How do users of travel and leisure (T&L) products interact on social media? Are particular T&L businesses better at turning social media interactions into brand use?

Following the results of BDRC Continental’s Social Media Impact ‘Freemium Report’, looking at many T&L businesses including airlines, hotels, railway companies, online travel agents, visitor attractions, coffee shops, airports and car rental companies, here are 10 tips for anybody using social media to build a T&L brand! 

1) Create a strong Facebook strategy

Facebook trumped all other social media platforms with 98% of respondents saying they use this site generally, and 59% saying it was the platform for their T&L interactions over the past six months. YouTube and Twitter were important with general usage of 73% and 55% respectively, although specific T&L brand interaction was much lower at 11% (YouTube) and 16% (Twitter). LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr commanded less T&L brand engagement at just 5%, 4%, 4% and 2% respectively. So Facebook is driving around four times as much T&L brand engagement as Twitter, five times as much as YouTube and 50 times as much as Tumblr.

2) Be aware of your different social media user segments

We found four clear groups of social media user: ‘Learners’ have the obvious aim of learning about a brand; ‘Proactives’ ask questions, express dissatisfaction or endorse a brand; ‘Watchers’ follow information; ‘Connectors’ interact to be part of a cause. We found that Facebook attracts the highest proportion of ‘Learners’, Pinterest the highest proportion of ‘Watchers’, Instagram gets the most ‘Proactives’ and Tumblr draws the most ‘Connectors’. Note the role each platform plays and use it in the right way.

3) Remember your silent majority

Don’t build a social media strategy that speaks only to the Proactives. Despite typing the loudest, the Proactives made up only one in four of T&L interactions on social media. The silent majority (75% in our survey) interact by observing, watching and simply connecting with the brand. The silent majority is just as likely to convert to using a product offline.

4) Drive usage of your brand

Our most important finding is that social media interactions do lead to brand use. Around one in five social media interactions (22%) with a leisure organisation in the last six months attributed ‘a lot’ of influence over the decision to use or physically visit a brand. And 70% said that the interaction had at least ‘some’ influence. Social media plays a vital role in driving T&L custom.

5) Provide information but tap emotions too

Posts that provide ‘useful’ and ‘interesting’ information are the two biggest drivers of converting social media use to purchases and brand satisfaction. The next most important are posts that are ‘inspiring’ and ‘entertaining’. The most effective organisations offer a balanced combination of information and emotion.

6) Follow the example of car rental companies

Need an example of a good balance of interesting/useful content and inspiring or entertaining updates? Look at car rental companies. Rather than focus on the transaction, they talk about the romance of travel. Car rental companies generate the highest levels of satisfaction and the highest brand usage conversion as a result of a social media interaction.

7) Avoid depending on content alone

We found hotels score well on providing useful information. But they have low conversions to use and satisfaction. Why? Because of low scores on providing inspiring or entertaining content. Hotels need to focus more on social media activity that is entertaining or inspiring, not just useful. They are missing that crucial balance.

8) Build relationships with Generation Y

Generation Y (born in the early 1980s to late 1990s) are the age group most likely to interact with leisure brands on social media and to be converted to purchases offline. They have the lowest proportion of ‘Learners’, and are most likely to be ‘Connectors’. They are the most likely to state that the brand they interacted with ‘has similar values to themselves’. Build a relationship with Gen Y through inspiring and entertaining social media updates that fit with their self-perception.

9) Give Generation X something useful

Generation X (born mid-1960s to early 1980s) are the age cohort most likely to be made up of ‘Learners’ for whom finding ‘useful information’ is key. They tend to use social media platforms less than Gen Y although the gap is not large for Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

10) Target Baby Boomers offline

The post-war Baby Boomers (many now in their 60s) are least likely to use social media to interact with leisure brands, and have the lowest use of all platforms apart from Facebook (which is age neutral). Low conversion suggests that this age group responds to more traditional marketing.

 

By Jon Young, Research Director at BDRC Continental. 

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