FOR TRAVEL WEBSITES

Transcription

FOR TRAVEL WEBSITES

EFFECTIVE
SOCIAL MEDIA
MARKETING
FOR TRAVEL WEBSITES
Expert strategies and insights from the travel technology experts
Contents
Social media in a nutshell
3
Why social media is important
to travel businesses
4
What should you be doing?
Step 1: Choose your platforms
7
Step 2: Profile your audience
10
Step 3: The customer journey
12
Step 4: Internal rules & guidelines
13
Step 5: Content creation & scheduling
15
Step 6: Execution & reporting
28
Going further
29
Social media in a nutshell
Social media is a way for people to connect
and communicate with each other online.
Over the past decade, it has skyrocketed in
popularity and evolved into an easy way for
users to quickly communicate with each
other via comments, pictures, instant chat
and video.
Call 0844 357 7973 / email: [email protected] / visit: www.digital-trip.com
3
Why social media is important
to travel businesses
Your customers are online, a lot. So if
your company isn’t available to connect,
convert and keep customers - your
competitors will likely beat you to it.
With customers increasingly demanding
more from travel brands on social media,
there’s no better time to embrace it and
make it an integral part of your overall
marketing strategy.
4
The impact of
social media:
• 72% of online adults use social sites
• 74% of smartphone owners use their phone for
real-time location specific information
• 9 billion photos are uploaded each month to
Facebook
Facebook is the
giant of social
media, with over
1.19 billion active
users monthly
• Twitter is adding 300k users per day, with 320
million active monthly
• 1 in 5 young adults use Twitter daily
• 92% of consumers trust peer recommendations
5
Image sharing platforms
are massive business:
Instagram has over 400
million active users
monthly, and Pinterest
over 100 million active
monthly users.
6
What should you be doing?
Step 1: Choose your platforms
Each social platform serves a different purpose. You
don’t need to be present on every channel to market
your business - only the ones that matter to you and
your customers.
Using just a few platforms competently is a lot more effective than using
every platform badly – we’d suggest focussing on 2-3 social platforms
that are right for your business. Read our blog post to see the differences
between the main social platforms and to see which is right for you.
The main options for your travel business are:
• Facebook
• Google+
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
7
As Facebook is used by
the widest audience,
with many using it to
find travel inspiration,
it's the best place
to start.
8
A huge part of social marketing
for travel is about inspiring users
An image-based social platform such as Instagram or
Pinterest is perfect to showcase your enticing hotel and
destination photos.
Once your presence on your platforms is established, it’s wise to explore a social
marketing management solution. Handling multiple social accounts and posting
engaging content on a daily basis can be very time consuming, so it’s important
to streamline the process as much as possible. By utilising a social management
solution, you will be able to post to, report and engage with multiple social
platforms at once.
9
Step 2: Profile your audience
Social media marketing is always evolving at a fast
pace - it’s no longer just about conversations, but
about building long-lasting relationships.
The most important thing is that you understand your audience, which
is why you should profile them. Create at least 3 ‘personas’ outlining
your target audiences’ key traits and demographic information. The
more detailed the better!
10
A profile should identify: background,
demographic, goals, values & fears. With this
information, you can identify the type of
content they will engage with.
11
Step 3: The Customer Journey
Understanding your customers’ purchasing
behaviour will help identify key times that you
can engage with them on social sites.
1. Inspiration/trigger: rebooking, online inspiration, sales
2. Researching: destinations, reviews, recommendations
3. Planning the holiday: reviews, recommendations
4. Booking: price comparison, agent reputation
5. Schedule planning: daily activities, food and attractions
6. Enjoying their holiday: sharing on social, ‘checking in’ at locations
7. Remembering: sharing on social
By engaging with your customers at
every stage you can build loyalty.
12
Step 4: Internal Rules
and Guidelines
It’s important that your social activities appear
to be from one consistent tone of voice, that’s
on-brand and on-message.
Create a checklist that will act as a guideline for your social
marketing:
• Is the post grammatically correct, and is the spelling checked?
• Is the post consistent in tone? I.e. friendly/approachable
• Is the image attached checked for copyright, and
universally suitable?
13
It’s best to create guidelines on
dealing with negative situations
on social sites.
It’s important to remember that these situations, such
as negative reviews, will likely happen with or without
you, so by being part of the conversation, you have the
chance to correct any issues and re-convert them.
14
Step 5: Content Creation
and Scheduling
Take an in-depth look at what your
competitors are sharing and break
it down into how many informative
articles vs. how many promotions
they share. You can then understand
the types of content you should
be sharing.
15
These are the types of content
that generate engagement
• ‘Always relevant’ articles such as ‘The 10 best city breaks on a budget’
• Short term or event related articles, for the Rio Olympic Games for
example, you could post ‘5 best sights to see in Brazil’
• Competitions such as ‘Win an iPad Mini if you book by 30th July’
• Inspiring destination images
• Promotions such as '10% off city breaks' or 'summer sale'
16
Articles should be concise and friendly in
tone. Promotions should only be posted
at a maximum of once a day, so that you
don’t bombard your audience with sales.
We recommend creating a ‘content calendar’ to:
1. Ensure your content is organised into daily
(and hourly) slots
2. Get an ‘at a glance’ understanding of content/
resource requirements
3. P
inpoint key events and build content around
them (in advance)
4. Plan a campaign build up
Another handy tip would be to create a ‘social
library’ of images that your social team can utilise
when required.
17
What types of content
should I share?
By taking a thorough look at your
marketing personas and your competition,
you should have a better understanding on
what your users want to see.
Although it is worth noting that you need to discover
your own formula for success – this takes time,
experimentation and analysis. As a general rule of
thumb, statistics show that the best social posts
include:
• A succinct yet friendly title
• A link
• An image
• A hashtag (or two)
18
For image sharing sites, don’t
include people’s faces – this
negatively impacts clickthrough-rates...
...after all, people want to
imagine themselves on that
beautiful beach!
19
For Pinterest & Instagram, images
should be ‘portrait’ in orientation, and
feature multiple dominant colors
20
While getting your
content right is critical, it’s also
vital that you share it
at the right time.
21
Best times to post
Facebook
Saturday & Sunday 12-1pm, Wednesdays 3-4pm, Thursdays & Fridays 1-4pm
Twitter
Monday - Friday 12-3pm, Wednesdays 5-6pm
Pinterest
Saturdays 8-11pm, Monday - Friday 7-11:59pm, Fridays 5pm
Instagram
Anytime Monday - Thursday (except between 3-4pm)
22
There’s no need to post
on an hourly basis, at
minimum try 1 post
a day, but if you’d
like to see a lot more
engagement – try at
least 3 posts daily.
23
# The single greatest
way to increase your
followers is to share
engaging content.
24
How to grow your
follower base
You need to be engaged with your
audience and the world in general. Keep
up-to-date on Facebook trends and
hashtags, world events i.e. World Cups/
Olympics, Twitter trends and those on
Instagram and Pinterest too.
Like/Retweet/Share
others’ posts and respond
to peoples comments.
This alone is a great way
of boosting followers and
engagement. Show them
that you’re there and
listening.
25
It’s very tricky for
brands to engage in
world ‘news’, and it’s
important to clarify
the types of events you
should interact with.
A lot of brands get this wrong and it seriously backfires by creating social ‘backlash’. So, we’d recommend
avoiding ‘news’ for now unless you’re a social expert.
26
Now you understand more about your
position on social sites, your voice and what
you will be sharing, it’s time to start.
27
Step 6: Execution & Reporting
All social sites have a reporting suite that
provides you with excellent detail on top
rated posts and your audience.
Social management solutions have fantastic
reporting too (and all under ‘one roof’). We’d
recommend reporting on a weekly, or at
least monthly basis; so you can get a better
understanding of the types of content that
are a hit with your audience.
You can also cross reference your stats with
your websites’ to get a wider picture on the
success of your social campaigns.
It’s important to make a ‘lessons
learnt’ statement on each report
to inform future strategy.
28
By now you should be
ready to get started.
But, if you're serious
about social, the
experts at Digital
Trip can recommend
the best options and
implement resultsdriven campaigns.
29
Talk to the travel technology experts today
www.digital-trip.com
UK Head Office
First Floor, Waverley House, 115-119 Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH8 8DY
South Africa Office
Fern Manor, Block B, 10 Hunter Ave, Ferndale Randburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

FOR TRAVEL WEBSITES

Transcription

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