When Facebook's United States Group Leader Erik Hawkins came to the Mountain Travel Symposium last year, Facebook was arguably just a social media platform.But something has happened since then, both with the pany and with digital consumption as a whole, that is turning Facebook into a mega marketing machine.Hawkins told hundreds of Symposium attendees Sunday that Facebook saw a 90 percent increase in time spent on its mobile application last year 90 percent in one year."The internet is shifting to mobile," he said, adding that the travel industry is the No. 1 thing people engage in while on Facebook.With 60 percent of Facebook's total activity ing from mobile devices, there's an opportunity to target advertising like never before.xinjiang tour "We all look at Facebook from two lenses user and marketer," he told Evan Reece, co-founder and CEO of Liftopia, during a question-and-answer session at the first day of the conference's forum presentations.
"Our lens as a marketer, traditionally we see Facebook as a place where we make connections and we have an audience and we have to publish to it. What it's b e is really, really, highly efficient, highly targeted media platform. What I don't think everyone has done yet is reconciled that it can be both things."Data shows Facebook is an undeniably effective advertising tool, especially for the travel industry, but Ski 's vice president of marketing Dan Sherman wanted to know just how much panies should spend on Facebook as a percentage of total digital spend.
"I think people should spend as much as is effective," Hawkins said. "Are you spending and are you seeing results?Urumqi travel Then you should probably keep spending."But at the local level, marketers and tourism industry professionals don't always agree that digital advertising is always the best way to reach customers. At a discussion about visitor services Saturday, Aspen Chamber Resort Association president and CEO Debbie Braun said Facebook is great and so are sites like Yelp where customers post reviews of their experiences."But the 60-year-old walking in to the visitor's center has a visitor's guide in his back pocket," she said. "You can't be a one-trip pony."