The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead Social Media Activity

So who are we? 2 Digital Visitor is an award winning creative agency with social media at the heart of everything we do. We specialise in the leisure and tourism sector and our aim is to drive customer acquisition and activation through social media

What are we aiming to do 3 Objectives Raise awareness and promote events in the region Quality audience growth on Facebook High value data capture – addresses –Potential Visitor Insights and preferences Increase traffic to website Driving visitors to the region

What’s been achieved to date

What has been achieved so far 5 Created new Facebook profile Designed and delivered a social media campaign to drive a new audience and gather customer data Increased audience from 0 to over 4,400 in just over two months Facebook page has reached over 1.2m people who have seen either a post, ad, or story Developed a highly engaged audience through the activity

Social Media Campaign

What do we mean by a social media campaign? 7 A social media campaigns is designed to deliver specific results against an agreed set of objectives In this instance we were looking to drive a significant and highly relevant audience in a short space of time The campaign included: Creative concept for social channels Technology source and build Channel support and posts Social outreach to relevant influencers High impact Facebook advertising – design, placement and monitoring Sourcing social corporate partnerships Data Management Reporting and recommendations

Members working together 8 Through our campaign work with destinations we have found that some of the most successful campaigns have been where multiple partners have been involved. These campaign offer the opportunity to showcase a range of products and experiences within a destination These are often linked around a specific theme or objective but including multiple partners makes the message stronger

Example – Destination Bristol

10 We developed a series of campaigns for Destination Bristol over a 12 month period Campaigns were developed to bring in multiple partners within the destination. Brining partners together creates a stronger voice to the activity, themes included: – Food and drink – Green Tourism – Retail This helped with targeting key influencers outside of the region Over 15,000 new likes across campaigns Huge increase in engagement during and following each social media campaign Over 7,500 new e-newsletter sign-ups

Initial Campaign details 11 Created a fun and engaging Facebook campaign based around a quiz concept. The campaign was designed to: Increase likes on Facebook (campaign was delivered before changes to like-gating to maximise audience growth) Find out key insights about potential visitors: – What would they most like to do on a visit if they had just one day – Which Christmas event are they most looking forward to in the area – Who were they travelling with Partners in the initial campaign included: – Lapland UK, Sir Christopher Wren Hotel and Spa, Macdonald Windsor Hotel, The Runnymede-on-Thames

Campaign mechanic 12 Once the user completed the questions they had to complete a data capture form to enter. We also included an opt-in to receive future marketing information from RBWM and its partners. The customer insights provide an opportunity to go back to entrants with packages targeted directly to their selections increasing the likelihood of conversions Included a share option so people could share to their own Facebook profiles

Partners and outreach 13 As part of the campaign we targeted key influencers and bloggers gaining coverage relating to the campaign. This activity has provided increased reach amongst key audiences, as well as SEO benefit for the RBWM website.

Key results from campaign 14 3,231 new likes added over the campaign period. Campaign reach of 135,684 people who saw: -A promoted post, ad, or story on Facebook about Visit Windsor over the campaign period. -A blog post in support of the campaign. 1,683 entries to the competition. 1,278 opt-ins for future 2,572 unique views of the competition tab. Campaign Period

Engagement and traffic? 15 During the campaign Facebook engagement rose from an average of 387 post engagements per month to 4,014 post engagements per month. (this relates to likes, comments, and shares). There have been some lovely comments on the Visit Windsor page with people sharing their memories and plans to travel to Windsor.

Next steps - Christmas 17 Christmas We will be promoting Christmas events, activities and shopping in the build up to and over the festive season. Your participation Please let us know what you are doing so that we can include this in the content plan. We like to know your festive events and also please include a link to a specific website page if you would like this included

New Year social Media campaign 18 In the first quarter of 2015 we will be running a second Facebook campaign to engage with our existing audience and generate new audiences. The exact theme is to be confirmed but we are looking for partners who are interested in being involved in the campaign. The benefits for partners will include: Joint branding on the campaign including, Facebook posts, Ads and outreach – The expected reach will be over 250,000+ people on Facebook and 10,000+ on blogs and dedicated travel sites. Data Capture – addresses from people opting in to receive further information. A link in the promotion to drive traffic to the partner’s webpage.

Contact 19 Simon Jones (+44)