Social media marketing, if not done properly can end up becoming nothing more than an effective waste of time. The key to successfully generating leads on social media is to ensure that you are connected to the right circles and also important, you are using the right social ones for the type of brand you are trying to build. Let's take a look at the top 5 social media platforms, their essential functions and demographics.
Facebook is the king of all social media platforms; with extremely high user engagement, with user login sessions lasting over 30 minutes, The average Facebook users seems to be between 35 – 55, so mostly your working class community, definitely the type of people who will most likely be able to book a vacation once per year. The downside to Facebook is that if you are not focused, it can cause more distractions than anything else, and you will end up wasting time watching videos and commenting on other peoples' updates, instead of networking to promote your business.
How To Use Facebook
1. Search for groups made up of the type of clients you are looking to attract, and become a member of those groups. Most of these groups will not allow you to promote your business inside the group, but you participate to get exposure to your profile and find potential customers you can ask to be a friend on your personal profile.
2. Create your own Facebook of your friends that could become potential clients. Do not use your group just to sell. Post useful tips or information that your group members may find entertaining. Occasionally remind them about the services you offer and how they can contact you once they are ready to travel.
3. Start A Facebook Fan page for your travel business. Through your fan page, you can keep your followers up-to-date with the latest and most exciting happenings in your industry. Share your customer reviews, travel videos any content that you believe will inspire your fans to want to travel and book their vacation with you.
Twitter is a short form media platform, ideally used for sharing news and articles you post on your website or from other sources.
1. Building a big following on Twitter is not as easy as on Facebook. The best approach to use is to follow as many people as you can, and some of them will follow you back.
3. Keep your follow -to-followers ratios down by unfollowing those who are not following you after some time.
4.Retweet updates posted by popular accounts, or mention industry partners in your post and some of them will return the favor. This will help you increase your followers.
If you are looking to build a network of business professionals, whether in the travel industry or for the sake of finding clients, then LinkedIn is the perfect platform to use for this.
Linkedin has a paid and a free option. The paid option gives you more features and even has a feature that will send you potential leads.
Linkedin is more of an entrepreneur's social media platform, so for more engagement, post useful articles, news and other media you think business people would be interested in seeing.
Other social media sites like Pinterest and Instagram are great for posting images and to help build your brand. The best social media advice I can give you is, do not try to use all of them. As I mentioned before, this can end up being a lot more time wasting than lead generating. Find one or two platforms that are more appropriate for the brand of travel you offer, and stick to them.
