Content is at the heart of every successful marketing strategy today and businesses of all sizes are having to increase their capacity for generating relevant and quality content that will catch the attention and engage their target markets and lead them to a booking or purchase.
This article explains why creating great content is so important for businesses and suggests some tested tactics to address the challenge of never having enough time to create that monthly blog post and do those daily social posts.
Why is content so important in marketing today?
For travelers looking to plan their next holiday there is an overwhelming abundance of content available to them online. Google has made it its mission to sift through this content and serve to their users the best possible content to match their needs. Over 90% of people use the internet when researching their holiday options and over 60% of people start their holiday planning in Google, so this makes having relevant and useful content on your website to match the needs of your target markets a number one priority in your business.
Content about your business and the services and experiences you offer can also be found in many places other than your website for example, TripAdvisor, Facebook, online travel agencies, regional tourism websites, blog sites. These platforms collectively have huge audiences and your target markets are making use of them. You want to be able to influence this content and ensure it is up to date with great images to ensure the information about your business will suit your target markets and show your business in the best possible light.
Social media is increasingly being used as a source of content for travel inspiration and holiday planning, so you need to be in control of your business’s social media pages and posting content regularly and consistently. That content needs to be inclusive of authentic and quality images, video and text that your target audience finds interesting, informative and entertaining.
What is the challenge for businesses?
It is extremely common for businesses to lament their challenges with finding the time and resources to consistently produce and distribute quality content. Whilst the majority of tourism and hospitality businesses have a presence on social media, most of them do not take a planned approach to their posting and are missing out on the opportunity to grow and engage their audiences by posting consistently and frequently. Research shows that daily posting contributes to improved social media performance.
Strategies to conquer the content challenge
Here are our top three suggestions based on what some businesses are doing to meet the content challenge. These strategies are aimed at growing your content and getting organised so that regular social media posting and other content activities can be enjoyable and not seen as a frustration in your business.
Tip #1 Develop a monthly content calendar
Plan two to three months ahead by brainstorming with your partner or team. Use a calendar to map out key dates like school holidays and regional events and what’s happening in your business for example campaigns, changes to services, refurbishments. Think about the season and what’s great about your destination at that time of year. Remember it’s important not to only post about your business, but share information about your destination as well.
Then brainstorm a monthly blog post topic https://www.tourismtribe.com/blogging-for-your-business/ and relevant social media posts.
Also use the calendar to plan for the content you need to collect, your website updates and the third party websites you should update. Don’t forget about updating your ATDW https://www.tourismtribe.com/optimising-your-atdw-listing/ listing as it is distributed on many tourism websites.
Members of Tourism Tribe can access the simple social media calendar template on this page https://www.tourismtribe.com/digital-strategy-template/. The template offers a simple way of starting to plan your content and social media and will make a positive difference to your time and efficiency.
Tip #2 Empower your staff to create content
Your staff (even if you’re a micro sized team) are the most important asset inside your business. They understand what your business is about and the perception you want your customers and potential customers to have. They are often engaging with your customers and out and about around your business and the region and in a great position to take photos and short videos that you can keep in a shared folder as a content library.
Or truly empower them, once they have a close understanding of what you’re aiming to achieve on social media and your brand personality, to post those images and videos on behalf of your business. It’s when businesses do this that we’ve seen almost an instant growth in their social performance.
Don’t forget to train yourself and your staff on what makes a great image, the basics of image editing and video capture https://www.tourismtribe.com/images-video-hub/ on their phones, because you want everyone to be able to produce quality content albeit real and taken by an amateur.
Whoever is posting has to have a grasp of your hashtag strategy and this is vitally important to make the most of Instagram and it has been proven that a hashtag strategy will grow your audience.
Tip #3 Empower your customers to share your story
Your happy customers are the best members of your marketing team and you have a lot more customers than you have staff so make it easy for them to share content about their experience with you.
You have to have a very good reason if you don’t provide free WiFi today. Report to the principal’s office if you don’t! Let your customers know that you have free WiFi to encourage their use of social media whilst with you.
Make sure your social media usernames, for example @yourbusinessname and the social logo are displayed where your customers will see them. This is a subtle prompt for your customers to tag your business when they post their photos.
Here are some suggestions to get creative. https://www.tourismtribe.com/creative-ways-to-advertise-your-online-assets/
Working within parameters for your business context for example constraints for photo taking in sacred sites, encourage photography by your guests, encourage your tour guides or hotel staff to offer to take guests’ photos. Some tour companies have had good success by taking a collection of guest photos throughout the tour and then posting them on their Facebook business page for the guests to share from there. Of course you need to seek permission first.
Getting organised by planning ahead is a fundamental first step in conquering the content challenge and will set you up with clear direction for the content you need to create and share and for making use of other time saving tools as well, like pre-scheduling social posts and monitoring dashboard like Hootsuite.
But it’s unrealistic to think you can win at the content game all on your own. Engender a content culture in the tribe in your business, your team and your customers. With a clear understanding of your brand personality and the experiences and services you strive to offer and some basic imagery skills, your team can play a great role.
Your customers are the biggest marketing team you have. Enact all the ways you can to encourage them to share your story.
The Digital Leap program is designed to build your skills and knowledge so you can keep improving your online presence. Tourism Tribe is a partner in Digital Leap and you are eligible to have an online assessment, online coaching session and a year’s subscription to a large collection of tutorials and helpful resources to assist you. Limited spaces are available in the program.
Visit www.tourismtribe.com/digital-leap for more information and to sign up.
You have an opportunity to attend Social Media Workshops in Yulara – 19 September and 29 September in Alice Springs we’ll schedule Darwin later in the year. These are free for Tourism Tribe Digital Leap members. If you’re already a member log on to www.TourismTribe.com and navigate to My Dashboard to register for the workshops.
Link to more resources available to Tourism Tribe members
Images and video hub
Blogging for your business
Why video content is important to your business
Working with video
Working with images
