Case Study

Client:
Destination Halifax
www.destinationhalifax.com
Destination Halifax Facebook Page

Pain:
Destination Halifax wanted to use social media to extend the Halifax brand; create a dialogue with past and future visitors; and drive traffic to their website.

Solution:

After having “optimized” Destination Halifax’ s web presence - developing overall web strategy to increase visitors to the site, thus driving traffic to partner sites like hotels and restaurants – the next step for Destination Halifax was social media, starting with a Facebook page for the city of Halifax.

The Destination Halifax uses signature festival and events as well as sponsored contests to encourage dialogue. This approach, used from the very beginning, has generated significant conversation among people who grew up in Halifax, those who’ve visited, and those who are planning to come. In effect, the users are branding Halifax themselves with just occasional touch points from the organization. Discussions center around favourite things to do in Halifax and surrounding area, places to go, shop, eat and much more.

Result:

• After a carefully planned launch, the Destination Halifax Facebook Page grew to 14,000 fans in just 2 months.
• Facebook is now the 4th top referrer of traffic to the destinationhalifax.com website.
• Outstanding consumer engagement with the contests. Destination Halifax has created a community of people talking about the city, expressing their "love" for Halifax - commenting on their favorite things about the city and what it means to them. It is truly a fan page; there are many more comments from "real" people than marketing messages from the visitor bureau.

The Destination Halifax Story:
ACOC worked with Destination Halifax for a year to fine-tune their web presence through SEO, web re-development, content development, online marketing, ad buying and more. The second phase of the project included social media strategy that would brand Halifax and drive traffic to their site. ACOC consulted with Destination Halifax’s internal PR and Marketing team while their marketing agency created the page.

The brand has a "place" or a role to play in Social Media communities such as this - to "start" the conversation, to populate the page with events, photos and information about the destination - but the consumers take it from there. This is the new "word of mouth" and this is an incredible brand marketing success story.

Destination Halifax has also recently launched a Twitter page and will use it primarily to "speak" to media and consumers - to continue the conversations around Halifax and all it has to offer as a hidden "Canadian destination" gem.

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