Six essential and effective social media tips for travel and lifestyle brands in 2022
Social media is an effective marketing tool for any brand looking to open a communication channel to existing and new customers. However, it can be difficult to understand how to start and maintain an online content strategy. GEC PR are communication specialists, and Company Director Sarah Salord has put together six top tips to help travel and lifestyle brands learn how to make the most of social media marketing.
Sarah’s tips include:
• Create a Social Media Content Plan – Communicating high-quality posts with useful and engaging content will help customers connect and trust your brand. Pull together a creative content strategy including two or three posts per week and linking with seasonal topics relevant to your brand or showcasing exciting news. For example, share videos highlighting tips on how to use your brand, post case studies from successful previous campaigns or publish interview features with personalities which share learnings from their experiences.
• Be Consistent and Socially Active – Sharing content regularly can build a trusting relationship with your audience. Put aside enough time each week to post on channels every few days. It’s also important to spend time engaging with your followers through responding to their comments, ‘liking’ their posts and re-sharing content if relevant. Try to be as consistent as possible.
• Get Visually Creative – Using creative platforms such as Canva and Pixielied are a great way to add some spark to your images and visuals. They’re free to use and offer a range of templates ready for you to design graphics with your own images and copy. Good quality visual content is proved to be more engaging and more shareable and an absolute must for brands looking to increase their followers and online traffic.
• Showcase your Personality with Hashtags and Emojis – Hashtags are a great way to connect your feed and brand with other relevant conversations taking place on social media. Look at the most popular hashtags appropriate to your brand or product and include these in your posts, eg #throwbackthursday or #WineWednesday, to help increase engagement across other relevant channels. Emojis are also a great way to bring some bounce to content, adding colour and aesthetic to your post and another way to channel brand personality.
• Put a Face to the Brand through Instagram Reels and Stories – Videos are an effective way to build an online community and put a face to the brand. Stories especially are an easier way to stay in contact and build a relationship with the client or customer, and as the content is only available for 24 hours the angles, lighting, or background don’t have to be perfect. They’re quick and easy to upload and a great free tool to use.
• Engage with your Target Audience on Social Channels – One of the most important goals of social media marketing is to reach and engage with new and existing customers. Decide who it is you want to reach out to and engage with their content by liking, commenting and where applicable resharing any posts featuring your products or services. Another free and easy to use feature on social media platforms are polls and question boxes, this is a useful way to communicate with customers. It gives you the ability to scope out the best direction to take the business with new products or services using feedback from present and future clients.
Sarah Salord, Director at GEC PR
