The city of Santa Fe successfully leveraged Instagram in a social media campaign aimed at engaging a younger audience on national and international scales and promoting the New Mexico city in a way that complemented its reputation for the arts.

The campaign, #HowToSantaFe, co-engineered with creative agency 12FPS, reached 4.9 million people and generated 52.3 million impressions, while giving local businesses and professionals exposure, knowledge and job opportunities.

?We began this project expecting to reach hundreds of thousands of 'likes' with at least a million people engaged, but to reach almost 5 million people and over 50 million impressions, we have been blown away,? said Adam Shaening-Pokrasso, owner-producer of 12FPS.

?For 12FPS and the city of Santa Fe, this goes beyond the numbers and speaks to the growing enthusiasm around Instagram as a central channel for building community and sharing great places, people and stories from around the world.?

The campaign also produced a $261,000 value in marketing return on investment for the city of Santa Fe, $55,000 in-kind donations from local businesses, $50,000 in new paid work opportunities over one year and 10,719 posts to #HowToSantaFe on Instagram alone.

While a few destinations such as Alberta, Canada, the Gold Coast in Australia, Philadelphia and Los Angeles have undertaken efforts to Instagram their way into travelers' hearts, Santa Fe?s small population and reliance on traditional print advertising budgets in the past puts the success of #HowtoSantaFe in a new category.

The campaign began with an outreach to local businesses as the backbone for support for photo contests and in-kind products and services to be promoted by visiting influencers. 

After establishing the network of sponsors and partners, marketers designed a series of contests which complimented the sponsoring businesses. The contests helped give an incentive for local participation and encouraged high caliber photography.

Contests ran about four months with winners announced every other week, ranging in theme from food and drink to pets to outdoors and adventure and a grand prize for the best portrait.

Marketers created a major boost in international exposure by bringing eight social media influencers to the city, letting their images and videos reach millions of new fans beyond Santa Fe?s borders,? Mr. Shaening-Pokrasso said.

?Local meetups functioned to link up talented image makers with each-other and local businesses, many business who have now begun conducting Instagram campaigns of their own,? he said. ?Finally, a free mobile media workshop was conducted which gave new Instagram users and local businesses the tools and networking required to expand on the project with their own lens.? 

The project established an intersection around local engagement, education and influential outreach in a milestone for social media as a tool for mobile marketers to message their communities and create meaningful two-way conversation. 

?We've learned that a successful engagement begins with incentives to build the target community and establish consistent engagement,? Mr. Shaening-Pokrasso said. ?We know that highly influential social media accounts drive branding and exposure in ways that a brand cannot on its own and we've seen great success when converting social interactions into real interaction, events, meetups and networking opportunities. 

?However, the emphasis on education and creating community leaders can certainly be expanded on, especially in cities where social media engagement is low to begin with.?