Mediaboss Marketing

WILDWOOD, N.J. (AP) - Every Monday, Al Alven posts a simple image to Wildwood 365s Facebook and Instagram accounts: a shot of the Boardwalk, or Moreys Piers Ferris wheel, with a countdown to Memorial Day.

Those posts can get more than 450 likes and reach as many as a quarter-million people.

Sometimes, you post just a photo of a piece of pizza and people go nuts over it, Alven told The Press of Atlantic City (http://bit.ly/1EK8rRp). The Philadelphia resident started Wildwood 365 as a blog in 2009, mostly as a hobby to stay abreast of what was happening in his vacation spot throughout the offseason. But it quickly grew, and now his focus is using social media as a tool to promote the Wildwoods as a tourism destination.

The Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce Facebook page has more than 100,000 likes. The page operated by the Atlantic City Alliance has nearly 500,000. The official Wildwoods page, which is under the control of the Greater Wildwood Tourism Improvement and Development Authority, has 50,000. As shore communities continue to look for ways to draw potential visitors, particularly millennials and young families, they are looking to their laptops and smartphones as a key way to reach them.

Its how people get all their information today, Alven said of social media. Its the easiest outlet. Pretty much everyone has some sort of social media presence, and to ignore that is to ignore a core segment of your potential audience.

The efforts arent just generating clicks. Eric Cortes, social media director for the Atlantic City Alliance, said a recent survey of part of the ACAs social following found that 91 percent visited Atlantic City in the past year. Not only that, but they used social media for planning purposes, particularly in looking for events and hotel packages.

Social media will be a large part of the ACAs marketing campaign this summer, which could end up being the alliances last in Atlantic City. An economic recovery plan before the state Legislature would divert its $30 million annual budget to the city over the next two years to help stabilize taxes. Because of that, Cortes said, the alliance has been working on a month-to-month basis and has coordinated social media campaigns on that timeline as well.

Earlier this month, the alliance hired drag queen Miss Richfield 1981 to serve as a resort ambassador to the LGBT community, citing the performers active presence on social media as a primary reason for its decision.

To create more buzz about the resort among millennials, the alliance is also hosting its first InstaMeet today - a meetup of prominent Instagram users who will tour Atlantic City, snapping photographs and sharing them with thousands of their followers. A similar meetup has been used for fashion weeks and by the White House, Cortes said.

The meetup will help create user-generated content, which Cortes said can come off as more genuine than branded content on the alliances pages. With the dreary winter weather possibly coming to a close, the meetup should also inspire people to look into vacationing in Atlantic City this summer, he said.

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Social media plays large role in tourism marketing campaigns