02 May 2010, Posted by Peter in Featured, Social Media, 4 Comments

Social Media Potholes: why your Tourism SM could be failing

We have spoken a bit about the general advantages and guidelines for implementing social media in your tourism business’s marketing strategy, now let’s focus on the part that causes many motivated business owners to loose the SM steam and, eventually, become part of social media graveyards.

In my post titled ‘Understandable Social Media Guidelines for Small Accommodation Providers‘ almost half of the post warned against what not to do. These points generally warned against not biting off more than you can chew, or the importance of understanding the commitment of launching a social media campaign.

Yet, even if you have engaged in social media strategically, there are obstacles you should be aware of. Planning your social media campaign properly is a crucial part of it’s success – implementing a sustainable one could be the toughest part.

Let’s look at some of the potholes:

A Lack of patience

Specifically the patience of seeing results. If social media is about communicating, sharing, and building relationships & loyalty among a big group of existing and future clients, one would it expect it to demand time, dedication and human resources. Since most lessons in social media marketing stress this point, the problem is usually not the commitment to a social media campaign, but rather the frustration and impatience that in many cases come with the lack of instant growth and results. It is important to remember that your social media activity should be an ongoing and constant conversation, running parallel to your broader marketing message. This is very important to keep in mind when running a tourism business, since bookings may seldom be generated directly through your social media channels during your campaign’s early stages.

Lack of consistency

The strongest relationships in my social media circle have developed from a constant flow of communication on constant themes, using a constant tone. One of the strongest advantages of having an online social network for your tourism business is being able to keep existing and potential customers informed and interested via two-way conversation. For this conversation to to be effective, the customer needs to know who they are communicating with. Depending on your strategy and goals, chances are big that you would want to offer your social media network more than constant brochure-like information. Do not underestimate the value of consistency in language, humour, opinions, news, promotions and views.

Lack of goals

Even if you have successfully grown and maintained many broad and consistent client relationships via SM, you have not utilised the true value until you know what to do with them. Besides an ongoing stream of marketing messages, boosting your brand and awareness of travel deals, a broad network gives you the power of much greater things. Your social media network can be the key audience of a cost-effective marketing or promotional campaign, that would not be feasible through other channels. Set long term goals for your strategy and think big.

Lack of projections and measuring ROI

It seems that where many companies get a bitter taste for social media, is when the ROI needs to be determined for further planning and goal development. I guess that is mainly because it is hard to put a numeric price to the online relationships with your customers, while at the same time it is hard to track their social media habits. (It can quickly become costly to invest resources in social media conversation with a target audience that has inconsistent and vague online patterns). While this could be a pain, it should not result in an aimless attempt to get information out to anyone who might stumble across it, hoping that it brings a return. Make a point of using free tools such as Facebook’s Insight reports, Twitter tools such as Twitscoop, and Google Anayltics to track, measure, and manage your social media results and value.

In conclusion, I would like to stress that social media is about two-way conversation. If you fail to grasp this, you will fail at utilising your campaign to it’s full potential. Make a point of carefully paying attention to how you respond to queries, general conversation, and criticism on networks.

Experiencing any barriers of your own? Please share them below

*Image Cred: ~gimpypoop on deviantart