White Sand Travel – reading more into Facebook | Travel Research Online

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White Sand Travel – reading more into Facebook

Are you a bride? Getting married? No! Well, the truth is, neither am I but I sure feel like it. As a Romance Travel Designer, I talk to a lot of couples who are overwhelmed with the planning and decisions that comes with wedding and honeymoon planning. As an entrepreneur, I can identify because I feel just like a bride – I have tons of decisions to make, a mountain of information to sift through and a plethora of tools to choose from.

Last month, I felt like I had garnered a lot of information about running a successful Facebook advertising campaign and did so with some decent results. Woohoo, this is certainly going to help me reach millions of people, I can “set it and forget it” and just move on to the next big thing on the agenda, right? Well, not so fast – let’s not jump off the Facebook wagon just yet. Like a bride who has to sift through her list such as securing a florist, DJ, Photographer etc., we also need to make decisions about Social Media Optimization. Mastering Social Media is no easy feat -there’s Facebook; Twitter; Instagram and Pinterest just to name a few.

Let’s continue our focus and Facebook and how we can use it to broadcast our message. Who needs to hear our message? What is our strategy? For starters:

  • Who is our ideal audience? Male/female? Age range? Location?
  • What are their interests?
  • What is good content, where do you find it and how do we present it?
  • How frequently do we post and how much time is that going to out of our already busy schedule to manage these posts?
  • Will we post text messages or images or both?
  • Are we able to post promotions and sales messages?
  • What is organic versus paid reach/posts?
  • Is our object to increase engagement, page likes or website conversions?
  • Do we have an Irresistible Free Offer (IFO) or Call-To-Action (CTA)?

Where do we begin to even know who our audience is or how frequently to post etc.? Facebook offers their amazing tool called “Insights” that can help us identify our ideal audience, ideal posting times, interests and location. Armed with that data, we can map out a strategy on how to reach our ideal audience. If our audience is on Facebook at noon, then we may want to plan our posts at noon. If our audience age range is 25-35, then target that age range. Content is very important because our content will drive the engagement.

insights

dressLet’s take the post below for example. How do we use Facebook to amplify this message to our fan base? A quick look suggests that the message is meant for women, possibly brides, and age range 22-35. The message is meant to evoke a response from the audience – “what color is this?” We can also see the number of fans that are reached with this post and the ways in which the fans can engage (Like, Comment, Share).

Well that is all fine and good but what tools are available to help you broadcast this message to the desired audience? How much time will we have to invest to get the message across? We could use Hootsuite, Post Planner, Facebook free scheduler, Canva, PicMonkey to name a few. Every tool claims to save us time and provide great content. But which is best of breed? Will one solution offer the results that we want or do we need to use a combination? Which one product or which combination of products? By now, it’s clear that everything has to be taken in bite-size pieces. Just like a bride who has to schedule time to decide about her wedding venue, photographer, florist, dress etc., we also have to take each event and break that down into bite size and manageable goals. And if we don’t have a road map and goals, we may have just magnified the challenge!

No matter what our business model is, there are certain common messages that we will want to amplify. After all, if I am the best travel agent and no one knows that, then I may as well not be in business. It is imperative that we know our message, the audience that we want to hear the message and the vehicle that will carry that message. Just as the message and the vehicle are important, so is the road map to get the end result. You don’t get in your car and start driving without a destination do you?

Judith White is the owner at White Sand Travel in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The full service agency specializes in destination weddings, honeymoon and romance travel planning for busy couples that want an incredible vacation experience without the stress of planning it. You can find Judith online at whitesandtravel.net

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