Brand Management & Communication

The power of social media storytelling in destination branding

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In the article by Lund, Cohen & Scarles (2018) have the authors focused on social media and its effect on destination marketing and how social media can be used, and should be used, as an active part of the destination marketing strategy. For social media having such impact on the general way of marketing, where the power has shifted from the company to the consumer, is there very little research done on the area of effect and how DMOs can use social media in their marketing campaigns. The trend within marketing has moved from the traditional strategic marketing to more storytelling in all channels, it is proven that companies and DMOs use approx. 60% of the marketing budget for social media. This change has become a challenge for all strategic marketers as building brand images is more about a cooperation with the consumers, as the image of a brand and marketing communication is co-created by the consumers.

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The original idea of social media is to help people to communicate experiences with friends and family and have advanced to share experiences in general with the social media community. This has led social media to becoming a sort of online travel agency / tourist office where travel experiences are being shared worldwide. As tourist products are bought pre-consummation are consumers dependent on online information and ratings to get a feeling of what they are paying for. Social media fills a big part of this need as it offers a suitable outlet for photos and experiences and the generation Y is used to search information on social media instead of official websites or similar. As a large part of the social media life circulates around travels in different forms is there a large possibility for the DMOs to use this channel when communicating with former, future and possible consumers. Marketing is today more about building and nursing relationships with consumers and influencers then pure marketing, it makes the brand more transparent and it gives the consumers a feeling that the brand has an open communication and is open to feedback.

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A large part and trend within social media marketing is storytelling as a tool to reach out to consumers and give a feeling of authenticity, an image and a story either about a certain event or about the brand/destination.  Without storytelling is there nothing special about the brand or destination in compare to similar brands and destinations on the market. According to the authors of the article is storytelling on of the four technologies of power in social media, together with mobility, performance and performative. With focus on the four powers does Lund et al. put together a list of 5 recommendations as tools for DMOs to reach and influence consumers in social media where they for example push erasing the line between online and offline world to create a connection between the users and the marketers. Points to the importance for a DMO to be both proactive and reactive to know when to sit back and let the storytellers do their job and when to step in with own narrative stories. A part of the proactive part is for the DMO to always continue to nourish the social media channel with stories and keep it alive and keep a dialogue with users of all sorts. “The user and DMO are storytelling agents joining forces to create a brief alliance that draws in power” (Lund et al., 2018: 278).

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Personal reflections

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​The article itself was interesting to read and shows clearly how using storytelling in social media can be a helpful tool for DMO's. The recommendations from the authors was a interesting way to sum-up. The two main reflections though is that there is no information or analysis showing to the main things to think about when choosing influencer or user to use for storytelling. This can be an important part to success for usage of storytelling for DMO's as I believe that using not suitable influencers or users might have a fatal effect on the outcome. The second reflection is that only one DMO is used for the analysis which makes it hard to value if the recommendations are suitable for all DMO's pr only for DMO's having similar target groups as the DMO in the article. 

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Lund, N.F., Cohen, S.A. & Scarles, C. (2018). The power of social media storytelling in destination branding. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management. 8, 271-280.