Social Meida Strategy Guide
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Welcome to this Social Media Strategy Guide for Tour Operators!
As you might know, social media has become a crucial tool for tour operators like yourself to connect with your audience, build brand awareness, and drive engagement. Whether you currently have a presence on social media and post consistently, don’t have social channels at all and don’t know where to begin, or are somewhere in the middle, this guide will offer valuable insights for you!
This guide is designed to be your go-to resource for just about anything social media-related. If we’ve missed something, let me know! But let’s not waste any time—let’s get right into it! Here’s what we’re going to cover:
Contents
- Purpose of Social Media
- Social Channels Tour Operators Should Focus On
- Post Formatting and Optimization
- How Often to Post and When
- Top 9 Styles of Posts
- Ideas on How to Get Content
- How to Find Influencers
- Best Practices for Engaging on Social Media
- Time Management Solutions
- Does Social Media Impact SEO?
- Metrics to Consider
- The Dos and Don’ts of Social Media
The Purpose of Social Media
We're going to dive straight into the meat and potatoes! Social media serves many purposes, from building a community to entertaining and fostering relationships—the list goes on. But we’re here to tell you that the main purpose of social media is pretty simple: to create brand awareness.
You’ve probably scrolled through social media and noticed a business’s post. Well, the likelihood of you opening your phone, going on Instagram, and seeing every post that a business made is slim. This is why they are probably posting several times a week, if not daily or multiple times a day.
So, the question is: How do you create brand awareness? By consistently posting valuable content repeatedly.
Increasing your brand impressions will, in turn, increase your visibility. However, it’s essential to get the right content in front of the right people. The key to effective social media marketing lies in understanding your audience and delivering content that resonates with them.
This approach not only increases your tour operations presence but also cultivates a deeper connection with your target market.
One of the amazing things about social media is its ability to allow you to portray your company’s mission, values, vision, and everything in between through simple pictures and videos.
Showcase the tour operation you’ve built or aspire to become. However, always be authentic and true to what the company stands for; don’t try to be something you're not. Use social media to showcase your brand image and present your tour operation as you want it to be seen by the world.
For example, if you’ve built a tour operation that values the environment, make this known on social media repeatedly. It’s remarkable how your images, videos, and captions can make people associate "sustainability" with your brand. Take Patagonia, the American retailer of outdoor recreation clothing, for example. Through their social media and other marketing channels, they’ve effectively communicated their brand image to the world.
Although social media can serve many purposes, it’s important to realize that the key objective is to create brand awareness, which involves consistently posting valuable content to engage your audience and build a strong, recognizable presence.
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The complete guide is available to AO members in the AO Document Resources. (https://www.americaoutdoors.org/documents/)