Social Media's Role in Jersey Shore Marketing Campaigns

Every Monday, Al Alven posts a simple image to Wildwood 365's Facebook and Instagram accounts: a shot of the Boardwalk, or Morey's Piers' Ferris wheel, with a countdown to Memorial Day.

Those posts can get more than 450 likes and reach as many as a quarter-million people.

"Sometimes, you post just a photo of a piece of pizza and people go nuts over it,'' Alven told The Press of Atlantic City. The Philadelphia resident started Wildwood 365 as a blog in 2009, mostly as a hobby to stay abreast of what was happening in his vacation spot throughout the offseason. But it quickly grew, and now his focus is using social media as a tool to promote the Wildwoods as a tourism destination.

The Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce Facebook page has more than 100,000 likes. The page operated by the Atlantic City Alliance has nearly 500,000. The official Wildwoods page, which is under the control of the Greater Wildwood Tourism Improvement and Development Authority, has 50,000. As shore communities continue to look for ways to draw potential visitors, particularly millennials and young families, they are looking to their laptops and smartphones as a key way to reach them.

"It's how people get all their information today," Alven said of social media. ``It's the easiest outlet. Pretty much everyone has some sort of social media presence, and to ignore that is to ignore a core segment of your potential audience.''

The efforts aren't just generating clicks. Eric Cortes, social media director for the Atlantic City Alliance, said a recent survey of part of the ACA's social following found that 91 percent visited Atlantic City in the past year. Not only that, but they used social media for planning purposes, particularly in looking for events and hotel packages.

Social media will be a large part of the ACA's marketing campaign this summer, which could end up being the alliance's last in Atlantic City. An economic recovery plan before the state Legislature would divert its $30 million annual budget to the city over the next two years to help stabilize taxes. Because of that, Cortes said, the alliance has been working on a month-to-month basis and has coordinated social media campaigns on that timeline as well.

Earlier this month, the alliance hired drag queen Miss Richfield 1981 to serve as a resort ambassador to the LGBT community, citing the performer's active presence on social media as a primary reason for its decision.

To create more buzz about the resort among millennials, the alliance is also hosting its first "InstaMeet" today -- a meetup of prominent Instagram users who will tour Atlantic City, snapping photographs and sharing them with thousands of their followers. A similar meetup has been used for fashion weeks and by the White House, Cortes said.

The meetup will help create user-generated content, which Cortes said can come off as more genuine than branded content on the alliance's pages. With the dreary winter weather possibly coming to a close, the meetup should also inspire people to look into vacationing in Atlantic City this summer, he said.

"People are sick and tired of being inside, of plowing their driveways," he said. "People just want to relax on the beach."

Atlantic City, as well as Wildwood and Ocean City, swell with visitors during the summer. But for places like Ventnor and Margate, which don't see such a large uptick in tourists, social media may be an inexpensive way for those communities to grow their tourism economies.

Ventnor Tourism, a destination marketing organization that is gearing up to offer several events in the city this summer, plans to make social media about 75 percent of its marketing outreach, said Mike Einwechter, president of the organization. Because the platform is inexpensive, and posts have the potential to "go viral," tourism organizations with smaller budgets can easily extend their reach, he said.

"We have a lot of catching up to do with places like Ocean City, Wildwood and Atlantic City," Einwechter said, adding that he wants visitors to see that Ventnor isn't just a town to pass through. "We are a destination. We're not new, but we're definitely an undiscovered gem of the Jersey Shore."

While social media may offer "undiscovered" shore towns and local businesses a platform to reach potential customers, it could also be driving some away. Susan Adelizzi Schmidt, president of Suasion Communications Group in Somers Point, said that with the growing popularity of user-reviews on sites such as Facebook, Google, Yelp and TripAdvisor, businesses need to actively manage their online reputations.

"One bad review won't devastate a business," she said. "It's when people see trends and patterns, complaining of food poisoning and bed bugs, you have a problem to deal with."

When people see too many positive reviews, they also can get suspicious, Adelizzi Schmidt said. A perfect five-star rating on Yelp may appear to be a great thing for a local restaurant, but it could come off as bogus to a potential customer.

Not having an online presence at all, however, could be even worse for businesses and tourism destinations, she said.

"Traditional media is just not at the top of the list anymore," she said. "It's all about the online presence. I think where in the past some businesses may have been resisting online platforms, now they really have no choice. They must embrace it."
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Information from: The Press of Atlantic City (N.J.), http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com