Where do I get started with social media?
Social media offers you a myriad of opportunity to build brand awareness, develop customer relationships and even make sales directly within social platforms. But it can also be daunting. Here are a few tips and strategies when getting started:
- Be realistic about the time you will spend on social media and which social outlets (called social channels) you can commit to nurturing. The basic rule of social media is that posting infrequently, poorly or inconsistently is FAR worse for your business than not at all. Marketing your business is important and social media posts take time to effectively connect with people. If you think you can and should just throw something up on your page without planning, think again. It will likely have a zero effect – or even a negative one – on your travel agency. Engagement only happens when you dedicate time toward your strategy.
- Once you have decided on a name for your business, check the five mainstream social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter, to make sure that you can create pages with the same or similar name. Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram are the most popular social channels for travel agencies.
- Link the accounts you have chosen where you can. Instagram and Facebook are linkable so that when you post to Instagram, your posts can also be shared to the corresponding Facebook page.
- Create a content calendar and plan. Whether you do this every week, two weeks or month, this is extremely important to the success of your social media pages. Learn more about calendars, plans and strategies in this great blog post: How to Use Social Media for Small Business.
- Ask your friends and followers to like AND share your posts and follow your social pages. Social media is all about spreading the word, creating enthusiasm for your business and adding to your list of followers who will see your posts.
Once I’ve decided on my social channels, how do I get started?
Why re-invent the wheel? Learn more on getting started on each of the main social channels here:
What should I post?
Social media is all about the perfect mix of 1/3 social, 1/3 business, 1/3 informational. So as a travel agency, you might decide to post 3-5 times per week with a mix of a:
- Signature Preferred Partner promotion (don’t forget to check in SigNet for everything you need in the e-calendar)
- Destination blog post, spotlight or industry news for a variety of locations and vacation types, showing you are a seasoned travel professional
- Travel tip, recipe or humor
Make sure your posts are very “vacation visual” and always include a call-to-action button (for Facebook) or your contact information in the post or your social channel bio (Instagram).
Where should I list my social media accounts?
Anywhere and everywhere! List and link your social media accounts to your email signature, business cards, website and any collateral that you hand out to your clients, as well as on your own personal social media pages.
Other than posting, how can I leverage social media to engage more people about my travel business?
Help other pages by following and commenting on other pages and accounts (NOT other travel agencies, but friends’ pages, businesses you like, local Chambers of Commerce, community pages, etc.). The more you engage, the more others will see your business name!