Travel Agents Not Tripping Over Social Media
It seems just about every business is hopping on the social media bandwagon these days, and travel agents have certainly seen the possible benefits. Social networking sites continue to be an excellent way for brands to get their messages heard.
With a powerful visual element in the form of gorgeous photos as part of their business, travel agencies stand a great chance of being noticed on social media.
Here’s how they’re doing it — and how your agency can get in on the action:
Why Social Media?
Social media provides a relatively easy way to reach a large number of people, with more than 70% of internet users on at least one social networking site.
One of its most important benefits is its fun, casual atmosphere – allowing an agency to show off its personality and engage customers.
Facebook and Twitter may be the big two when it comes to business use of social media, but the travel industry is well-suited to other sites such as Pinterest.
Sharing customer photos and stories, promotions, and contests all help a travel agent build audience engagement and reputation.
Best Practices
While there aren’t any hard and fast rules when it comes to social media, there are some techniques that will help you build traction — and some habits that will set you back.
Before starting your agency’s social media campaign, take the time to set goals and come up with a strategy.
Great ways to get started with social media include blogging (which you can link to from your social profiles), videos and photos (both agency-produced and customer-submitted), and customer stories.
Remember that social media is meant to be a two-way conversation – it’s not just a place for you to fire off a promotional post every now and then. A page that’s full of links to the agency website or blog, with no valuable content, won’t attract or keep visitors.
Another crucial part of social media success is replying to messages.
Nothing turns a customer off more than posting a message on your Facebook page or sending you a tweet and getting no response in return. Even worse is getting a canned or automated reply.
Be personable and helpful, and you’ll have better results.
Success Story
One travel agency who really gets social media is Intrepid Travel, based in Australia. This company has embraced Facebook and has a successful page with more than 137,000 likes.
Intrepid’s page is light on marketing messages, focusing instead on things such as fun facts about various destinations (at the time of this writing, their top post is about the Trevi Fountain in Rome, which has around 3000 euro tossed into it every day and given to charity).
Other items of interest on their page include photos from around the world, customer stories, and contests. It seems to be working for them; their posts receive plenty of likes and comments — and Intrepid is savvy enough to reply to comments in their trademark fun, casual style.
Social media can be a powerful tool for any business — including travel agencies — when done right.
Keeping customers informed and entertained (and giving them beautiful photos to share) is a great first step.
About the Author: Angie Mansfield is a freelance writer whose work covers topics of interest to both consumers and small business owners, including billfloat.
Image Credit: 1.
Posted in Social Networking. Tags: social media for traveling, travel and social media
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