It’s no secret that social media is a great way to promote your business – or should we say place to promote your business – because that’s where your customers are; social networks are their virtual hangouts. The problem is making sure you do it right. First of all, you need to commit to developing a sound understanding of:
- How best to leverage the social network according to how it is being used. There wouldn’t be this many social networks around if all of them had the exact same function. Facebook and newcomer Pinterest are heavily consumer oriented whereas LinkedIn is much business focused. Where do your customers hang out online?
- Each social media channel has its own cultural do’s and dont’s. You should familarise yourself with these quickly. In bad cases you can get yourself banned from a social network, for example if you are too spammy on Twitter you can get reported by disgruntled followers and your account may be disabled. Once you have a good feel for the environment’s standard practices, and the tools you need to use, integrate your content accordingly.
- How best to achieve your end goal; a positive web presence. The reason any business goes social is to reach out to prospective and current clients in a way that reflects them in a good light. Being authentic and personal to show your human side works best in this context.
Social networks know that users value an informative, engaging, and visually-stimulating experience. Status updates that show you are active in your community, combined with visuals that create a ‘feel’ for your brand, complement each other perfectly. They give people an idea of what you’re all about. Since your business is a tour or activity, there’s an opportunity to be more visual than many other businesses…take advantage of it!
Here are three examples of how to do it right on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, using examples of three tour or activity businesses:
Twitter: Yoga Studio
@BodyMindLife Yoga Studio in Sydney has a great mixture of status updates. With just a glance at their Twitter stream you have a good feel of what their brand is about – it isn’t overly self-promotional and it’s run by humans:
They integrate three different kinds of tweets here:
- Shareable tweets. Industry news (yoga events around the world) and motivational quotes are great bringers of retweets, as long as they are of interest to your target audience.
- Brand-defining tweets. By retweeting a post by Green Cities, they associate themselves with a value that a lot of their target audience identify with. Yoga is put in the context of an overall lifestyle that also includes being eco-conscious.
- Engaging tweets. Retweeting and replying to positive mentions is Twitter’s version of customer testimonials. By taking time to respond to each mention – no matter how trivial – this yoga studio shows that they care about each customer even after they sign up. It gives you a positive idea of how you will be treated should you decide to join.
Twitter is less focused on visuals than Facebook or Pinterest, since it’s more about giving short, timely updates. Still, you should take advantage of their recent update that integrates image-posting for accounts:
The kind of images chosen here work to humanize the brand by giving you a look into what goes on behind the scenes. You instantly feel like you have peeked into a day in the running of the studio.
Facebook: Scuba Diving Services
SubAquatics provides scuba diving services and education. To increase credibility on their Facebook page, they have one recommendation top-right, and start their defining sentence with “40 years of scuba experience!”
Besides their exciting visual content (videos of diving through shipwrecks and photo albums), they share more mundane visuals of their product – but not in a way that is obviously promoting it. Instead, they phrase it in the context of lifestyle, so that you imagine yourself diving with it:
Another important development to note is Facebook’s ability to integrate with online booking systems, like Rezdy. Take advantage of this! Make sure the suppliers you use have easy integration with social media.
Pinterest: Walking Tour
Because Pinterest is highly visual in nature, there is so much potential for tour and activity operators to get in on it. Hidden Secrets Tours use Pinterest boards effectively by choosing topics that are broad (books we love, other experiences we love, global visual inspiration), as well as those that appeal to niche communities:
Niche board topics like vintage, arts, and brooches are good to target because they’re so specific, and the people you attract will be passionate about them.
Make sure your social media accounts have elements which are educational, highly shareable and eye-catching. Focus more on how your products promote your audience’s lifestyle rather than the products themselves.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to grow your tour or activity business, please download our free eBook on the subject:
How many social networks have you created business accounts for? How effective do you find them? Let us know in the comments below.