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 By Frances Figart
How small is your company?
(Photo Caption: An amiable lemur perched on the shoulder of an enthusiastic traveler on a Terra Incognita Ecotours trip to Madagascar makes a perfect photo to engage potential clients on the small company's Facebook page.)
Whether a tour operator or an accommodation, many sustainable travel companies are, naturally, small enterprises – anything from a company of 20 or less employees (some of them seasonal) to a tiny one- or two-person family outfit. The person doing the marketing may, therefore, wear many different hats, and may only stop to put the marketing hat on when not leading tours or when there are fewer guests.
However, in this day and age, if your company does not have a presence in the ever growing social media realm, it’s conspicuous… and suggests you are not playing with all your marbles. So how does a small travel company build social marketing into its budget, both time and money-wise? Here are 10 tips to help you organize this part of your business.
Designate a driver: Think of social media as a vehicle, like a 12-passenger tour van. If you are the person leading the tour, it’s hard to focus on driving and narrating the tour at the same time, so you hire a driver, right? The concept is the same: you need to have one designated driver of the social media vehicle. This person is the Social Media Ambassador.
Choose your SMA: The Social Media Ambassador (SMA) can be an employee of your company, or a contracted person outside it. It works best if this person is NOT someone on the ground leading tours or booking in guests, but it would be good if the person can do site visits, experience the product or the guest experience. The SMA’s role requires they be on their computer more often than not.
Find the right person: The SMA needs to have a combination of skills. They need some technological prowess, yes. But more important than this, they need to have excellent communication skills (possibly in two languages, depending upon your location) and professional discretion. They need to be a people person; yet they also need to be able to work autonomously, taking initiative without direction. They need to be super organized, yet flexible. And they must understand tourism and what makes the consumer excited about travel.
Do it on the cheap: Social marketing does require some time, but with the right person in place, it should not be all-consuming. If you use a full-time employee as the SMA, they will already be in a computer-related role and they should be able to do this work in addition to their other duties. If you are going to contract an expert SMA, their retainer can be very reasonable, depending upon how much or how little you want them to do.
Select one co-pilot: There should be one backup person designated to support the SMA when needed. This co-pilot can be anyone who has a skill set similar to the one described above. It can even be the head of the company. But the role should remain only a secondary one, to answer a client request or make a post when the SMA is not available. The backup administrator should take direction from the SMA, not take initiative on a regular basis, as there should be only one director determining the flow of information.
Involve everyone: All company employees should be introduced to the SMA, whether in person or virtually, and should be trained to gather material on a weekly basis, without prompting, in support of the SMA. For example, a tour guide may have an amazing wildlife encounter on the ground during which she can take photos, jot down or even film client reactions, and then share these with the SMA via e-mail a day or so later, and the SMA can in turn post these on your Web Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. A hotel receptionist can in turn forward a photo and quote from a happy guest to the SMA for posting.
Tell your story: Probably the single most important thing an SMA can and should be doing for your company is getting the stories, the voices, the experiences of your clients out to your public, your followers, your fans, your potential new clients. This can be done through photos and videos with quotes, testimonials, essays, blogs, writing contests, letters from guests – all shared in creative ways to tell a success story about your business and help potential clients imagine visiting your property and taking a tour with you.
Build community: It is important to remember that social media interaction is not always tantamount to direct sales. What you are doing through social media networking and marketing is building a community of followers who, because of their constant involvement with your business, will think of you in the future – to recommend their friends or even to book a tour. Building this community takes time.
Develop marketing hygiene: If you are a one-person tour company and if, after reading this overview, you feel that you yourself have to be the SMA for the time being, it is very important that you take on social media networking and marketing as you would a daily hygiene ritual, such as flossing your teeth. You cannot put off flossing your teeth until next month, just as you cannot put off your marketing until then.
Be the rain: The Social Media Ambassador is the one person dedicated to making sure that your messages, your success stories, your client testimonials are hitting your community of fans and followers each day or every other day, like raindrops, gently falling one by one and reminding them that you are there, that your company is professional, and that you are the expert when it comes to ecotourism and sustainability.
Frances Figart has worked as a social media ambassador for ecotour operators as well as small sustainable resort hotels. Learn more about her on her blog. |
Trade News 
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