Let people vote for stories, experiences and other ideas through the social networks or mobile apps. Reviews and ratings are the key brand performance indicators applying to both experiences and stories. Because community members risk their reputations when giving reviews, only brands with high integrity are likely to obtain good reviews and ratings. Destination executives’ role is to ensure the brand integrity rather than trying to stimulate reviews by sponsoring them, which could be regarded as manipulation.
To develop an “exigent” rating system, community members could only vote for one, two or three stories, and would be rewarded if their nominated stories were eventually awarded, to motivate them to read carefully and make thoughtful ratings.
Such contests could be based on existing platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, etc. This way, the created content is more likely to become viral and foster the destination’s brand awareness and image throughout the social networks, as well as to draw new visitors to the destination website and getting to know the creative activists better. Contests are rather suitable for DMOs, considering the necessary budget and infrastructure, though school based contests could be far more affordable, also for medium sized DMCs.
Do you envision other tactics to encourage online contribution in the content creation process?
