Social Media Marketing Becomes a Key Tactic for Tourism Industry

As human beings we have a natural tendency to share our good or bad experiences. We enjoy our great moments with the ones we love and seek for support in times of need. We seek approval, advice or support. Social media networks made it so easy for us to broadcast our lives and any experience we share could influence the life of people we don’t even know in real life.

Tourism is one of those industries that always worked best when people shared their experiences, long before the Internet was such an important part of our lives. People have always enjoyed sending postcards or taking pictures to show their family and friends back home. Today we are doing the same thing but instead of postcards we are using social media networks and smartphones, sharing our leisure moments real time to a broader audience. Let’s check out how social media can be of great help for promoting businesses in travel industry by looking at some successful campaigns!

Harness Feedback and Recommendations

As highlighted, tourist behavior is based on the recommendations of their peers and experiences shared by the others. Social media networks provide a great platform for people to disseminate their opinions, recommendations and reviews, so one of the most productive ways of using social media marketing to drive business for tourism industry is by encouraging people to provide feedback. Here’s an excellent example of how a travel company managed to increase the number of clients that leave testimonials and referrals by using Facebook: Travel Company uses Facebook as a tool for generating testimonials.

Entertain Your Audience

The best way of connecting with your audience is to reach them at a personal level, to humanize your brand. A great example comes from Joie de Vivre , in Southern California. They managed to engage with customers, involving them in their social media campaign and broaden their reach, increase the number of followers and clients by creating viral and entertaining content. Don’t forget that people are using social media networks mostly to pass the time and have fun. No doubt they will share only engaging and funny content and not advertisements.

Be Relevant to Win the Attention of Your Target Audience

Be the answer for the needs of your target and your social media campaign will be a real success. Look closely to gather insight on what customers feel, think or wish for and incorporate that in your marketing efforts. This is what the guys from Contiki did with their Get on the Bus campaign. Who hasn’t thought at least once to leave in a dream holiday to a destination of their choice together with their best friends? Contiki made it possible and the results didn’t cease to appear: 116,000 participants created virtual buses with their friends on Facebook and Twitter to compete for votes to win a vacation to the destination of their choice.

Social media can help the tourism industry gain more visibility in a faster way with less money, but you need to be fully committed time wise and have a consistent online strategy. Tuning your marketing plan to fit the new media trend and consumer’s insights is mandatory in order to keep up with the fast paced market.

How do you use social media to increase your company’s awareness? What strategy worked best for you? Share your experiences in the comments below.