NB: This is a guest article by Simon Lenoir, owner of Rezdy, a tour and activity reservation system provider.
Yes, yes, we all know social media has exploded in the past few years – but while the focus is often on airlines and hotels, tour and activity operators should also get on the bandwagon.
But with so many social networks out there, how do you know which one to target and how to approach it?
With each social network you want to target, ask yourself:
- Is this where my prospective customers are hanging out online?
- How are people interacting on this network?
- What’s the standard etiquette?
Once you have that down, you can take advantage of the nature of your business – tour and activity businesses have more room to be visual and open. With that in mind, here are three great examples of social media being done right on
Twitter,
Facebook, and
Pinterest:
1. Twitter for a yoga studio
BodyMindLife Yoga Studio in Sydney has a great Twitter account. Not only does it have behind-the-scenes type photos to humanize the brand, it uses a great mixture of content on its profile:
Three kinds of updates to engage fans are used:
- Shareable – industry news and inspiring quotes
- Brand-defining – their re-tweet of the Green Cities conference situates their product (yoga) as part of a larger lifestyle, which has eco-friendliness as one of its lifestyle choices.
- Engaging – they show they value their customers by tweeting them back, even for something as trivial as a water bottle that has been left behind.
2. Facebook for scuba diving servicesSubAquatics in Sydney uses eye-catching stills of deep-sea scuba diving, and YouTube videos of thrilling shipwreck diving on its Facebook Business Page.
However, we’re more impressed by its ability too subtly promote of one of their products:
Instead of telling them to buy it outright, SubAcquatics puts it in the context of how it fits into a customer's lifestyle (diving), making the customer more inclined to buy.
3. Pinterest for walking tours
Pinterest is the new kid on the block as far as social media is concerned, but its visual nature plays in a tour or activity’s favor.
Whatever you upload must at once be eye-catching and speak to your customer. Take what HiddenSecrets Tours in Melbourne did with their Pinterest page as an example:
To sum up:
- Educate your followers
- Make each update shareable
- Be as visually stimulating as possible
That way you can focus on the way your products fit into your target’s lifestyle as opposed to the products themselves.
How many social networks have you created business accounts for? How effective do you find them?
NB: This is a guest article by Simon Lenoir, owner of Rezdy, a tour and activity reservation system provider.