As summer approaches (sooner than you think), travel brands are gearing up for one of the busiest times of the year. In today's digital age, social media has become an indispensable tool to reach travelers and drive bookings.
To make the most of this time of year, planning ahead and creating engaging content is essential. These tips will guide you in leveraging social media to make the summer travel season a success for your brand.
1. Plan early
Start planning your summer social media strategy well in advance. Research trends, analyze past performance, and identify key dates and events relevant to your target audience. By planning early, you can ensure that your content is timely, relevant, and aligned with your overall marketing objectives. Consider creating a social media content calendar to stay organized and on track with your social media efforts.
2. Create compelling content
Develop engaging content that resonates with your audience's summer vacation mindset. For example:
Showcase popular destinations
Share travel tips and recommendations
Highlight special promotions or discounts
While a lot of social content will be more visual in nature – the type of content consistently shown to bring the most engagement – there are also plenty of opportunities for blogs like "The 10 best island beach resorts" and "8 amazing U.S. summer road trips," or longer-form pieces such as travel guides to particular cities or tips for what to expect when visiting various countries.
All of this content can be a great driver of social media engagement, as well as for paid campaigns or credibility-enhancing organic posts, if you invest in high-quality visuals that really strive to capture the essence of summer travel. Expertly created and selected images and videos can inspire wanderlust and encourage your audience to explore your offerings further.
Also, when you do utilize visuals, don’t forget to experiment with different social channel formats, such as Stories, Reels, and live videos, to keep your audience engaged and entertained. And always keep in mind that TikTok is a terrific way to get in front of young, enthusiastic travelers and inspire them to get moving. Consider partnering with professional photographers or influencers to create visually stunning content that reflects the spirit of summer travel in order to grab their attention.
3. Utilize user-generated content (UGC)
Encourage your audience to share their travel experiences using branded hashtags. Share UGC on your social media channels to showcase authentic experiences and foster a sense of community among your followers. If your UGC program isn’t already humming along, it’s not nearly as hard as you might think to get it going and see tremendous results.
UGC serves as social proof and can help build trust with potential travelers. Among the many ways to run a successful UGC campaign, consider running contests or giveaways to incentivize UGC creation and increase engagement with your brand.
4. Offer exclusive, time-sensitive deals
Use social media platforms to promote your offers and reach potential travelers who are actively planning their summer vacations.
Drive bookings by offering exclusive deals and promotions tailored to the summer season. Create urgency by highlighting limited-time offers and incentivizing early bookings with special discounts or perks. Exclusive deals not only attract customers but also encourage them to take action and make a purchase.
5. Engage with followers
Be proactive in engaging with your audience on social media.
Respond promptly to comments and messages, ask questions to spark conversations, and encourage feedback and reviews from travelers. Engaging with followers demonstrates your brand's commitment to customer satisfaction and fosters a loyal community of supporters. Consider hosting live video sessions, conducting polls or surveys, and sharing UGC to increase engagement and interaction with your audience.
6. Monitor and measure performance
Use social media analytics tools to track the performance of your summer campaigns in real-time.
Monitor key social media metrics such as engagement, reach, and conversions, and adjust your strategy accordingly to optimize results. By analyzing data and insights, you can identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions to drive better outcomes. Experiment with different strategies and tactics, and continuously iterate based on what resonates best with your audience.
Takeaways
Mastering social media for the summer travel season requires strategic planning, engaging content creation, and proactive engagement with your audience.
By implementing these six tips, your travel brand can leverage social media to make the summer travel season a success. Start planning early, create compelling content, utilize UGC, offer exclusive deals, and engage authentically with followers to drive bookings and build brand loyalty.
With the right strategy in place, your brand can stand out and thrive during this busy time of year. If you’d like a closer look at how Emplifi’s solutions might fit into your summer marketing plans, we’d love to give you a personalized demo of our Social Marketing Cloud to show you firsthand.
