Through social media marketing you can boost your tour business on multiple platforms and increase your market reach. Social media is now an invaluable resource for tour operators, acting as a branding tool(opens in a new tab), driving potential customers to your site(opens in a new tab), and even helping to sell more tours(opens in a new tab). While a social media marketing campaign might seem overwhelming to some, there are now countless sites and apps to help organise, create, schedule, and publish content easily and effectively. This comprehensive list is designed to act as a guide to help you maximise the potential of these powerful organisational tools.
Buffer(opens in a new tab)
This is a great tool to increase engagement among your followers. Working in a similar way to other apps listed here, such as AgoraPulse and HootSuite, Buffer allows its users to schedule and publish content on their favourite social media platforms. The great benefit of this tool is that you can schedule posts in advance, freeing up time busy tour operators just don’t have. The more content you post, the higher engagement rates you’ll have with your customers, and the stronger your presence and brand identity will be.
Lithium(opens in a new tab)
Key features of this app are the ability to manage campaigns, content, and responses from the same place. The online community facilitates better customer engagement and will help share your brand across a variety of social media channels, mobile apps, communities, and websites.
Sprout Social(opens in a new tab)
Sprout Social connects to all social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Customisation options accelerate effectiveness and consumer engagement. A 14-day free trial will allow you to evaluate its potential usefulness in advertising your tour company.
AgoraPulse(opens in a new tab)
This is known for being one of the most popular ways to access and evaluate social media analytics from the same dashboard. All social media accounts are in the same place, allowing easy monitoring and publishing of content. A handy social media inbox works in a similar way to an email inbox, so you can assign tasks to your colleagues and employees. Another major feature is the editorial calendar that allows you to see all the social media marketing updates you want to complete.
Sendible(opens in a new tab)
Sendible is a leading social media marketing tool that allows multiple businesses to better understand their ROI. You can easily measure the success of email campaigns and social media account productivity. Manage your responses to your audience and focus on creating social media analytics in just minutes.
HootSuite(opens in a new tab)
Although this app faced criticism in its early days it offers several benefits such as the ability to analyse social media statistics easily. If you subscribe with a business plan you can add more team members to your account. You can also connect to more than 35 different social platforms!
Lumen5 for Video Creation(opens in a new tab)
This is a consumer favourite as videos are known to be the media type that stimulates the highest rate of engagement. Video marketing has the potential to sky-rocket your consumer reach. Lumen5 facilitates the creation of videos for multiple social media platforms. These include all the popular platforms, such as Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. “It functions through customization of the vast range of templates it offers. There is also a deep database of visuals, music and photos that are available to use,” says Jim Marchese, marketer at Australia 2 write(opens in a new tab) and Next Course Work(opens in a new tab).
Canva for Graphic Designs(opens in a new tab)
Create beautiful images and graphics to display on your social media sites. This drag-and drop design tool gives you access to a rich database that can be used for Facebook covers, posters, and other social media posts. These are all fully customisable and publishable through Canva. The professional version of the marketing tool is rather reasonable at $12.95 per month. This is different from the free version as it has a team collaboration feature for better teamwork.
CoSchedule for Content Organization(opens in a new tab)
This app allows you to easily coordinate and create strategies for your social media accounts. You will be able to analyse social media stats more efficiently with full reports that are relevant and reliable. This app is $100 for a month’s use for three users, and every user on the account after that is an additional $19. This app is best for small social media marketing teams. “If this over-shoots your company’s budget, similar apps that will benefit you include Social Pilot, Sendible and Sprout Social,” says Willie Murry, social media writer from Brit Student(opens in a new tab) and Write Myx(opens in a new tab).
SocialBakers for Social Intelligence(opens in a new tab)
The benefits of this marketing tool are in its ability to complete many tasks in one go. These include: maximising target audiences, forming a better understanding of what a true customer profile looks like, and taking care of all social media accounts from a single place.
As a busy tour operator it can be difficult to find the time to focus on a social media marketing campaign. The above applications are fantastic tools to help manage your social media accounts, create effective marketing materials, and analyse the effectiveness of your campaign. If you’d like a brand new site to match your social media success, don’t hesitate to reach out to Tourism Tiger(opens in a new tab).
Find this article useful? Enter your details below to receive your FREE copy of 95 Epic Places To List Your Tours and receive regular updates from Tourism Tiger and leading industry experts.
By submitting this form, you agree to Tourism Tiger contacting you via email.