- How travel brands can use influencer marketing: insights, lifehacks, & examples
- Published 17/11/2023
- 6 min Read
- Written by Julia Shandrokha
Table of Contents
Promoting products and services through social media influencers is a popular tool both large and small companies use. People trust opinion leaders, so their recommendations work more effectively than traditional advertising. However, finding a reliable creator can become challenging: some deceive advertisers, and others do not meet the agreements.
The travel and tourism industry makes no exception. Before travel agencies approach content creators, they need to get prepared. Below, top specialists of Famesters agency speak about the general principles of influencer marketing for travel brands.
WHAT ISSUES DO TRAVEL BRANDS RESOLVE USING INFLUENCER MARKETING?
Why do travel companies work with influencers? Like any promotion tool, it helps resolve several challenges:
- Create demand in the market. The influencer has a ready audience. With its help, you can quickly announce a new product or service.
- Increase brand awareness. If you want to work with a new audience, you can find it from a content creator with a specific account topic.
- Form loyalty. People who follow travel and lifestyle influencers and engage with their content trust them. If they promote your services, their followers will love you, too.
- Mitigate objections. A creator can convince followers that using tourist services is “not expensive” and “not scary.” This will immediately address the most common customer objections.
- Provide content. Influencers write texts, shoot videos, take photos, and create content that appeals to the audiences. You can use this information in your business account.
Solving these issues increases sales, which is the primary goal of any travel business.
Read more on the topic:
WHAT INFLUENCERS ARE SUITABLE FOR THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY?
It is worth understanding that a creator suitable for a travel influencer marketing campaign should not necessarily be Kim Kardashian or Cristiano Ronaldo. The opinion leader you need may have 5 thousand subscribers. How the influencer manages to keep them engaged with the content is essential.
The overall influencer marketing statistics show a strong tendency to involve smaller influencers for advertising campaigns: 39% of brands preferred to work with nano-influencers (1,000-10,000 followers), while 30% of businesses, including travel and tourism companies, partnered with micro-influencers (10,000-100,000 followers). For mid-sized brands, cooperating with nano- and micro-influencers has the apparent benefit: their services are less expensive, but the percentage of the engaged audience is higher. This gives higher conversion.
Top influencers provide greater reach. But it’s unlikely that a travel agency needs thousands of followers who may not even be its target audience. Celebrities are approached by large brands who are constantly expanding their reach and are willing to pay a lot of money for it.
Read more on the topic:
The number of followers is one of the criteria to consider when choosing a creator to collaborate with. To maximize your advertising budget, you must work closely on filtering influencers. They can gain likes, subscribers, comments, and views through services or colleagues. Finding an influencer with a “pure” audience is difficult without company subscribers and bots.
Of course, only some creators are engaged in cheating, but not to waste your budget, you need to check your profile according to various parameters. Filtration can be carried out manually and using services.
Checking the influencers manually
You can evaluate a content creator based on several criteria:
1. Number of publications. Using this indicator, it is easy to determine how “old” the account is and the purity of the audience. If there are 30 posts published, the influencer has been working for a month or a little more. There can only be a few genuine followers. If there are tens or hundreds of thousands of them, most likely, the creator was cheating.
Read more on the topic: How the Famesters influencer marketing agency protects clients from fraud
2. Likes/comments ratio. For every 100 likes, there should be 0.5-1 comments. When many people like the post, there are also many comments. The likes are likely to be fake if they are not there.
3. Audience quality. See who follows the influencer and likes the posts. Do they look like real people? If the list contains only stores, bots, or no-name accounts, it is better to avoid contacting such a creator.
4. Video views. Suppose an influencer has an audience of thousands, hundreds of likes and comments on posts, and almost no video views. Most likely, this creator used cheating services. On average, 15-30% of all subscribers watch videos. If the percentage is less, pass by this influencer.
5. Comments quality. Dummy comments usually do not contain useful information. See how subscribers write, whether they use emojis, and evaluate their style, language, and jokes. If discussions are insincere, it is immediately apparent.
6. Who leaves comments? Sometimes, influencers create activity chats. They post, comment, and like each other at certain times in a circle. Look at a couple of profiles of those commenting. If it says something like “direct message for cooperation issues,” most likely, the activity is created artificially.
Read more on the topic: An ultimate guide to detecting influencer fraud
Checking the influencers through services
The second way to check the opinion leaders is through services. They work very simply: go to the appropriate website, pay, insert the influencer’s nickname into a line, and receive information about the profile in numbers, graphs, tables, and diagrams. The service shows the number of suspicious likes, comments, and subscribers and estimates the audience coverage over time. Each platform has its own features.
| Famesters specialists have recently overviewed the top influencer marketing tools that help brands to work with the creators. Check the material here and discover the best platforms for opinion leaders’ discovery and cooperation. |
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WHAT COOPERATION FORMATS SUIT INFLUENCER MARKETING FOR TRAVEL BRANDS?
When the first steps are made, and the travel brands identify the influencers whose values align with their brand ethos and marketing strategy, it’s time to pass on to cooperation format identification.
So, how can travel brands use influencer marketing strategies, and what cooperation formats can influencers suggest?
- Destination showcasing:
Collaborating with influencers to showcase specific travel destinations is a potent strategy. Influencers bring these destinations to life through captivating visuals and personal narratives, enticing their followers to consider these places for their next adventure:
To provide an authentic experience, travel brands can allow influencers to take over their social media accounts for a day. This offers followers a genuine, firsthand perspective of the travel experiences associated with the brand:
- User-generated content campaigns:
Travel brands using influencer marketing strategies can encourage travelers to share their experiences with a branded hashtag to create a community of engaged users. User-generated content adds authenticity to the brand narrative and provides social proof for potential customers.
- Review and recommendation:
One of the most obvious ways to apply influencer marketing for travel brands as influencers’ reviews and recommendations can significantly impact potential travelers’ decisions. Honest and positive testimonials about the brand’s products or services can build trust and credibility.
- Contests and giveaways:
Hosting contests or giveaways and collaborating with influencers can boost engagement and brand awareness. Encourage participants to share their travel aspirations, creating a buzz around the brand.
- Storytelling through Influencers:
Travel is not just about places; it’s about the stories created along the way. Brands can work with influencers to tell compelling stories, emphasizing the emotional aspects of travel and the brand’s role in creating memorable moments.
- Educational сontent:
Influencers can create educational content by positioning the brand as a valuable source of information. Travel tips, cultural insights, and destination guides provide value to the audience and establish the brand as an authority in the travel space.
- Event collaborations:
Collaborating with influencers for travel-related events, festivals, or conferences can extend the brand’s reach. Participation in such events provides exposure to a targeted audience interested in travel experiences.
- Long-term partnerships:
Building long-term relationships with influencers fosters authenticity. Regular collaborations can result in more genuine and impactful content as influencers become true advocates for the brand.
CONCLUSION
Travel brands using influencer marketing tools definitely aim to connect with their audience on a deeper level. By harnessing the creativity and authenticity of influencers, brands can not only inspire travel but also create a community of engaged and loyal customers.
Contact Famesters via email [email protected] to find the right influencers for your travel business: we can guide you towards your next adventure!
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