Visit California

Reach and Maintain 95% Sales Penetration

Visit California Logo for Convince & Convert case study

Client

Services

Social media channel launch plan (TikTok: @visitcalifornia)

Situation

Visit California is a nonprofit organization self-tasked with developing and maintaining global marketing programs for 14 individual California markets to further develop tourism to and within California. It was eager to engage younger travel-ready audiences and wanted to explore TikTok’s potential to help advance their organizational goals and drive visitation to the Golden State. Visit California engaged Convince & Convert to evaluate the opportunity and provide a content strategy for the launch of a branded TikTok channel.

Challenges

Visit California was in need of a TikTok strategy that created a viable path for reaching an attentive and travel-ready customer base found in younger Millennial and Gen Z audiences, while at the same time appealing to Gen X and Boomers, who have increasingly found themselves on the platform. 

To do this, Convince & Convert created compelling content pillars that allowed Visit California to tap into seasonality trends while also providing enough flexibility to engage with emerging trends and changes in visitor behavior. These pillars helped to organize the content in a way that allowed Visit California to be strategic in content-sourcing — from b-roll in their existing library to working with user generated content through the Crowdriff Marketplace. 

This strategy allowed Visit California to provide content that was channel-specific and appropriate, while at the same time appealing to visitors who were highly motivated to travel to the state.

Solution

The Visit California TikTok page officially launched in 2021, going from 0 to 71 videos from September to December. Following a channel-specific strategy, it utilizes a mix of brand, user-generated, partner, influencer, and creator content. 

Visit California features content that showcases experiences in order to inspire travelers to dream big across 12 distinct in-state regions. In 2021, its videos generated more than 900,000 views, 2,400 hours of content watch-time, and 77,000 engagements. 

As of May 2022, the Visit California TikTok account has over 79,000 followers, over 569,000 likes, and one video that has garnered over 2.7 million views.

With strategic guidance from Convince & Convert, Visit California was able to effectively fill a branded travel content gap on TikTok and position itself as a category leader. It was also able to grow its customer base and extend the reach of their existing content.

Screenshots of viral videos and TikTok account of VCA
Visit California TikTok videos

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John Smith - CEO/President
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Results

From December 2021 – January 2022

  • 800% increase in views
  • 590% increase in followers

In three months, September 2021 – January 2022

  • 92 post
  • 4.5M views
  • 13,000 hours (1.5 years worth of content views)
  • 470k engagements
  • 5.8% engagement rate
  • 10 “viral” videos

Content Marketing Awards - 2022 Winner Badge

TikTok was a daunting platform and we were unsure as to whether it would be a useful addition to our marketing Mix.  Convince and Convert helped us to cut through all of the noise and excitement around the platform to not only determine that there was opportunity there, but then to help determine our content mix, timing, and organization that helped get us running.
Gwynne Spann
Director of Content Marketing

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