It was the ultimate social media scavenger hunt as tourism industry workers from around the world zeroed in on El Paso, Texas, last week in search of fresh ideas and West Texas flair. More than 230 attendees for the Social Media Tourism Symposium packed conference rooms at the Judson F. Williams Convention Centre in El Paso to learn new ways to use social media to attract visitors to their cities and get them to stick around longer once they’re there.

During the day participants navigated through sessions like “Give Foodspotting a Taste: Leveraging a Niche Social Media Site for Your Destination” and “How to Make Your Destination Pintastic” filling their notebooks, smart phones and tablets with clues for  customizing their own winning campaigns back home. When not in sessions they fanned out through El Paso in search of what treats our city had to offer.

Search Instagram for the tag #SoMeT12 and you can see El Paso through their eyes as these tourism experts explored our community, enjoying great Mexican food, margaritas and a true crowd favorite – boots.

“This group is by far the most adventurous we’ve ever had,” said Brooke Underwood, director of convention development at the El Paso Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. She said many rented cars and followed up on a variety of suggestions to visits restaurants, bars and other sites beyond the Downtown area.

And every step of the way they shared their experiences with the world via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, Pinterest, Google+ and more.  For at least three days a couple of hundred ambassadors shared a quiltwork of photos and updates about our “twinkly,” “sunny,” city as they moved from workshops to party stops.

“Looks like the #SoMeT12 community has some reach,” reported symposium organizer Dave Serino of Think! Social Media on Twitter referring to a Hashtracking.com report showing 1,489 tweets about the conference and 2,544,384 impressions reaching an audience of 624,947 in a 24-hour period.

This is the third year for the Social Media Tourism Symposium, which chooses its conference sites through social media voting. El Paso was selected after a major promotional effort led by the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau generated more than 20,000 votes to beat out 16 other cities, including Cleveland, Milwaukee, Buffalo and San Marcos. SoMeT has announced plans to expand to Australia in 2013.

One highlight of the 2012 conference was a social media smackdown of sorts, a real-time marketing challenge where four agencies each gave their best pitches to solve El Paso’s marketing challenge – that few outside of Texas have heard of the city and those in Texas think it is dangerous despite it being ranked as the safest city in the United States. Ideas from the groups included fostering blogs to promote the city as the birthplace of the margarita, safe, sunny and full of great outdoor adventure opportunities.

One of the more popular suggestions: Build a giant margarita fountain.

Find some takeaways from the symposium at the following links:

• WHY YOU SHOULD EMBARRASS YOURSELF (A LOT) TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN SOCIAL MEDIA
• Putting Social at the Core: How Social Media is Driving the Evolution of Destination Marketing