How to set up a travel social media marketing strategy

We’ve all seen the social posts: selfies from a beach vacation, airplane wings en route to a faraway destination and delicious meals in a different city. Through all the changes and growth that social media has experienced in the last decade, some things stay the same. Vacations are posted about in all of their stages: planning, sourcing recommendations and the trip itself. Social media plays an important role in all of this and travel companies should recognize it or risk stagnation.

Whether you’re a luggage company or a hotel, our tips should give you some ideas to test out on social. You'll notice that a lot of the ideas are centered around content and that is because travel lends itself to a more visual audience. People want to see what the experience will be like and they need to see it often. Read on to find out how to take advantage of social media to get the message out about your travel or hospitality brand.

Basics: Set yourself up for success

If you’re starting your strategy from scratch or just looking to update your current one, taking a look at the resources available to you is always step one. You can’t manage four different social networks by yourself if you have a large and active audience. Responding to comments alone would take up a lot of your time. So what kind of resources are we talking about?

Staff is the most obvious one. How many people do you need for your company to successfully meet goals for sourcing and creating content, posting, managing comments and DMs and keep an eye out for complaints? Is your company large enough that you need a 24-hour watch on social media? Managing a single-location company is far more different than managing a multi-location one, especially if it spans multiple time zones.

The next basic resource to pay attention to is skill. This ties closely to staff because you want to make sure you have all the right skillsets to execute your strategy. And if you don’t, then you’ll need to be comfortable outsourcing. Social media managers tend to have a lot of different skills, including excellent communication and writing.

Third, get your budget in order. Ads are an important part of the travel industry. If you’re running flash deals on social media, ads are the way to go and you need to make sure you have the budget to promote them.

Lastly, document your strategy with goals. Without clear social media goals per network, your strategy will flounder. The best way to set these up is to evaluate your current audiences and see how they’re using each network. For example, if your customers like to use Twitter for direct customer service, set up goals on response time and a feedback loop of how well your responses are performing. Have a response plan in place for common questions and complaints.

Setup might take a while and you’ll go through several iterations in trial and error, but having a basic plan in place will save you wasted effort in the long run. Having a total picture of the resources available to you will help you know if you should be active on that additional social network or not.

Plan posts for each portion of the purchase cycle

For more expensive getaways and items, the purchase cycle will be longer. For travel brands, this means you’re playing the long game and need to make sure you have posts targeted for each stage.

At the beginning of 2019, Pinterest released their travel personas and trend report. It noted that “69% of Travel Pinners use Pinterest to discover travel services when deciding what to book.” The Pinners typically booked within two months of starting research and research included everything from what to bring to what to do.

Instead of directly promoting their services to customers, cruise company Carnival created a “Cruising Tips” Pinterest board for those still thinking about going on a cruise or have recently booked. The guides are a nice mix of what to expect when you go on a cruise to how to stick to your exercise routine.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a hotel or a travel backpack company. The principles of targeting consumers at each part of the purchase cycle remain the same. Don’t forget that you’re not done when they’ve made the purchase. You want to keep them constantly engaged and reminded of your product or service.

Understand different generations

Millennials and the younger Generation Z groups have more spending power now but to market to them, you’ll need to understand their social media use. An Expedia study of millennial and Gen Z travel behaviors found that they were heavily influenced by social media.

Eighty-four percent of Gen Z and 77% of millennials surveyed had been influenced by social media when planning their travel. More than 70% surveyed were open to help and inspiration during the planning process.

Both Gen Z and millennials named appealing imagery and deals as the two most informative pieces of social media content. Photos and videos maybe costly to create and produce but they will be worth it in the long run.

To ease the content sourcing pain, include user-generated content from past customers. This works particularly well for high-ticket purchases. Potential customers get to see what they’ll be buying through the lens of someone who’s already been. It establishes credibility to your brand so you’re not the only ones talking about you.

Walk into sophisticated spaces designed to expand the mind and spark new ways of thinking. / 🎥: @RonTimehin at @RdamMarriott pic.twitter.com/CIcsoioVx6

— Marriott Hotels (@Marriott) September 6, 2019