2020 Social media Golden rules
Social media is where travellers go to both show off their adventures and find inspiration for their next trip. Facebook estimates that 68 percent of millennials get their holiday ideas on the social network, and 60 percent do the same on Instagram. This trend is only going to grow - these rules will help you make the most of it in 2020.
#1 TAKE A DUAL PAID STRATEGIC APPROACH
When it comes to distributing your ads and content effectively, paid social is the name of the game. Most social media platform algorithms make it tricky to achieve good organic reach and engagement. So it’s vital to put aside an ad budget.
Paid social is primarily about brand building but we’ve seen a growing emphasis on engagement and traffic as objectives. To cover all the bases we usually put in place a two tier strategy - one focusing on visibility, the other on traffic.
Top tip: Do some upfront work on your strategic plan, put in place creative guidelines and stick to them.
#2 PLATFORMS: SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT
In terms of reach, usage and ads, Facebook and Instagram will continue to dominate the market next year. The strong performance of Instagram ads and stories also make them an increasingly important part of any campaign.
Snapchat, Pinterest, and Twitter also have their advantages. But if you don’t have resources to manage these channels it’s best to focus on the big two.
Top tip: Do one thing well - manage one channel brilliantly instead of being average everywhere.
#3 AD TESTING, LEARNING AND CONSISTENCY
Never stop testing and tweaking every aspect of your Facebook campaigns, from photos to call to actions. Find out how and where your audiences are interacting and adjust campaigns to target the right people.
Analyse the ad data your campaigns capture to improve performance. Information such as video views, brand metrics and conversion metrics provide valuable insights into your audience, the scale of your presence and which formats to use for promotions.
Facebook, for example, allows you to retarget people based on which destinations and hotels they’ve visited or shown an interest in. It draws availability and pricing from your travel site, and shows the most relevant products to the user.
Top tip: Be patient. It takes three to six months to produce effective data and start seeing positive results.
#4 CREATIVITY IS KING
Bill Gates once said “content is king”. But in the fight for social media views, creativity is now top dog.
Facebook estimates that users spend 2.5 seconds on a piece of content when browsing on a desktop and just 1.7 seconds when browsing on their phones.
There’s so much social content out there, yours needs to make a quick impression. Ways to do this include: putting more thought into the creative, optimising it for each social media platform and creating bespoke creative to target a specific audience.
There’s no right way to be creative. But quality and originality will help you stand out.
Top tip: Don’t post with a poor quality image or video, at best it’ll be ignored, at worst it will damage your brand.