Since the evolution of digital media, several businesses were massively affected, including tourism and travel. The traditional marketing tactics were still used, but the abundance of social media and free advertising allow more tourism companies to reap the benefits minus the cost.
Social media is deemed important, presenting more opportunities to reach the target market, even in different countries. Because tourism knows no boundaries, and municipalities need attention from the global market, social media paved the path for more people discovering beautiful places in the world.
Right now, more people are utilizing social media to find amazing deals, destinations, accommodation, tours, and even car rental. For businesses that are offering all these things, social media became a valuable platform to connect to potential customers.
So, how do we understand the link between tourism and digital marketing through social media? In this article, we’re going to explore the wonders of social media, and how several platforms are used to favor tourism businesses around the world.
The Shift to Social Media
With the Internet, a lot of things can be done—communicate with people, advertise products and services, find valuable information, and watch videos. It’s easy to see the world with the Internet because photographs, videos, blogs, and podcasts are easily available.
If a person is looking for a hotel or tour in Bali, Indonesia, the results will be shown on Google and other search engines. With a simple click, web users are transported to a different world, where a lot of information is provided. This is the world where we live in today—the Internet and the digital world.
By being connected to the Internet, a person can do a lot of things. Because signing up for social media platforms is free, people can easily join and use the platform without any restriction. The shift to digital media is abrupt, and not a lot of businesses grasp the idea that most people are now on the Internet more than the traditional media.
People these days spend more time using social media than watching television, reading newspapers, magazines, and listening to the radio. In fact, according to Techjury, an average person spends approximately 2 hours and 24 minutes per day on social media alone. This isn’t surprising as these platforms and sites offer a lot of things to users.
Let’s consider Facebook as an example to know how it affects the lives of its users. Because of Facebook, people easily catch up with the latest news, connect to loved ones, share information and media. Everything’s on the platform already, from videos, music, photographs, and information. Hence, people spend more time on social media because it presents more entertainment opportunities.
Medium even reports that roughly 45 percent of the world’s population uses social media. Given this data, businesses need to catch up and utilize social media to their own benefit. By creating a business account or page, it’s easier to tap customers, be available when people look for tours, accommodation, and others.
Why It Matters to Be on Social Media
Visibility is an important factor to consider in social media. Remember, these platforms also have search fields, where users can find what they are looking for. Additionally, social media accounts also appear in search engines. In tourism, visibility is important because people would want to connect to a service provider to get what they’re looking for.
These days, people look for holiday destinations online, particularly on social media. With friends and family members sharing photographs of destinations, users are naturally curious, which leads to finding more information about the place or establishment.
There are a lot of success stories with tour companies gaining more customers by being active on social media. With campaigns, user interaction, and staying relevant, businesses can find more sales opportunities than advertising on costly channels like radio, print, and television.
Through engagement, visual impact, and connectivity, tourism companies can build better branding. This is the reason why more and more famous brands are turning to social media to promote and sell products to the target market. Ever wonder why airline companies are also populating Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube? The reason is that these platforms are populated by people who might be interested in airline tickets.
Social media also helps businesses to grow their business through e-commerce functions and features. For instance, links to the website are provided to redirect users to the online store or shop. These functions are important to enhance the shopping experience of users, and at the same time, make information readily available. So, when a user is looking for a hotel in New York, a hotel’s social media account pops out and provides the exact location of the establishments.
Photographs and videos are easily sharable too, allowing users to find what they need. Hotels can publish pictures showcasing the rooms, facilities, and the views from the rooms. Interactive functions like Live Chat also helps to address common concerns, including where to book rooms and other information.
More than visibility, utilizing social media is important to diversify the reach. Before, tourism companies only rely on phone calls and walk-in visits, but now, because of social media, people can connect to the establishment through chat or email. Simply put, leveraging on social media helps to engage the audience without needing to pay for advertisements. The organic reach greatly reduces the cost over time, which helps companies save more money.
Another factor that shows the effectiveness of social media marketing is driving organic website traffic. If a company has a website, they can publish it on social media to allow more people to visit the page. This helps to showcase the services and products offered, by publishing the website.
The influence of social media is wide, and it will continue to evolve over the years. With trends, pop culture, and influence, tourism companies can benefit from staying active, engaging with people, and simply being out there.
Tips for Successful Social Media Marketing
Tourism businesses need successful social media campaigns and marketing to grow. The best strategies are needed to solidify branding and to drive sales eventually. But, how exactly can you get started? Here are useful tips to rock your social media strategy and enjoy a return on investment.
1. Post Useful Content Regularly
Being active matters because it helps with visibility. By posting content regularly, the social media page will appear frequently to a user’s timeline, promoting interest. This is more effective than seldomly posting content. The key here is consistency and being engaging with users.
The content is also a huge factor in determining the success of the social media campaign or strategy. Make sure the content is valuable, funny, interesting and related to what the company is selling or providing. For tourism pages, posting photos and videos of the establishment helps to stir people’s attention and interest.
Visuals are important factors, and images, and interactive media engage users. Instead of using a tasteless material, why not create a well-designed image to be presentable and noticeable.
2. Grow Your Audience
It’s crucial to grow your followers and the audience as a whole. Happy customers follow the social media accounts of businesses or companies they’re interested in. By being valuable and relevant, people would want to be updated with your brand.
Most people follow pages for the content. So, make sure to encourage more following by publishing cool, informative, and interesting content.
3. Lure People to Promotions
One way of making campaigns successful is by luring people to promotions. A lot of brands are using the tactic of making people like their social media accounts to win exciting tour packages, plane tickets, and other prizes.
There are hotels that provide free accommodation and tours to winners of the campaigns. Rewards are effective to spread the word about the business and make people recognize the brand or company. This is already happening, and it benefits the tour businesses ultimately.
4. Measure Results
Finally, looking at results help to understand if the strategy is working or not. The engagement of the posts determines if more people are finding the content helpful or not. This data can help you focus on what content provides more reach and engagement.
For instance, if travel videos are seeing a lot of engagement like comments, likes, and shares, then consider making more of these content. If sharing articles isn’t getting any traction, then consider experimenting and using other tactics.
In making campaigns successful, you need to look closely and pay attention to the trends. Jumping on the bandwagon is useful because a lot of people can relate. Although it’s risky at times, as not all people are updated to the trends, it’s still better to know what specific content is popular and relatable.
OnlinTakeaway
By being active on social media, tourism companies can reach more people, connect to a wider audience, and showcase products and services offered without the massive costs. Investing in social media marketing services ensures better branding, improved sales, and increase following.
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