What the travel industry should be doing on social media, but most aren’t
Social media has brought a transparency into advertising in the 21st century. It can elevate or destroy a travel business depending on how well your business is run, and how welcoming you are to visitors not just in real time, but virtually too.
Managing your travel companies’ social media is like being a hotel manager and a tour guide. But instead of showing visitors the sights, you’re showing them around your hotel, and not just their rooms with the sea view either but through the storerooms, into the hotel kitchens and right into the Hotel Manager’s office.
This may sound scary, but actually you should be excited by it.
If you use social media to tell potential visitors what it is you think they want, then your strategy may not be as effective as you had hoped it would be. However, social media is a goldmine in market research. It offers access to information that you couldn’t buy with ten years’ worth of profit – people telling you exactly what they want.
So what’s the secret to making social media work for your travel business?
Listen.
Social media is like having a spy feeding you information about your competition, except the spy is also telling your competition about you.
Your clients have been given an almost anonymous platform to tell you exactly what they want. Sometimes politely, but more often than not, honestly.
Still, regardless of how something is said, you need to listen. By being a good social media listener, you can gain incredible insights directly from potential clients.
But, it doesn’t stop at listening, you have to be willing to accept, analyse and improve or change areas of your business that people are either not talking about or don’t have anything good to say about.
You can’t stop focusing on the areas that people are complimenting you on either
If for example, a lot of people are complimenting you on your great service then new clients are going to expect great service and will be consciously aware of it. So you have to put measures in place to ensure that your service staff are happy, because if one person sees a comment about great service and gets sub-par attention, they’re going to go straight to social media where they know they have a voice that will be heard by thousands to dispute it.
One negative comment can destroy one hundred positive ones.
Social media is your voice that’s speaks directly to people who sign up to hear what you have to say. In return for this privilege it offers them a platform to give you their feedback, whether you have asked for it or not. But if people know that they are being heard then they are more likely to trust your brand and even allow you to make the odd mistake now and then.
Read about the 5 easy ways to spot a bad travel writer!