Using Key Influencers Outside of China on Chinese Social Media

With tourism, there is no bigger impact than sending a key influencer (KOL) to your destination.

What we always tell our clients in tourism is that it doesn’t matter which platform tourists are using to read about your destination, it only matters that they are reading it.

Here are a few key examples:

Destination: Hawaii

As part of the Road Trips campaign, we were tasked to bring a Sina Weibo blogger on the road to experience the Hana Highway. Over the course of 7 days, he blogged and shared his experiences on Weibo.

Results: 1,727,000 total reads on his Sina Weibo posts 1.6 million impressions on his Sina Weibo In total, over 3.5 million reads about Hawaii on all channels

Destination: Seattle

While working closely with the NFL and a key WeChat KOL, we sent a team to the opening weekend of the NFL season. GoUSA and the KOL worked closely to create targeted posts to talk about the city of Seattle while they experienced the city and the festivities of opening weekend.

Results: 16,273,000 reads across all social media posts Over 11,019 forwards Our Sina Weibo hashtag (#SeattleTravel) trended on the top 10 for the tourism page

Destination: Massachusetts

Results:In July 2014, we sent a KOL to Massachusetts to build international awareness about the state. The goal was to not only feature the state, but also to drive traffic to their subsite on GoUSA.com.

Over 2,000,000 page views on the GoUSA Massachusetts 400% increase in overall traffic for the two subsequent months as the content was distributed in the KOL channels

Results varied across the board, but there’s no denying the impact was resounding. People in China love real insights from actual experiences.