With 100 Crore+ people using social media around the world it has become one of the most explored communication channel any industry ought to ignore. Because most social media marketing tools are free of charge there is an outlook that there is not any real cost to broadcast business messages using the same platform. But the fact is you invest time, energy, and your reputation in your social media efforts – so it should be wisely used.
Here are 8 ways Travel & Hospitality Industry can use social media marketing strategies wisely that will cost you very little and harvest big future outcomes:
1) Socialize Entire Corporate Website & Travel Portals:
Make sure you have social media sharing buttons that allow your target network to share interesting essentials of your corporate website and other travel portals to their networks with one click to LinkedIn, Facebook, Google + and Twitter. If you make your audience copy and paste the content & submit to their networks you will drop most of your potential viral opportunities. Even the average time on site and bounce rates would be high as they have to leave your portal to share your content.
2) Special Travel Packages, Offers and Group deals:
Much like competitions, special offers and group deals on sites like Groupon are a great way to boost brand awareness and spread the word of the company. Embedded in these types of promotion are strong reasons for consumers to share the deal, and in turn your brand, with friends and strangers.
Companies in the travel industry have started to list accommodations, air services, online tours & excursions and packages on group deal sites. This has been acceptable to boost these offers on social media platform raising company awareness and doing online business in the process.
3) Social Media Competitions and Promotions:
Similar to every industry and business – promotions and competitions are utilized to immense effect by the travel & hospitality industry. With social media being opened up for these types of promotions and postings to everyone where with a simple “Like” or “tweet” can broadcast the marketing message to every corners of the travel industry masses through social as well as professional media tools. Many travel, hospitality & tourism companies are using social media competitions to boost their “followers”, “contacts” and “fans”.
4) SEO combined with Social Media:
Search Engine Optimization is the process by which companies increase their online presence categorizing to make their way up to the peak of online search results. Social media plays a growing role in this these days, as more and more people fill the social networks with talk nineteen to the dozen about that company.
By launching viral videos, blogs, articles, webinars, infographics and other consumer-distributed content, the brand’s name appears more on the web, and so SEO effectiveness and brand awareness increases. Lots of travel companies have used content marketing to boost their business in just this way.
5) Customer Reviews & Testimonials on Social Media:
There aren’t many more effective forms of advertising than word of mouth. Any customer will take the word of one of their peers over that of a company talking head any day of the week. Social media aids here by giving travel companies an outlet for their happy customers to expand expressive about their great services. Of course, this process has a dark flip side of the coin, but like all things, you have to take the rough with the smooth. Expedia is partnered with Trip Advisor, one of the greatest examples of user reviews driving the travel industry.
6) Engaging with customers on a personal level:
In the past there was always a divide between business and consumer, especially in the travel industry. It was often ‘buy a package holiday, go home, job done’ – there wasn’t much interaction.
Now, of course, social media has allowed these companies to connect to their customers on a personal level. The travel industry now has a personality; and that can be directly attributed to social media. When customers feel listened to, they’re usually a lot more satisfied – and that can only be a good thing for the travel industry! We can’t give you a single link to highlight this point, but visit any of the Facebook pages of the big travel companies and you’ll see an active business/consumer relationship in action
7) Promote Your Events through Social Media:
You can reach your target audience in quicker time by promoting your events by social media tools like promoting events through facebook event applications and even on LinkedIn inviting your fans to participate and make them attendees reach your company products adding these individual events to social media pages and tracks. If you have several hundred people register and even 25% of them share it with their network that can translate to literally thousands of more people becoming aware of your event. Also make sure you develop a conference #tag for your event well in advance and have it displayed prominently on your site.
8) Get your target audience to use their reach:
In addition to your target audience showing interest in your products they have a lot of companies out there with major corporations and influencers having hundreds of twitter followers, Facebook fans and LinkedIn connections which can be reached directly or indirectly through social media tools.
Contact:
Mr. Anil Bhatia
Marketing & Communication Executive
www.travelcarma.com
bhatia.anilh@gmail.com
