ADM IV:
Five minutes via google and several sources come up. This is but one:

https://digitaltravelapac.wbresearch.co ... -marketing

"Social media has transformed the ways to build a reliable brand. For the tourism industry, the age of brochures and billboards are over. The key to business success is to collect social shares, positive user reviews and customer satisfaction on social media."

And another:

https://uhurunetwork.com/social-media-a ... marketing/

https://www.checkfront.com/blog/social- ... on-tourism

To summarize: "Social media is a standard marketing practice now, and holds several powerful platforms for tourism marketers."

Not sure why there is a debate on this here on RyPN. The conversation should focus on HOW to use social media, not why it’s a bad thing or not useful or why some won’t use it. If you support preservation from the business side, then you need to embrace it. Period.

J.R. May

Those are suppositions and unverified assertions, not "facts." Those statements look suspiciously like they were written by Zuckerberg's marketing team.

Has any excursion operation or museum recently done a patronage survey asking where/how visitors learned about the place's existence, special events, promotions, etc.? If so, did they show that the vast majority of people learned about them through any form of "social media"?

I do not discount the ability of social media to reach potential audiences. But the fact remains that unless an operation is paying substantial amounts over time to Facebook, Instagram, etc., to push posts to targeted audiences outside their followers, it's still "preaching to the converted." I've even followed up on certain posts at our NRHS Chapter or special event page with people I know are on FB and a target audience, only to find that FB algorithms chose not to let that follower see the posts in question. (One music festival that chose to cancel because of COVID concerns made the grave mistake of ONLY posting the cancellation on its FB page and e-mails to performers and business partners, only to end up fielding hundreds of queries for confirmation once word of mouth spread, and a hundred or more STILL showed up at the site at the scheduled day and time.)

I've always been careful, when visiting a "new" rail attraction, to tell the gatekeepers how I've known or learned about the place in question. At least twice of late, in complete honesty, I've held up the Kalmbach Tourist Trains Guidebook. And at least once recently, I tried to slip in as just an "average Joe" customer, only to be recognized and given a backshop tour......

Exactly. First off, let me say that on a personal level, I abhor Facebook for more reasons than I care to elaborate. However, ORHS does advertise on all types of media, both free and paid. We take advantage of everything that comes our way. However, we get the most action by far via Facebook. Other forms of advertising give us temporary bumps in inquiries or traffic. But Facebook gets the word out there either through posting or paid ads (which of themselves can be a source of frustration). You just can’t ignore social media anymore.

Hence our intense frustration at times with Facebook as mentioned above. It’s almost like you’re a masochist (in the general sense) to use it. It’s a necessary evil.

Here is a chart showing the where our passengers learned about the SOLD OUT trains that we are running this Saturday at the WW&F.




Absolutely.

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<Back on topic.>

Meanwhile, the WW&F is rooting for the success of the EBT, and is happy to be providing assistance when we can (including what we have learned in marketing a narrow gauge RR that is a little off the beaten path.)

I’d bet the Nevada Northern would be an even larger proportion than the WW&F.

They’re, in my humble opinion, second to none in social media presence for a tourist railroad. And they’d have to be given their remote location

We’ve seen their success in recent years and I think a lot of that can be attributed to how popular their social media platforms are.

I'm a very part time hogger on the NH&I RR ( www.newhoperailroad.com) and it never ceases to amaze me that 99% of the tickets sold on our sold out trains ( especially the very expensive Santa Steam Specials and North Pole Expresses) are sold on our website way in advance.

Our webmaster tells me that 95% of that traffic is generated on various social media sites with Facebook being the biggest of them.

Welcome to the 21st. century.

Ross Rowland

I also see no need for social media and despise Facebook but even I cannot deny the power of it.
I'm a brakeman on a tourist RR myself and I know for sure that the vast majority of tickets are sold online and that many (or not most) of our passengers use social media to not only find our operation but be advised on what we have going on next.
These days, we know exactly where passengers are coming from, something we couldn't have known in the past.
There's simply no way we can be that different from every other operation.

Another use of social media is to read the comments. You'll get an idea what makes them want to come back or why they don't think it was worth their money and time.

Multiple none railfan friends have been posting NN's shop cat

Nevada Northern now has a 2nd cat to post about on Facebook. And, if you can believe the postings on Facebook, distant visitors do travel to that out of the way place to pet them.

Poor "Dirt", he needs a bath.
NN is one of the truly great preserved railroads. Brilliantly run too. IMHO of course.

Dirt the Nevada Northern shop cat does get washed once a year for his annual trip to the veterinarian.

Our J&L Narrow Gauge trains are advertised pretty much exclusively on Facebook. I do not know what other way our potential customers would find out about us. Our local newspaper is about dead, TV is too expensive, billboards do not reach enough people and brochures aren't as useful of an advertising means as they once were. It is interesting that the second largest segment of Ed's pie chart is word of mouth and of course that segment will continue to grow the longer we are in operation.

When we advertise on Facebook, I boost posts as well as post on a few rather large local groups to reach the largest audience that I can. I am just wondering if it would be advantageous to also post on some of the other social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram. I have been rather successful on Youtube with our Youngstown Steel Heritage channel. We have 8,139 subscribers and 51,000 views in the last month. Unfortunately many of those views are by people too far away to actually visit, but to mitigate that we did make $223 in ad revenue over that month.

Unfortunately, there are some potential visitors in the World who despise and avoid Facebook, but tolerate their competitors like Twitter and Instagram. It's similar to olden times when you might have to purchase ads in both the Times and the Daily News if you wanted to reach more readers.