Digital Marketing

Be My Guest

There is a reason for marketers to migrate to social media platforms. Just take a look at the numbers: in 2013, Facebook boasted 1.23 billion monthly active users; Twitter, 255 million; Weibo, 129.1 million; and YouTube, more than 1 billion unique users per month. These numbers show that across the world, people, especially young people, who are also the most active consumers, are connected by the online social networks.

While it is easy for marketers to maintain an online presence, it takes skill and tact to engage consumers, who are, if not jaded by information and choice overload, at least more discerning than they were a decade ago.

In light of the above, the “Be My Guest” campaign was a smooth move to bond with consumers and generate word of mouth for Hong Kong as a travel destination. In the campaign, which was available in a select few of Hong Kong’s short-haul visitor source markets, Facebook users could enter for a chance to win free return tickets to Hong Kong and VIP tickets to events like the Hong Kong Wine & Dine Festival by showing their enthusiasm for visiting Hong Kong and creativity through writing.

The free trip offered an attractive incentive for users to share the campaign on their Facebook page, and the ultimate winners shared posts of their experiences in Hong Kong, which were in turn shared on the HKTB’s Facebook page so that other fans could see them. What can be more convincing than the experiences of real people?

The mechanism may seem simple enough, but the campaign successfully raised awareness of the HKTB’s Facebook page, which gained almost 470,000 new fans in 2013/14. But most important of all, the 28 winners enjoyed themselves thoroughly in their visit to Hong Kong.