Overview

The Tourism Social Media Co-op promotes destinations across Colorado to residents and visitors through owned social media channels. A representative from the Colorado Tourism Office will support you through the process of content creation and tailoring messaging to the needs of target audiences.

We offer different options:

Facebook program with a fund match opportunity.
Instagram program.

Program benefits include:

Measurement strategies and tools.
Affordable custom opportunities.
Existing Colorado Tourism Office brand affinity.
Customized report of your results, with ongoing optimizations.
Access to agency creative services.
Traffic driven directly to your website.
Evolved opportunities to reach targeted audience segments and further drive impact and efficiencies.
Colorado Tourism Office matching funds.

Custom reports will be delivered following each co-op including:

Campaign summary (dates, targeting, etc.).
Top-line results (reach, likes, clicks to site, etc.).
Details on the effects of paid support.
Successes and suggestions for future optimizations based on performance insights.

Webinar

The CTO hosted an informational webinar on Feb. 11, 2025 regarding the upcoming co-op programs for summer 2025. If you are interested, make sure to check out the Summer 2025 Co-Op Webinar recording.

Overview

Type: Marketing promotion

For: Tourism partners

Application period: Closed

OEDIT division: Colorado Tourism Office

Applications are currently closed and expected to open next in fall 2025.

To be eligible, you will need to identify as a destination management/marketing organization (DMO) or tourism-related business/organization.

Instagram social video co-op is only open to DMOs as it focuses on destination videography.
State agencies outside of OEDIT are not eligible to participate in the CTO co-op program.

Other eligibility requirements:

Follow Colorado Tourism Office brand standards and photography guidelines, (PDF).
Inform flighting, messaging, and imagery considerations.
Review and approve all creative before launch.
Have creative that links directly to your website.

Please note: This program is meant to drive awareness and site traffic to Colorado destinations. Should there be more applicants than available spots, Domestic Marketing Organizations (DMOs) will be given priority.

The Colorado Tourism Office promotes an industry partner’s content through the Visit Colorado Facebook and Instagram. This new co-op offering will give partners access to additional objectives that Meta had previously removed for paid partnership ads, with the options of engagement, traffic, or video views. The key KPI for this program is engagement. The minimum investment is $1,000, and there is no maximum investment. The CTO will match your investment 1:1 up to $2,500.

There is no management fee, and 100% of investment goes to your media purchase.

Eligible content

Content can be anything you want to feature that will draw attention to your destination. You should know your brand, your target audience, and what type of information about your destination will resonate with them. The content should not resemble an advertisement, and should be more like an advertorial.

Video

Video can be expensive and time consuming to create but is great for engagement. We recommend sharing a short 30-second to 2-minute short feature. Content must be relevant and tailored for social media, not commercials. Please share original video files and not links to videos that live on other platforms (i.e. YouTube), as sharing links to video platforms outside of Facebook can diminish reach. Video ideas include:

How-to videos.
Tour of your area or business.
Inspirational content.

Other

If you have other content that you think will work, the Colorado Tourism Office is open to discussing it. We will need to approve your content. We recommend that you contact the program manager below before creating content specifically for this program.

Ineligible content

Ineligible content includes content:

Not related to tourism.
For promotions, deals, business listings, and sales.
That applies to a very small subset of an audience. – to use dollars efficiently, content must apply to a larger audience (over 500,000)

Partners may apply to have a social video shoot take place in their destination. Footage will be captured, and the CTO will publish an Instagram Reel on the Visit Colorado Instagram account.

Footage will be captured, and the CTO will publish an Instagram Reel on the Visit Colorado Instagram account.
A minimum of 50 social-friendly b-roll clips will be provided to the partner to use in their social channels.
Investment: $1,500.