Are you getting the most out of your social networks?

Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram... Social networks are now an indissoluble part of our daily lives, and whether you are a user of any of them or not, from a marketing point of view they are a powerful ally that we cannot ignore.

Since the first social networks emerged, back in the early 2000s, their evolution has been overwhelming: according to the Hootsuite platform in its recent Digital 2022 report, in Spain alone there are currently 40.7 million users of social networks, equivalent to 87.1% of the Spanish population. This represents an increase of 3.3 million compared to 2021, a growth that is not negligible. In addition, Spanish users spend an average of 1 hour and 53 minutes a day on these platforms, with WhatsApp and Facebook being the most used, with 91% and 73.3% respectively, followed by Instagram with 71.7%. Impressive!

These data indicate that social networks are the space where our potential customers spend the most time, and leisure, the search for information and shopping are among the main objectives of Internet users. So why miss out on this fabulous showcase? The digital social universe offers us enormous opportunities to publicize our travel agency and our products, but do you really know how to get the most out of your social networks? In order not to get lost in the wide world of Social media Keep reading our tips and there will be no digital space that can resist you!

‍What is social media good for me?
‍Imagine a gigantic billboard to which more than 85% of the Spanish population has free and unlimited access. Also imagine that you can select who has access to this showcase: you would probably choose the people most likely to buy your trips and services. Well, that's exactly how social networks work.

To understand the role of social networks, we have to remember that all our commercial actions are always framed in sales funnels composed of the following phases: attraction, interest, desire, sale and loyalty. The first phase of them, attraction, has to do with making yourself known to attract the attention of interested users, and social networks are usually the best showcase for this. In other words, they are responsible for feeding the rest of the phases of the funnel. Therefore, if the digital strategy at the level of social networks is not solid, it will affect the number of opportunities that arrive and, ultimately, the conversion rate.

‍Design a digital strategy
‍One of the most important factors in order not to get lost in this immense field and that your efforts do not go unnoticed is to define your goals when landing on social networks. For this reason, it is essential that you establish a digital marketing strategy that will help you on the path to online success.

Establish a roadmap with your main objectives and the steps necessary to achieve them. Do you want more followers to achieve greater brand recognition through interaction? Do you want to increase your sales? Are you worried about your credibility and do you need to strengthen it? Or is your goal to showcase your fantastic product through irresistible images? As you can see, there are a multitude of objectives, and selecting which (or which) are yours will help you position yourself better and maximize your effort and investment.

For example, one of the most useful strategies for attracting prospects, that is, potentially interested people, is to share a publication of practical advice about a destination in question in exchange for leaving the email. This information dossier that the user will receive in their email is called digital marketing Lead magnet. These tools for capturing emails tend to work very well, since prospects are more qualified, that is, they are more willing to buy. With these steps we will have covered phases 1 and 2 of the sales funnel (attraction and interest), and to reach phase 3 (desire) we could create an email marketing campaign offering a 20% discount to travel to the destination that prospects were interested in at the time.

‍Choose your storefront
‍How many social networks are there? Do you have to be present at all of them? Which ones should I focus on? These are some of the initial questions that surely come to your mind when starting out in the world of networks. Don't worry, we have the answers.

The number of social networks is very large (did you know, for example, that YouTube is also a social network?) , and this has a very simple explanation: each one of them is focused on a different audience and interests, so what works for you on one social network doesn't have to be successful in another. But your customers are not in all of them: prepare a previous segmentation of your audience, define it and establish on which social networks you are most likely to attract them. The type of messages and images we use in each one is also very different, so be sure to define how to address your followers in each of them.

We recommend that you be selective. Not by being present on social networks will your digital prestige be greater. It's best to focus on one or two, work on a solid agency profile and offer attractive publications, and if you want to go a step further you can invest in advertising. Remember that opening a profile commits you to maintaining a level of activity in it that may not be sustainable in the medium or long term.

Are you dedicated to adventure trips for teenagers and young people with eye-catching videos? TikTok is your best ally. Are your trips aimed at customers between 25 and 45 with irresistible photos of endless beaches and cities that don't sleep? Run to open a profile on Instagram and, in addition to the photos, don't neglect the videos. Are your customers primarily companies? Then LinkedIn is your ideal universe.

‍Work on the content
‍Make sure to post frequently to keep your followers interested, offering them quality content through striking images, imaginative ideas and interesting texts. First of all, make sure you find and define your line of communication to create a faithful digital community committed to your content.

When it comes to creating content, we can be involved in a real odyssey. Do I hire someone? Do I take a course to learn? Do I outsource it to an agency? Be careful, none of that is necessary, at least when taking the first steps on social networks. In the context of a travel agency, it is always a good idea to rely on the image bank of Unsplash since his photos are royalty-free and are of very good quality landscapes. If what you need is to create promotional videos about a destination, the tool you need is Promo, designed for people who lack technical knowledge of video editing. And of course, if you're looking to create promotional flyers to share offers, don't hesitate to use Canva and in a matter of minutes you will have your content ready to be disseminated on social networks. In addition, they have recently added self-publishing functionality to Facebook and Instagram from the platform itself.

Once you have created your content, always remember to keep your profile complete, linking to your website and providing your contact information that is always up to date. There are many similar profiles on social networks and we want our potential customers to find us the first time.

‍Automate publications
‍For our social media strategy to take effect, it is important not only to create content on a recurring basis, but also to schedule and publish it at certain times to achieve the most optimal results. For example, if your target audience is on LinkedIn, there are certain optimal time ranges for posting, such as 7:45, 14:00 or 20:20. The time difference will also be of vital importance. There are many Spanish agencies that have clients in Latin America, and it's no use publishing at 12:00 in the morning, because it will arrive at 5:00 in the afternoon. This type of detail will have to be taken into account in order to optimize our results. To do this, we recommend the use of platforms such as Postoplan that allow not only to schedule the content, but also to schedule it so that it is published automatically.

‍Measure as much as you can
‍How do you know if your digital communication strategy is succeeding? Your sales will tell you if the commercial action is profitable or not, but we already know that the conversion is more complex and includes other intermediate steps, especially in a product such as travel, so metrics are your great ally here, since they will help you understand the behavior of your followers.

As we have already seen, social networks act at the top of the sales funnel, generating attraction, so use your preferred measurement tool to see how social networks are affecting your website traffic. If you don't use any, we recommend Google Analytics, which provides you with very complete data on the acquisition and conversion on your website. And don't forget to configure your Facebook pixel if you're going to invest in advertising on this platform: you'll be able to fully track traffic and measure the behavior of your audience on your website in a very accurate way.