country-specific accounts tweets in the local language. The Twitter accounts could serve as a vital information tool for foreign visitors, but currently highlight the largest events happening at a certain time.

The Twitter accounts do incorporate NYC & Company's outer-borough tourism push. Below @nycgo_es encourages Spaniards to visit Nathan's Famous hot dog stand on Coney Island, @nycgo_it tells Italians about The Noguchi Museum on Long Island, and @nycgo_au gives Australians a reason to go to Brooklyn.

https://twitter.com/nycgo_es/status/344460502291857408

Tutti i venerdì d'estate il @NoguchiMuseum a #LongIslandCity rimane aperto fino alle 20. Ingresso a donazione libera. http://t.co/gKu5jadIQm

— NYC & Company (@nycgo_it) May 3, 2013

https://twitter.com/nycgo_au/status/339186290283130881

As mentioned, they also point out the biggest events to check out in NYC at any point in time. Below @nycgo_fr explains CitiBike to the French, @nycgo_ca tells Canadians about sporting events, and @nycgo_nl promotes the World Science Festival.

https://twitter.com/nycgo_fr/status/342202658645495808
https://twitter.com/nycgo_ca/status/340482909188280320
https://twitter.com/nycgo_nl/status/340071055232208896

Having country-specific accounts isn't necessarily a bad idea, but what NYC & Co demonstrates through it's marketing-heavy conversation -- likely programmed far in advance -- is that New York is adept at one-way conversations in eleven markets.