Social Media and The Tourism Industry

An ideal way to connect quickly and efficiently with audiences looking for recommendations and conversations around travel and tourism. Tweet deals, include links to interactive video and photo content, write a monthly conversation calendar and plan and schedule tweets using a service like Hoot-suite. You can also set up searches to find people who are in the market for your type of deal or destination getaway. Then, follow them and reply with a link to a specific recommendation, you’ll soon see your numbers grow.

Facebook: Facebook marketing for destinations has come a long way in the past three years. Build a customized landing page where you can feature awards and news unique to your destination. Integrating different API’s into Facebook is all the rage, so why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of Google Earth or Twitter API’s?

Contests and Sweepstakes: Offer compelling deals and discounts to your fans, as a step on the path to gaining ‘Likes’. Using location, you can offer discounts for Facebook or FourSquare check-ins or free stays for contest entrants, such as the Hotels 5th anniversary “Write Here, Right Now” Facebook contest.

Instagram, Flickr and YouTube: Upload and tag photos and videos to flicker, YouTube and Instagram with SEO in mind (perhaps there are amenities your hotel has that would be a draw in the summer – family friendly hotels/pools). Spend the extra money to find out how people are organically searching and use those insights to provide relevant content.