5 Social Media Marketing Tools for Tourism Businesses
With countless numbers of social media marketing tools on the market, as a tourism business sometimes it's hard to decipher which ones are actually worth investing time into - especially when it's not your field of expertise... so, to help you out, we've put together a list of 5 social marketing platforms that are definitely worth looking into!
Facebook Pages
With just under 11 million users in Australia, Facebook gives businesses a unique opportunity to connect, converse and engage with current and potential customers in an informal, non-salesy, professional way. According to eMarketingConnected, 48% of Australia's top 50 brands have active and customised Facebook Pages, with over 75% of businesses dedicating time and resources to managing a Facebook page.
According to Webmarketing123's State of Digital Marketing report, businesses across Australia are already investing heavily in social media as part of their digital marketing strategy, with the majority of B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) companies using Facebook as their major social media platform.
Similarly, Twitter is a fantastic place to communicate one-on-one with potential customers, and moreso it is also an effective tool to use for business to business communications. Using Twitter as a marketing tool needs to be a concious decision for a business, as it does take a considerable resource to manage; and to be successful you have to enjoy the process. But, with approximately 1.8 million users across Australia, the platform certainly has enough momentum and potential for businesses to consider it's use as an effective online marketing tool.
Google Plus
Google Plus is social media platform created by Google and has been developed to rival Facebook as a leading social media platform for conversing, sharing and engaging content online. Although it is currently in growth mode (estimated 1.2 million users in australia) it is well worth being an early adopter, so when the time comes that everyone is on board, you are well versed in its capabilities and you're not behind the 8 ball. Also, similar to Facebook, Google + are now offering business pages.
UPDATE, 2016. While Google+ as a standalone social media network is no longer with us,many features from Google+ have been rolled into Google Business. Google Business is an essential tool to manage the information, reviews, map listing that Google uses in it's products. It allows you to give potential customers a great first impression right from Google's search results.
YouTube
With similar subscription numbers as Facebook, YouTube is another dominant social media platform. Google also owns YouTube (you need a google account to sign up to manage a channel) and therefore, all videos are highly optimised for search engines.
You may notice that Google in particular has a specific video search only functionality on the search side bar, which is primarily dedicated to YouTube videos! Therefore, if you have a product or service that you can film and publish, then absolutely do it, as it is another way to be found by potential customers online.
One of the most valuable professional networking media tools available, LinkedIn is the perfect place to research your new candidates and also build profitable relationships with like minded businesses. Build your personal, and company profiles and start communicating with your colleagues, and potential employees today!
Things to remember about social media marketing...
It's really important to remember that these social media platforms are online marketing tools designed to DRIVE traffic to your website, not to REPLACE the need for your website... Yes they are free to set up however, they are not reliable online portals for the long term (in that they could be here today, gone tomorrow - think MySpace).
Therefore it is important to communicate and educate your social media followers about your website as your main online presence, so that in the potential event that <insert your current favourite social media platform> becomes null and void, your prospects know where to find you!
Need help with your social media marketing?
If you are struggling with your social media strategies, please contact us to discuss your challenges. We're here to help!