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Successful travel content starts with an intentional strategy. Do you entertain, build relationships, or find unexpected ways to appeal to travellers? What value does your content do other than promoting your brand? A personalised social media marketing strategy for tourism will help you answer these questions.
At Mankind Digital, we help clients gain more traffic by applying various social media growth methods from diversifying organic content formats, to video marketing and paid promotions.
Some of the most unforgettable holidays start with a well-planned itinerary. Just as travel agents alleviate stress by organising all travel admin, a social media marketing strategy can provide more assurance of what to expect from platforms, how to manage time and resources for travel content, and what a realistic return on investment looks like.
How social media marketing strategy influences business operations:
Consider that social media marketing is an extension of your business. It provides an opportunity to network with travellers you would never have otherwise met offline and a chance to tell a compelling story about what you do. For the tourism industry, a successful social media marketing strategy involves creating shareable moments, taking travellers on a journey and allowing them to imagine themselves using your services through multiple media formats such as video, images and copywriting.
When you know what your audience wants and needs – and what their limitations are – you can tailor your content in a way that consoles their fears, and motivates them to take action. This can be achieved by monitoring and directly interacting with customers offline and online.
Likes, comments, shares and saves are the new currency for marketing in the Information Age. Travel and tourism clients with an effective social media marketing strategy have unlimited growth potential and continue to receive steady growth with the rise in social media users and guidance from a tourism marketing expert.
We develop tailored strategies for tourism clients with varied objectives. Understanding platform best practices in digital marketing and the travel and tourism industry give us a leg up in determining exactly what will work for your brand. Let’s look at the types of social media marketing that may suit your business below.
Creating organic social media travel content is one of the most affordable ways to build brand awareness. While we may suggest combining other types of online marketing with organic content, the key to truly connect with your ideal audience is to optimise the quality of posts you share online.
Did you know that you can target the exact audience you want to reach based on age, location, job description, interests and more? Let’s say that you are promoting family holidays, you may want to only address online users who are parents, or if you feel that more international travellers should be visiting the destinations you promote, you can ensure that only people in your preferred locations see your ad.
Our clients especially gain leads from paid social media marketing on Facebook and Instagram. These platforms differ in actions that you can prompt travellers to take and since user behaviour on each platform is not the same, you may receive unique reactions to the types of content you share. This also helps you learn more about the type of traveller who is interested in your service.
Using multiple social media networks will be useful in extending your brand reach but you certainly don’t need to have a profile on every platform. Your ideal traveller will also not be actively using all platforms. We develop audience-led social media marketing strategies for the tourism industry, basing our recommendations on customer research, industry performance data, and most importantly, your social media goals. If you aren’t working according to a content strategy for travel, you’re missing out on the fast track solution to scaling your business.
Any travel information shared online without paid promotion is regarded as organic content. Geolocation services such as Meet Up, review sites such as Tripadvisor, bookmarking sites such as Pinterest, and video sharing services like Youtube, all use organic travel content to promote products, services and destinations. You may simply need to tweak the existing copy on your website to optimise reach or use our travel and tourism marketing agency to create copy for external resources. Paid content will be highly effective for short-term goals such as campaign awareness but organic content sharing is a long-term strategy that offers powerful industry authority and enhances buyer trust.
More customers have their first interactions with brands online. The tone, style and consistency of your travel content give customers a first impression of how your business operates. If you don’t already have an online presence, how will the billions of active social media users find you? An online presence not only helps you build brand awareness but also gives you an opportunity to share company-related wins at a faster rate than offline exposure will afford. We’ve helped renowned travel and tourism brands make the transition to online marketing, ensuring that travellers receive an accurate representation of the services offered, along with the brand’s purpose and vision.
Choosing the types of travel content you share on social media can be fun. Our clients use multiple formats to give travellers the closest experience to interactions in reality. Each chosen content type should form a brand persona that your ideal traveller can resonate with. If your ideal travellers are mostly time-poor executives, you may want to prioritise sharing concise infographics with visual data. If you know that many of your ideal travellers have a substantial daily commute, you may consider creating an educational industry podcast that allows them to use time effectively and learn more about your services in the interim.
More types of social media content to promote travel and tourism:
The best social media platforms for your brand are the ones that support your business objectives. During our introductory meeting with clients, we go through a list of questions to understand the range of creativity and tactics you are open to. A video-sharing platform like Tiktok may be the perfect platform to use but requires consistent high-quality content which may not be an immediate option for you.
Your content has been created but who manages its performance? We often hear clients say that they have a bank of images, reviews, and well-edited company profiles but haven’t had the time to put it out there. We’d hate for your travel content to go to waste and can also assist in helping you repurpose one type of content in multiple ways.
The consequence of having a dormant social media account does more harm than good for your brand image so we not only help you choose platforms but also develop a sustainable publishing plan, including the option to have all platforms managed by Mankind Digital.
Some of the best platforms for social media travel content:
Our social media marketing services include:
Travellers share their most memorable moments from holidays and work trips online. These moments often include details about their accommodation, the tourism services they’ve used and destination highlights that they find special. If a traveller has used your services and you don’t have an online account to tag or refer to, you miss out on the opportunity of free exposure since the followers of said traveller may want to know more without leaving the platform.
Social media has also become an integrated feature in travel and tourism websites development. Travellers browsing through your website may have the option to share or send your content to others using their own social media accounts, and travellers who discover you on social media can easily be directed to your website. This creates an omnichannel experience which allows the traveller to choose how to interact with your brand.
We love making travel content work harder with strategies that get customers involved. Sometimes the most effective growth method lies in your copy style and tone such as humour, wit and resonance, as well as interactive strategies that require customers to take action within the platform.
Some interactive social media marketing strategies include:
Visual-focused apps like Instagram and Pinterest have become inspirational reference points for travellers. Just as you are more inclined to trust and use a service that your friend recommends, so do many travellers who see familiar faces enjoying experiences that they are interested in.
Social media has also changed the way travel and tourism marketing agencies position destinations. Travellers don’t just want to visit a location, they want to know whether the trip will be instaworthy (visually appealing) and whether nearby experiences match their interests.
Most travellers also check reviews before booking a trip and use what they see online as a determining factor.
Aside from attracting new customers, social media affords businesses the opportunity to improve customer relations by adopting an approachable social media management style and responding to queries in a timely manner. You may not get around to responding to all emails at once but you can create social media posts that address your most frequently asked questions, providing insight into your brand. This improves the quality of your leads since more travellers who are definitely interested will reach out to you directly.
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