By Kate Rice
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Ten top tips for marketing travel through social media
Does social media marketing pay off? You bet. For one agent, a Facebook ad led to a 1,200-passenger group cruise for an organization that then signed a five-year contract for more cruises. The moral of the story: You want to be where shoppers are, and shoppers are using social media.
“Thirty-eight million people say they have made a purchase decision due to interaction with social media,” says Sarah Kennedy Ellis, manager, social solutions, for Sabre. Moreover, this doesn’t apply just to 20-somethings. The average age of Facebook users is between 35 and 44; the average age of Twitter users is 35.
How do you get big pay-offs? As with any marketing you do, it takes a plan. Here are some suggestions.
Design your marketing strategy. So says Sophie Bujold, a social media coach. Determine the audience you want to reach. Defining your target customer will help you choose your channels. If your customers are not uber-tech-savvy, Facebook is probably the right channel for you. If their computer skills are more sophisticated, you can use Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us or others.
Make sure you have a home base such as a full-blown website or blog. You want total control over your content, and social media sites might fade away or change their rules, and then you’re sunk. Bujold has helped agents whose Facebook pages were locked down because the company thought there was the possibility of fraud or the agent had inadvertently violated some rule.
“You can’t put all of your eggs in one social media basket,” Bujold says. Social media sites should support your home base by driving traffic to your website or blog, where viewers can learn about you and all you have to offer. It’s fine to have much of that same information on your Facebook page, for example, but you don’t want Facebook to be the sole repository of content that you created.
You can integrate your blog with your website or have a blog that’s your stand-alone web presence, which is getting easier to do all the time. Three blogging tools to consider are Blog.com, which has an attractive look and is simple to use; Google’s Blogger; and Posterus.
Use your blog to let your personality shine while establishing your professional credentials. Talk about where you’ve been and what you’ve done. Think about the type of traveler you want to attract—families with kids? Swinging singles? Birders? Adventure travelers? Empty nesters?
Create a calendar. If you know a cruise sale is in the works or a preferred tour operator is offering deposit-free bookings, you can design content around those events. These should not be hard-sell posts (figure a dozen or so information posts to every sales pitch), but could focus on cruises you’ve enjoyed or destinations you love that the tour operator sells. That lets you demonstrate your travel knowledge while giving your readers valuable information. And when you do post that special offer, it’s in context with what you’ve already written.
If you don’t have a special offer to highlight, schedule posts of your own photos or information from your own travels. Watch for specials about these products that you can use as a gentle call to action.
Recognize that social media is for building relationships. “It’s like a cocktail reception without the cocktails,” says Bujold. It’s about introducing yourself and establishing your personality, your travel expertise and your professionalism. You have to provide your readers with content they value. It should be varied and entertaining, with insights you gained from a trip or information about a destination. People need to know you to trust you, and they have to trust you in order to buy from you. You can also link and build relationships with clients who are seeking travel advice on www.TravelTribe.com.
Post regularly. Determine a realistic schedule and stick to it—that shows you’re reliable. When your start your blog, introduce yourself, describe the content you’ll share and how often you’ll share it. Set aside one morning every few weeks to brainstorm ideas so that you’ve got several stories in the hopper as backup for times when your creative juices run dry or there are no industry issues for you to write about.
Use Google alerts to notify you about news and developments related to your specialty, and get ideas. Write down ideas for blog posts using a notes function on your handheld, free tools such as Evernote or in a to-do list in your calendar program.
And remember, a blog doesn’t have to be long. It can be your thoughts about a hot travel issue. You could reminisce about a past trip. It doesn’t even have to be something you write—you can post photos of your latest fam trip. Ellis recommends using photos; people linger over them and they make your blog “stickier.” Whatever blogging tool you use should post on your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
A Facebook business page is a must. This gives your clients and potential clients a way to interact with you, as well as a way to direct them to your blog or website. A business page has far more functionality than your personal page. You can posts ads on the site. It was an ad that resulted in that aforementioned 1,200-passenger cruise booking.
“This is where social media really excels,” says Bujold. You open yourself to opportunities you didn’t even know existed. You also want a Facebook page because Facebook is very search-engine friendly. It’s easy to build links back to your website with Facebook.
Be sure to personalize your Facebook business page. You can make it look a lot like your website with free or inexpensive Facebook apps. Bujold recommends Shortstack (www.shortstack.com). Include your profile photo and introduce yourself. It lets you add photos and functionalities such as contact forms, sweepstakes, access to a variety of widgets and more. Have a welcome area that invites people in. You can also hire a consultant; Cox recommends Fun City Social Media (www.funcitysocialmedia.com).
Use search.twitter.com. Just type in “I need a vacation,” and see how many people are talking about how much they need a vacation. And right next to that stream are businesses such as WeNeedVacations. Its owner Nancy Cox, a Nexion agent, links from that Twitter stream to her Facebook site (www.facebook.com/weallneedvacations). It’s highly customized, welcomes visitors, invites interaction by asking visitors what’s on their bucket list, and has photos and reviews.
You can also use search.twitter for more targeted searches. You’re a surfing specialist? Anyone who types in “Surf Nicaragua” will see all sorts of posts by fellow surfers as well as Surf Tours (www.surftoursnicaragua.com), which promises the answer to every surfer’s dilemma: how to get world-class, warm-water waves with no crowds.
Another site, Nicasurfing (www.Nicasurfing.com), offers exclusive packages and “wave hunting.” They link directly to their websites, not a Facebook page, but what all three of these travel sellers are doing is putting information about themselves and what they love in a place where people are shopping.
Use dedicated tools. There are many tools out there to help you blog more effectively. Ellis praises Zemanta (www.zemanta.com), which looks over your shoulder and searches what you’ve written to then pull out keywords that could be of value and linkable to your site. It automatically searches the web for you, giving you relevant images, smart words, keywords and text so you can easily link to destinations, Google maps or photos.
HootSuite (www.hootsuite.com) allows you to post in Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other social media sites simultaneously, and also lets you schedule posts.
Engage in conversation. Make it easy for your visitors to comment on your blog, although you have to commit to responding to them. Don’t let fears of negative posts stop you. Deal with them promptly—you can actually turn them into a positive. One agent discovered a client complaint but was able to demonstrate that she had effectively and promptly dealt with the problem, winning herself the confidence and respect of other viewers on her site. Comment on popular blogs where your customers are. And make it easy to share your content so that customers can “like” your blog posts in Facebook or tweet them.
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