Rethinking destination branding
The advent of web 2.0 and social media networking forces destinations to rethink their destination brand strategies. The weight is shifting from the destination marketer to the public community/consumer.
Social media forces destinations to rethink branding strategies
Although destination branding is a relatively young discipline, it is already facing its next big and tough challenge. The advent of web 2.0 and social media networking forces destinations to rethink their destination brand strategies.
The most important touchpoint is the Web. The Web more and more plays a role in the first two stages of the consumer decision-making process — product awareness and information gathering — for a sizable majority of all consumers… The fact that most consumers seek out new products and information online should be a factor for destinations to increase spending on online marketing and social media networking tools to build their brands.
Branding has always been a two-way street. But it has always been a one-way conversation. Until social media came along. With the advent of web 2.0 and social media networking there is a clear shift going on from the destination marketer to the consumer. And the shift from marketer to consumer automatically means the weight on brand identity creation is shifting to brand image as perceived by the public community/consumer. This is especially the case of destination branding.
Crossmint helps destinations understand why web 2.0 and social media are dramatically changing traditional branding relationships, what works and does not in efforts to create or reformulate engaging and unforgettable destination brands and how to use web 2.0 technology to support this. We will regularly blog about branding and the impact of social media.
