Hopefully, you have been following this video series but if this is your first time watching, I suggest you watch the previous episodes, in particular, knowing your audience and your brand story. Those are key factors in determining your social media strategy. If you know your audience you’ll know what social platforms to use and a solid brand story will tell you how to talk to your audience.
There are a lot of social media platforms and who your audience is will dictate which ones you use. However, for the majority of tourism businesses within the RTO8 region, it would be safe to say that you will be focussing on the big three – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. For this video, we will talk mostly about Facebook, as it offers the most opportunities for businesses.
First and foremost, make sure you have set up a Facebook business page and that you aren’t using a personal profile to communicate as your business on Facebook.
When thinking of content to share on Facebook remember your brand voice, your why. This is a perfect platform to tell the narrative of your brand with a personal tone. Remember you are communicating directly with real people and have the tremendous opportunity to create a connection with them through sharing your stories.
Like all good relationships, this can’t be onesided. It is important to not always talk about yourself. Mix up your content with posts that are related to your brand, things that will be of value or interest to your audience. This will help deepen your connection with your audience by aligning your values and interests.
Taking this approach will also help any of your more promotional posts. It is 100% ok to promote or try to sell your product on Facebook. However, if that is all you do then you are not going to get results with your organic posts. You must build engagement and trust before you can sell. Keep it to the 80/20 rule. 80% of your posts should inform, entertain & educate and 20% can sell.
Unfortunately, with Facebook, a solid content strategy will only take you so far. You are also going to need an ad budget. Gone are the days where a Facebook post would be organically shown to the majority of your followers. With the introduction of the Boost Post button, Facebook is now a pay to play platform for businesses.
The good news is that it is still very affordable, mostly because of how targeted you can be. Boosting a post by $5 or $10 targeting only your followers will guarantee eyeballs on your content. It will also force you to measure your content better. If you are spending money and not getting any engagement you know you should be changing things up.
Crossing the threshold from organic posts to the Facebook Ad world opens up a whole new level of marketing opportunities. It can seem overwhelming but the reality is that advertising is how you can increase your engagement, grow your audience, generate leads, drive traffic to your website and track conversions.
Your first step is to get familiar with the ad platform. Here is the complete guide.
One of the biggest advantages of Facebook ads is the control you have with custom audiences. Take the time to learn how to build custom audiences and adjust them over time. Save money by serving ads only to those who would be most interested in your offer. Target based on demographics, location, interests and connections. Take it a step further and install a Facebook pixel on your site to re-market to people who have taken an action on your site.
The next most important piece is your ad creative. It’s important to experiment with a variety of text combinations and images to determine the best mix. If you can, use video whenever possible. Videos outperform all other ad formats.
We’re going to dive into video marketing in the next episode.
Scott Adams is the president of Birchbark Media, a digital marketing agency based in Peterborough, Ontario that focuses on helping to market and improve the online presence of travel brands and destinations both regional and abroad.