What are your social fans thinking? Are they ready to travel again … do they have confidence in our industry?
Taking the pulse of your peeps may seem like a job for the crystal ball.
We don’t want to appear tone deaf and risk losing clients, but there are a number of tools hiding in plain sight to help you understand the sentiment of your social fans so that you’ll be able to do the following:
- Identify trends
- Pull together a staffing plan
- Identify influencers
- Learn more about your partners
- Identify marketing opportunities
- Assist with potential crisis
- Prioritize your engagement
- Respond quickly to concerns
Pulse of your peeps
Keeping up with what appeals to your fans is an ever-changing task, but you can do real-time testing in your next ad campaign. Split-testing your Facebook and Instagram ads () and using dynamic-ad testing () gives you the insight to understand the text, videos, graphics, and headlines that appeal to your fans.
You can find out if aspirational wording appeals to your audience or if the timing is right to use some actionable wording in order to spur travel decisions.
In addition to ads, it’s also worthwhile to send out short surveys by email to get a read on where and when your clients are considering traveling next.
Earn traction from trends
We all know that travel trends change constantly, and shifts in trends and consumer confidence are now easier to spot using the social analytics available right in our social channels:
Twitter trends are easy to find in your account under “Explore > Trending.” Drill down and learn what your fans are talking about now so that you can create relevant content with a travel slant. For example, if virtual potluck dinners are a trending topic, how about hosting a destination-themed virtual meal? While not everyone wants to travel just yet, creating mouth-watering experiences is a great way to tap into wanderlust.
Pinterest Analytics showcase the interests of your audience with surprising clarity. When you dial in to “travel interests,” you’ll find which regions are earning the most mind share. Getting more granular, you can tease out specific boards, pins, and pinners that are tops with your followers (). This opens up a playground of creativity for you.
Facebook Page Insights deliver a wealth of knowledge about your fan base. Examine your past posts to see which post style earns the most reactions (). If you’re posting about destinations, you’ll have a better idea of which are most appealing to your audience.
Turn on “Pages to Watch” and add destinations, attractions, associations to your list to better understand their engagement. Then use that as a guide to help navigate and measure your own strategy.
Google Analytics is home to a wealth of knowledge about your website and social visitors. Get into the weeds and discover which blog posts command the most traffic. Dive deeper to understand which keywords bring visitors to your website.
Using these tools together to shape your travel itineraries, influence the tone of your posts, and guide marketing opportunities is a habit of savvy marketers.
Savvy social ad hacks
Did you know you can see what ads your suppliers, top destinations, and colleagues are running? That info is on every Facebook business page. Tapping into this key knowledge helps you understand what tone of voice, style of graphics, and content of video is earning eyeballs. Ad hacking is a great way to understand the pulse of the industry as well as study which hashtags are popular (). You can then adapt your learnings to your own social strategy.
Capitalize on the analytics, metrics, and insights you can pull from your social platforms and websites so you can pivot during tricky times. Leverage this knowledge to pull together new tours that attract clients and feed their wanderlust. Only by understanding the pulse of your unique audience can you find the sweet spot for business success.
Catherine Heeg, an international speaker and trainer, focuses on social media marketing strategies for the tourism and hospitality industry. Connect with her socially and at cmsspeaking.com.
Top photo ©PR Image FactoryAdobe Stock
