An interesting article on Summit Daily earlier this week: ‘social media giants eying up a piece of travel industry’s pie’.

The articles discusses how Google and Facebook are heavily targeting the travel industry as part of their ongoing strategy.

Erik Hawkins, Facebook’s industry manager for travel, is quoted in the article, saying ‘[Facebook is] an underappreciated source of travel bookings and one the travel industry should tap to a greater degree’.

Facebook becoming vital to the travel industry

At Qube, we couldn’t agree with this more. Facebook is a vital component to the research and marketing arms of our luxury travel clients – and is of increasing importance not just to marketing campaigns but to our clients’ business in general, from customer service to R&D.

The bit that interested me most in the article was Hawkins suggestion that ‘Companies don’t want to “junk up” their Facebook pages with casual friends; they want to connect with their best customers.’

This fits exactly with the strategy we put forward to our clients – too many companies use advertising and other mass marketing campaigns to get ‘numbers’ up on their Facebook pages – but to what end? Where is the end value?

1 billion users – but how many should you be talking to?

Facebook now has somewhere in the region of 1 billion active users – but that doesn’t mean your brand needs to target all of them.

Much better to concentrate on true brand advocates – people who have travelled with or to you. People who love you.

Find these people, nurture them: get them talking about you. Facilitate and grow this audience for repeat custom and – crucially – positive word of mouth and reviews for a new audience.

Google, YouTube and video sharing

It isn’t just Facebook that’s interested in the potential benefits for the travel industry – Google is also keenly aware of its value.

The Summit Daily article also quotes Rob Torres, Google’s managing director for travel, suggesting people increasingly: ‘rely on video for entertainment rather than commercial television and they increasingly rely on video for research on topics such as vacation destinations…If you’re not reaching them by video, you should be.”

See our slideshare case studies for Constance Hotels and Resorts and Virgin Atlantic for more information about how we help the luxury travel industry utilise social media.

To talk through moving your own social media activity to the next level, contact us now.