Creative Ways of Using SoMe in Marketing is Significant

The article “Social Media and the Travel Sector” published by Expedia Media Solutions presents tips on using social media in travel marketing. It introduces the evolution of social media metrics, how social media has evolved, the changing ways to measure the significance of social media, and reasons why continuous relationships are more important than the number of likes on social media. 

I find the article interesting because it shows ways to use different social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest in different ways to find new customers. In addition, the article clearly describes the figures for how many users use these platforms. 

Content of comments over the number of comments

Social media users are looking for meaningful conversations as well as motivation and encouragement to do something new (Expedia, 3). The number of comments and likes is important to the travel marketers and they often also motivate the development of marketing tools, but nowadays the number of comments is more important than their number. Comments and direct messages can be used to have discussions with current and potential future customers. Verbal feedback on services can also be obtained through commenting. 

A certain way of marketing does not work for every company and that is why every company needs to think about which practices work best for them and how to reach their target group depending on specific goals (Expedia). Different ways of marketing should be used for certain target groups. For example, the older population uses more Facebook than Instagram while the young people use TikTok a lot. If you market your product or service for example in the form of a giveaway, targeted to generation X on TikTok, it will be difficult to reach a population over 40 years of age. 

Co-creative SoMe campaigns are effective

Innovative social media campaigns with a clear goal can lead to positively surprising results. The Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions’ goal was to promote Holland and its year-long celebration of artist Vincent Van Gogh in 2015 using the hashtag #VanGogh2015. (Expedia, 13–14.) 

“The premise of the Flock-to-unlock invites your audience to tweet using a specific hashtag until a targeted number of tweets is reached, and once that happens, exclusive content is unlocked” (Flowics 2016). The mechanism makes Twitter users feel a key part of the campaign. Rewarding them for their participation is an excellent way to spread the message. 

Flock to Unlock gave Twitter users motivation to tweet using the hashtag #VanGogh2015 “to earn brushstrokes that revealed six of the artist’s famous works.” In addition, the possibility to win a trip to the Netherlands only by tweeting or retweeting motivated users to use the hashtag increased the campaign’s visibility on Twitter. (Expedia, 13–14.) 

Several people took part in this campaign as on Twitter it had up to 2.2 million impressions and more than 22,000 engagements. This proves that the opportunity to participate and the feeling of being an important part of something increase engagement. 

Conclusion

Using social media platforms as interacting with customers actively can be very profitable in many ways. It can increase the number of customers, make the company reliable, and show customers that they are most important to the company. That is also why travel marketers need to keep finding new ways to develop and maintain customer and other relationships. 

 

Bibliography

Expedia. Social Media and the Travel Sector – Insights and tips for travel marketers. Accessed 15 March 2022 https://lucit-my.sharepoint.com/personal/outi_kahkonen_lapinamk_fi/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fouti%5Fkahkonen%5Flapinamk%5Ffi%2FDocuments%2FCEMIT%2DMECIT%2FMaterials%2FWorkshops%2FSocial%20Media%2FGeneral%20Materials%2FeBook%5FSocialMediaTravelerSector%2Epdf&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fouti%5Fkahkonen%5Flapinamk%5Ffi%2FDocuments%2FCEMIT%2DMECIT%2FMaterials%2FWorkshops%2FSocial%20Media%2FGeneral%20Materials.  

Flowics CTRL MAGIC 2016. Flock to Unlock – A powerful solution to boost social engagement. Accessed 15 March 2022 https://blog.flowics.com/2016/03/11/flock-unlock-powerful-solution-boost-social-engagement#:~:text=The%20premise%20of%20the%20Flock,an%20exclusive%20content%20is%20unlocked.