How to Get Your Tourism Business Started on Social Media

There's no denying that in the past few years social media marketing has had a monumental influence on the tourism industry. Social posts have evolved to become an integral part of people's travel research, photo sharing and social influencers a pillar of tourist destination promotion, and even on the most basic level - a fundamental space for customer service.

With 84% of millennials claiming that they are likely to plan their own vacation based on someone else’s social posts and 1,000,000 travel-related hashtags are searched on a weekly basis, it'd be a severe oversight for any tourism business not to invest time into building a solid social media and content marketing foundation.

What that said, how do you go about kicking off your social media strategy and attract those valuable followers that could turn into paying customers? We jump into the basics, below.

Best Social Channels for Tourism and How to Use Them

The first thing to know about social media and tourism, is that each social channel (ie. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok) have their own nuances, uses and best practice. These are the primary social media channels that you can begin to build a following on and promote your services. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t necessarily have to be on every social network to have a strong social media presence, it's all about understanding where your audience is and how best to communicate with them.

Facebook

With the global number of Facebook users expected to reach around 1.69 billion in 2020, it's highly likely that whether you like Facebook or not, your customers are likely to be present on it in some capacity. Primarily, Facebook is a great platform to build a brand presence and share valuable content with your audience to build trust - and at the end of the day, consumers buy from brands that they trust.

What to Post on Facebook:

If Facebook is a platform you'd like to build a presence on, here's the types of content we'd recommend posting.

• Photos and Videos. First and foremost, the best way to disrupt peoples' newsfeed is to post visually appealing content. For the tourism sector, that usually means exciting pictures of your tourist attraction in action, or visually stunning imagery of a tourism destination.
• Blog Posts. Facebook is a great platform for sharing blog posts and other longer form content, as you're able to summarise and directly link to the content you're posting. Often when your audience is researching tourism destinations and activities they're likely to click through to find out more information, and Facebook is the perfect platform to promote this
• Competitions and Offers. Facebook is a platform that makes it extremely easy for people to share, like and comment on posts. A flurry of this type of engagement spurred on by an enticing offer or competition is likely to do wonders for the Facebook algorithms, increasing the reach of your post and how many eyes are on your brand.
• Reviews and Engagement. This is an element that can sometimes worry businesses who are afraid of a negative review, but in actuality, allowing your customers to leave Facebook reviews and comments on your page which you can then respond to legitimises your page and builds trust. Often in the research phase of the customer journey, your audience will look to reviews to advise them - no reviews at all is a big red flag.

Facebook Best Practice Tips:

• Use short, punchy captions (fewer than 90 characters) that are emotive or have a strong call to action (in case of a deal or offer)
• Copy should aim to inspire or create a sense of wanderlust
• Image posts generate a high engagement rate, followed by video posts
• Audience engagement and posting frequency go hand in hand, so make sure to post often
• Always reply to your audience's comments, whether they're positive or negative
• Multi-image posts or photo albums are a great way to showcase multiple elements of a trip or itinerary. They also deliver more engagements
• Brand everything. From your cover photo, to your profile picture, to your most recent video post, everything should be consistent and branded.

Note: best practice tips advised by traveltrade.newzealand.com.

Instagram

Over the past decade, Instagram has become the social media platform that speaks to millennials, with over half of all U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 29 using Instagram and 49 percent of these users logging into the platform at least once a day. Instagram is a space for engagement, incredibly visually rich content and short-form content. While Instagram is owned by Facebook, the platform itself is entirely unique.

What to Post on Instagram:

If Instagram is a platform you'd like to build a presence on, here's the types of content we'd recommend posting.

• Share user-generated content. The best part about Instagram is that your audience wants to share the awesome things they've been up to at your company with their friends, too. If you're tagged in a post, re-share it, post in on your story and give back to your followers. It increases the reach of your posts, but also your followers' trust in your brand. If they see people enjoying what you have to offer, they might be intrigued to look into giving it a go too.
• Influencer marketing works. A great way to kick-off your Instagram page and promote your offering is to engage with an Instagram influencer. Usually, all this requires from your end is offering a free 'trial' of your business in exchange for your chose influencer to post about their experience to their usually large following. Always do you research into what your influencer stands for and who their followers are - but the right pairing can spark great things.
• Share photos and videos. Instagram is an inherently visual platform. The goal is create content that stops people mid-scroll and engages them with stunning imagery. However, a big point of difference here is Instagram stories. Always post on your story, especially when it comes to ephemeral content.
• Use IGTV for longer videos. Instagram TV is a great way to get any longer form video content you have out to market. It allows you to add a 1-minute snippet of a video to your Instagram feed and capture the attention of your followers, who can then use IGTV to watch the full clip.
• Go live. If you don't have any content to share in the pipeline and you're out and about operating your tourism establishment, you can always go live and share real-time content of people engaging with your service. Just make sure to ask the permission of the people you're filming and ensure you're complying with health and safety first.

Instagram Best Practice Tips:

• Images that demonstrate the viewpoint of a traveller work well
• Use images that highlight landscape as well as people
• Images should be ‘thumbstopping’ - epic New Zealand images
• No copy or text overlays should be used on top of images
• Remember to obtain permission if you are regramming someone else’s photos
• Use related hashtags such as ‘Travel’ and ‘New Zealand’ in your posts to help increase visibility of your activity
• Remember to tag the relevant location to your posts
• Instagram Stories is a great way to showcase content in real-time
• Instagram allows you to share your posts directly to Facebook too

Note: best practice tips advised by traveltrade.newzealand.com

Other Social Channels to Mention

While Facebook and Instagram are the two tourism-specific channels we'd recommend getting started with on your social media journey, it's important to note that there are other channels out there such as LinkedIn, TikTok and SnapChat.

It's all about knowing who your audience is, where they live in the social media world and which channels best allow you to market to them.

Tips for Using Social Media to Promote Domestic Tourism

In the current global climate, promoting domestic tourism is at the forefront of many businesses minds in our industry. If your goal for using social media is to convert followers into domestic tourist, here are a few tips to make it happen:

• Run competitions focused on the domestic market, for example 'show us what it means to you to be Kiwi and win an experience'.
• Always hashtag the country you're promoting, as well as relevant hashtags that appeal to the audience you're targeting.
• If you're putting budget behind any of your social media posts, pay special attention to the audience that you're targeting. Make sure they're local, rather than international.
• Promotions and offers are so important on social. People are looking for reasons to spend their dollars within their own country, so your job on social is to incentivise them to spend it with you. Offers, promotions, discounts and events shared on social media is a great way to achieve this.
• Remember, tourists love to research. Create as much content as you can (blogs, videos and posts) that will help them to understand what you do and why it's great and nurture them through that decision making process.

Want to know if your current marketing is a hit or miss?

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