What do you get out of social media?
Nowadays we cannot avoid social media or its effect on business. It is important to understand how social media works and how it can help with the travel business. Expedia’s article “Social media and the travel sector: Insights and tips for travel marketers,” tells all about social media and how to use it effectively. You can use either Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. All of the channels help you to connect with people and grow your marketing.
The article tells examples of different campaigns from different countries. In addition, it tells how to use social media and be creative. Less is more. You need to center focus on quality and meaningful content.
The article is relevant to Study Unit themes since it is telling how social media can help with the business. I chose this article because I have read many Expedia articles. I wanted to also deep-dive into social media knowledge.
Relationships and quality on social media
Firstly, the article (Expedia, 2-3) tells that success is no longer simply a numbers game. Relationships are important. Companies are not able to trust only quantitative data, they also need to take care of qualitative aspects. They can think such as comments, content created by other people, or response rate.
This caught my attention because we have learned about these things in this Study Unit during Google Garage. There are so many tools, which can measure your success, but you need to keep the focus on quality and how you represent yourself on the digital web.
I am working at the hotel, which is creating a lot of material for social media. Luckily, I have been able to participate in this process. You must think carefully of example which kind of keywords you are using. Focusing on people, who are interested in your content and would see your post. Responding actively and doing collaboration is also an important part of relationship building.
Instagram as a marketing tool
Secondly, an interesting thing is Instagram and how it has become a home for all kinds of pictures. Article (Expedia, 7) is telling about Instagram as a platform, which is dreamy, visual, and inspiring. The article is giving tips for using Instagram as a marketing tool. Companies could inspire instead of sell. They can for example take a video of people using your service. Location tagging is recommended and think hashtags according to context.
My experience about this is being a model to our hotel. It was fun to create a dreamy and visual video, where I and my friend was using hotel services. From the below picture you will find for example location tagging and me using the hotel service. The picture is also visual, and the text is telling that you can have a good time staying at the hotel.
The study Unit has taught about tagging and finding the right words to describe your action. Overall, important is to find the right platform to implement authentic and suitable material for the right persons.
Do segmentation with social media
Lastly, it is important to focus on a wider picture of marketing. Article (Expedia, 15-16) tells an example of Greece and how they succeed to expand their destination knowledge with the help of social media.
They gained more customer segmentation and got more targeted consumers. Ads, different pages, and campaigns helped Greece to increase passenger bookings, social media followers, and in general, more bookings for the travel industry in the country.
With Study Unit themes I have learned that it is important to know your customers, do segmentation and be creative. I think that in the Lapland sector we have succeeded with this. However, I would say that we need to still do more customer segmentation. I do not have yet my own experience in this area, but as a worker, I have seen customers, who expected totally different things from their holiday.
Conclusion
To sum up, I would say that social media is a great tool to help you with business or pleasure. Here are my 3 main results.
- Keep relationships running even if they are virtual.
- Think carefully, about what you will publish and to where.
- Think about what your customers want to see and know.
The article helped me to learn more about social media and different tools. I also realized that I knew something already. I have used social media more in business than pleasure. It is a good thing to know. Now I can update my own picture to Instagram.
References
Expedia media solutions. Social media and the travel sector. Referred 24.1.2022