The visual turn in social media marketing.

This paper describes recent changes in social media platforms and camera technologies that are ringing in a new era of social media practices. It specifically portrays the premises and promises of visual content sharing platforms such as Instagram, livecasting platforms like Periscope and the multi-media messaging app Snapchat. It argues that, as a result of shifts in the social media landscape, new social media marketing approaches are needed. It outlines opportunities and challenges for tourism marketers in taking advantage of new visual trends and calls for a better understanding of tourists' visual content creation and visual social media use behaviours to inform tourism marketing practice.