Objectives

Some people don't think of a destination marketing organization (DMO) as a significant contributor to a city's economy and its image. But that's exactly what VISIT PHILADELPHIA does.

VISIT PHILADELPHIA—it's our name and our mission. We make Greater Philadelphia a premier destination through marketing and image building that increases the number of visitors, the number of nights they stay and the number of things they do.

For years, VISIT PHILADELPHIA has evaluated how to share news and insight—about our own work and about the importance of travel and tourism industry—with our stakeholders. Enter LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is like Facebook for business. It may not be emerging as a platform overall—people have used it as a job-searching tool and as a sales generator for years—but it is emerging for brands using it for business communications.

By using LinkedIn as a business communications tool, VISIT PHILADELPHIA minimizes the expense of building and maintaining our own business-focused site, and we convene with our stakeholders where they already are.

We would:

• Position VISIT PHILADELPHIA as a leader in the tourism industry and as a key driver of the economic success of the travel and tourism industry in Greater Philadelphia.
• Build stakeholder awareness of VISIT PHILADELPHIA news, such as campaign launches, accolades and visitation stats.

Strategy and Execution

AUDIENCE: VISIT PHILADELPHIA stakeholders, including hoteliers, local partners and sponsors and news media.

RESEARCH: Just before launch, we conducted an audit of competitive LinkedIn company pages. We determined:

• Competitive destinations and local hospitality community had not utilized LinkedIn to the fullest.
• VISIT PHILADELPHIA had an opportunity to be a leader in the field of destination marketing organizations (DMOs) using LinkedIn to communicate business messages.

LAUNCH: To underscore the audience and mission of our LinkedIn account, we launched it during a major corporate event.

• Officially launched the new platform at VISIT PHILADELPHIA's stakeholder event in January 2014. (We already had some followers when we launched since LinkedIn had automatically created the page when a number of employees listed VISIT PHILADELPHIA as their company.)
• Announced the account in a stakeholder email, sent on the same day as our stakeholder event.
• Promoted the new account on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. See announcement graphic below.
• Used announcements from stakeholder event to build content for LinkedIn during the same time—hotel numbers for the previous year and new advertisements for the season, for example.

CONTENT: While the majority of VISIT PHILADELPHIA's marketing efforts focus on boosting Philadelphia as a top leisure destination (think family-friendly attractions and best brunches), LinkedIn is where we share business news almost daily.

• Company news: This includes campaign launches, articles and accolades about our company and awards (maybe this one!). See Summer by the Numbers and Hotel Occupancy graphics below.
• Industry insights: National U.S. Travel Association research supports our position that travel is an important industry. What's more, we tie VISIT PHILADELPHIA and the region into national stories, such as the importance of taking vacation days. See #TakeADay graphic below.
• Visitation stats: Our "big numbers" include annual visitation and hotel occupancy, while seasonal or opportunistic stats show momentum and remind people that the industry is always delivering.
• Insider company information: This is the stuff LinkedIn users love (new hires, staff bios, job openings).
• Great press about Philadelphia: We share fantastic articles about Philadelphia because we help to place many of them. See New York Times graphic below.
• Graphics and images: Custom graphics illustrate posts and beautiful photos grab people's attention. In the post copy, we explain our message and link to the relevant website.

Results

FOLLOWERS: Our LinkedIn account now connects with 3,150 followers (as of October 2015).

AUDIENCE GROWTH: The VISIT PHILADELPHIA account earned the second-highest rate of follower growth—192%—of all active DMOs tracked in our LinkedIn audit, which we conducted in January 2014 and again in February 2015.

VISITS TO WEBSITE: Since its launch, LinkedIn has sent 8,100 visits to visitphilly.com, the region's official visitor website. This is not a primary goal of the VISIT PHILADELPHIA account, but it's a positive outcome that people are interested enough to click through to the site to learn more about our company, an accolade, etc.

POPULAR CONTENT: The most popular posts share company news, best clips and Philly developments. This directly relates to our goals of building awareness of the leisure tourism industry as an economic driver and VISIT PHILADELPHIA as a key force behind the impact of the travel and tourism industry in Greater Philadelphia. See Top Posts below.

Media