College - Author 1

College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences

Department - Author 1

Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration Department

Degree Name - Author 1

BS in Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration

Date

12-2013

Primary Advisor

Brian Greenwood

Abstract/Summary

Social media is rapidly becoming one of the most efficient, wide-reaching and successful forms of marketing used by organizations all over the world. Destination magazines, for example, offer a wide variety of services and products, and one of the most effective ways to reach loyal customers as well as potential customers is through social media outlets. The purpose of this study was to determine the best practices of social media marketing techniques amongst Sunset Magazine, Travel + Leisure Magazine, and Coastal Living Magazine. The instrument used was a checklist and matrix that were developed to analyze the most effective use of each social media outlet. Data were collected from each of the magazine’s websites and their social media outlets. The results indicated that Twitter is the most commonly utilized outlet, visuals play a considerable role in drawing in consumers, and almost all social media sites should be connected back to Facebook to maximize the use of this outlet. This study can be utilized as a foundation for future research in order to determine shifts in trends and rate of success of social media as a marketing technique.

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Social Media Commons

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