We are currently in the middle of one of the most unprecedented crisis in our generation, something that will no doubt impact on the travel industry. The travel industry is resilient, however not every agency will survive so it is going to be important to let people know you are still around. With travel restrictions, furloughed staff and a new normal, contacting a TMC is probably not one of the first things people will be thinking of when they return to work, this is why you should be keeping your social media updated and work on a marketing recovery plan.
Why continue with your social media?
During this current pandemic updating your social media account may not be one of your top priorities, but here’s why you should keep updated:
- Let people know that you are still around – We all know that a massive amount of uncertainty exists in all industries, especially in travel. It is important to let people know that you are still around and social media is a quick way of doing that. This could be in the form of regular social media updates, sharing industry knowledge, changes to your ways of working or opinion pieces. The more you update your social media, the better, however things will be much harder if you do not plan out your activity. Even if you were to post once per week that is better than nothing. Whilst you may have more capacity to focus on other areas of business, you should spend some of your time putting together a content strategy, as this will save you time in the long run.
- Keep one step in front of others – By continuing to update your social media whilst the rest of the market is quiet, you can become thought leaders in your particular field. The current situation is unique, so people will be looking for opinion pieces and updates. Even if you are sharing useful articles from others, a knowledge share strategy is still useful to your followers/fans.
- Potentially a cheaper paid auction – If you want to appear in-front of users outside your network on Facebook , LinkedIn and Twitter then the best way is through Paid Media. How much you pay varies depending on the auction. With a number of businesses pulling back their marketing budget it is an ideal time to enter the auction, providing you use the correct buying method.
Tips for planning your content strategy
When planning out your content strategy keep an eye on what works for your business by monitoring what others are doing in your industry and analysing your own data (looking at likes, shares, clicks etc) from previous posts, this will help you understand your audience.
Some longer form content is worthwhile pushing at least once per month. No wrong way exists on how to write your content, however a consistent tone makes sense. If you are having trouble writing content, reach out to other members of your team.
SEO Benefits
Search Engine Optimisation is the holy grail of online marketing and one of the factors that helps you appear at the top of the Google rankings is content. Content is what makes the search engine constantly grow. The more pages that Google have, the more potential relevant search results they can show for, which improves their service. You should be looking to create well structured content, with the correct title tags, heading tags and alt attributes, whilst being a decent length.
The way the content benefits your own site, is that your site will have another potential page to rank for, you could target particular niche terms. Having fresh content also lets Google know that your site is regularly updated and will be crawled* more frequently (Google will automatically come back to your site more often and decide whether your site should rank higher).
Content Plan
When deciding on what to write about, the first place to look is at what people are searching for at the time. Google Trends can be a useful tool to see what people are searching for, whilst you should also be checking out Twitter for trends. By writing content with your audience in mind, you are more likely to get likes/shares or a potential link back to your site.
Free and Paid for Tools
There are plenty of tools to monitor your post activity and schedule.
Sprout Social – Is a paid for tool but offers a great set of monitoring and publishing tools
SemRush – SemRush have just updated their service to offer social media publishing and monitoring tools which offers similar scheduling and monitoring as Sprout Social
Hootsuite – (Free) – You can schedule 30 social posts through Hootsuite.
Google Sheets – Use a Google Sheet to organise your activity. Hootsuite have produced a number of useful templates
Hire an agency – You could take away a lot of the legwork and let an agency manage your social. At Martin Roche Consultancy we have over 10 years experience and are happy to help and we can do it with no long term contract.
Paid Activity and Promoted Posts
Promoted posts are a great way to reach people outside of your network, it does not have to cost a fortune. When you post something without paid activity behind it then you will be showing to just people within your network, when you put budget behind a post, it comes alive, reach large audiences, with targeting options such as
- Interest – What are the audience interest in (usually a large audience)
- Behaviour – Are the users in-market for a particular product or service
- Demographic – Age, Gender, Household Income, Relationship (Married etc)
- Geographic – Target a specific country, region or radius of an area
LinkedIn Advertising a perfect B2B Solution
If you are running a B2B campaign then LinkedIn is a great solution. The Paid for LinkedIn ads give you the option to target based on a wide range of criteria, including:
- Company Name
- Company size
- Job seniority
- Industry
Keep your eye out for future marketing post including why you should be using Google Ads.
Martin Roche – Martin Roche Consultancy. Paid Media and Marketing Specialist