Social media has become an integral part of vacation for most travelers. Some of them simply can’t imagine a single day without sharing their holiday joy with friends and followers, forgetting what’s all about – relaxing, re-charging batteries, experiencing adventures, and communing with the different. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s just say that unique times call for unique strategies. Being so deep in the throes of omicron concerns (could that have been just a couple of weeks ago?), it’s not surprising that some travel advisors took a step beyond the usual marketing strategies to reach new and existing customers.

Leave it to the younger generation to head for Hulu. While everyone agrees that taking a group by the hand and posting your adventures on social media is the best way to build confidence among customers, 29-year-old Dillon Guyer put together “some incredible footage” he filmed of everything from Clearwater, Florida, to Virgin Voyages, Athens and Istanbul while he did that. He then posted it on the Hulu channel using a new program in beta testing.

With an investment of $2,000, Guyer signed up for a plan that bills him every time a Hulu customer plays his ad; so far Read the rest of this entry »

Bekah Eaton came home from ASTA’s annual conference with new ideas, new relationships, and a case of Covid. She believes she caught it from the woman who sat next to her for two hours. “I felt betrayed and almost angry that she would put me in harms way, and expose me without warning or anything.”

Another travel advisor, who asked to remain anonymous, was on a fam trip to Italy when she thanked the woman sitting next to her, whom she knew was opposed to vaccines, for getting vaccinated before the trip. “She went off on me about how she felt forced to get the vaccine—and that was very alienating in a small group atmosphere.”

Then she saw someone attending a FAM in Europe after being at an ASTA event where there were positive cases. “And I’m thinking, weren’t you in that room at ASTA with people who tested positive? Shouldn’t you be quarantining and not on this AMA cruise in Europe?”

Those experiences changed the way she sees those people. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember back in the good old days when banks and savings and loan companies gave away a free toaster for a minimum deposit? Then, if you added a bit more to your deposit, you became the proud owner of a free bakeware set too! I furnished my first apartment kitchen this way!

All the bank had to do to acquire a new customer was give away a freebie: a $20 toaster. Pretty easy.

Fast forward to the age of social marketing, and savvy travel marketers are providing freebies as a way to acquire new prospective clients. I’m not talking about toasters, nor free travel; I’m talking about a lead magnet that’s so valuable people will provide their contact information.

The result of gathering contact information from as many people as possible is that you’ll have a way to grow your email list, target your social ads more effectively, and potentially book tours for these people. Read the rest of this entry »

Social media excels at relationship building at a very personal level.  To effectively use any of the social media platforms as a vehicle for pulling leads through the sales funnel, it is important to develop a very subtle and deft approach to your conversational skills.  A constant stream of travel offers or direct sales pitches is far too awkward an approach.  Instead, tenor your conversations to being helpful to others and providing information and assistance they need.  In so doing, your expertise will be apparent and you are likely to be in the running for consideration the next time your readers consider travel. Read the rest of this entry »

Until a few months ago, Pinterest was an invitation-based network. You could request to join or get a friend to invite you, but getting in meant that you had to wait for someone else to give you access. Not anymore.

Step 1 – Create an account

All you need to do to register on Pinterest is to visit www.pinterest.com and click on the big red button that says “Join Pinterest.”  There, you will have a few options: Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, we talked about why Pinterest might be a good fit for your social media marketing strategy, today, let’s take a look at what Pinterest actually is.

What exactly is Pinterest?

In a nutshell, Pinterest is a visual bookmarking site. People can sign up for an account and create categories (known as boards) where they can bookmark (known as pinning) interesting images, videos or links to useful information (known as pins) to create a themed repository of useful information. As long as your content has a visual element, you can pin it.

You find things to include on your boards by either surfing the web or by looking through Pinterest’s home page and content categories.  Read the rest of this entry »

If you haven’t heard of Pinterest yet, you may have been hiding in a hole.  It’s one of the newest social networks out there and has been taking the Internet by storm.

In fact, it has quickly risen to become one of the top traffic generators and the #3 most popular social network – ranking only after Facebook and Twitter. People who use it for business have seen up to 20% of their website traffic coming from Pinterest. Read the rest of this entry »