Level Up Your Content Strategy: How Travel & Hospitality Brands Can Harness Content Marketing to Improve Visibility and Audience Engagement
Content Marketing has had a serious glow-up. ‘Just blogs’ is out and an integrated approach to content that straddles priority consumer channels is in.
Gone is relying on one singular workflow or channel to bring in your audience, this swapped out for brand infiltration into consumer consciousness through a series of carefully curated touchpoints that speak to the audience in their language, and in formats that are authentic and facilitate individual experience, rather than the one-size-fits all approach of years gone by. This achieved through a combined PR, Marketing, Social and Content Strategy.
Travel brands are now realising how important it is to have a robust strategy in place for facilitating better connection between brand and target audience.
For those not already in the know, a Content Marketing Strategy is the framework a brand needs to put in place to determine, plan and execute content as a string in the bow of their overall PR and MarComms approach.
Adopting a strategic approach to content and realising its value as ‘more than just a blog or a social post’, will not only help brands focus their efforts on the content types and platforms that will reveal the most gains, but will ensure that any content created is successful in supporting your wider PR and MarComms Strategy.
That’s right, your Content Strategy can make or break your brand’s visibility, particularly when thinking digital, impacting everything from social media metrics to SEO performance.
If you’re taking a ‘spray and pray’ approach to content, it’s time to regroup and get introspective with your goals and objectives – let’s start making content work for you.
The good news is that with each new year comes new content trends that should rightly prick the ears of travel marketers looking to boost their brand’s presence online. Ensuring your Content Marketing Strategy pays attention to these trends is a great way to get started, or level up your existing approach to external communications.
With the average consumer spending more and more time online, it is no surprise that there has been an explosion in the demand for digital content in all its forms. And with more opportunities than ever available to brands looking to level up their multi-channel approach, it’s time for travel brands to get their content house in order to set themselves up for gains in the years to come.
So what are our content marketing must-haves for 2023?
Make Your Short Form Video Mobile Ready & Platform Specific
With the rise of platforms like TikTok, and the development of products across YouTube (Shorts) and Instagram (Reels), you’d be amiss to overlook short-form video.
While not a new medium by any stretch of the imagination, where travel brands can do better this year is by ensuring all video content is made with mobile viewing in mind and specific to the platform it is intended to be sat on.
Not only does short form video need to be engaging, entertaining or educational, it should be fully immersive too. In layman’s terms, this means it should be made for the platform you intend to execute it on. This covers everything from shot orientation, to editing styles, filters, use of sounds and how in-app features such as voiceovers, captions and hashtags are used. Even when viewed by mobile, video hits different on different platforms, and therefore should be curated for it.
Not sure how to approach making your short form video more immersive?
Use Instagram for pristine, curated, inspirational content. Choose TikTok for authentic POV and less stylised, more spontaneous content. And think about how YouTube Shorts can be used to break down existing long-form content into digestible sneak peeks.
With platforms like TikTok and Instagram getting protective of their audiences, mandating creators film and edit the majority of their content within each app (rather than by using external software like CapCut, or direct repurposing), travel brands posting organically or working with creators should get savvier about their video strategy for each platform.
Our golden rules for short form content creation are to…
- Keep it punchy – short-form should be under 30 seconds long to maximise engagement.
- Think about transitions – have fun with editing to capture the attention of your audience.
- Optimise your captions and hashtags for SEO – social is a search engine after all.
- Use (relevant) trends, filters and sounds – and be quick about it!
- Browse what’s trending – use it as inspiration, not competition.
Embrace Creators
Marketing budgets for travel brands took a hit with COVID and have had a rocky road to recovery ever since thanks to the pressures of the current economic crisis. With many travel marketing teams being one-or-two-person bands, there simply is not enough time in the day to generate the levels of content that social media algorithms demand – let alone keep up with your on-site content plans.
This is where creators come in…
Competition amongst brands for the attention of creators has never been higher. With TikTok rewriting the rules as to what creators now expect from brand collaborations – it’s easy for small and independent travel brands to feel overwhelmed and out-bid on the creator battleground. Not only are there more opportunities than ever out there, but getting to grips with the investment needed to secure the best creators can feel like an uphill battle.
Before engaging with creators, travel brands need to ask themselves what they are hoping to achieve, what spend they have to put towards it, and what return they hope will be supported by it.
While direct ROI tracking from creator engagement and influencer marketing is tricky to quantify numerically, there are many benefits to working with creators.
Sprout Social’s recent Creator Economy Report found marketers rank generating engagement (62%) and reaching new audiences (60%) as their top two goals for creator marketing.
Creators can help raise awareness of your offerings, curate communities, facilitate customer journeys, provide inspiration, support dissemination of key messaging, and make brands more accessible and ultimately more trustworthy to consumers. A really appealing list of positives for brands with limited market share looking to grow within their niche.
This echoed in Meltwater’s State of Social Media 2023 Report which stated that common marketer goals for content distribution through social media to include raising brand awareness (81%), brand engagement (60%) and new customer acquisition (49%) and increasing web traffic (22%).
Whether engaging with creators in-house, or through a PR and Social Media agency like Thissaway, being clear with your objectives and selective with your engagements will help inform a robust Content Marketing Strategy.
Invest In Long-Form Content
Long-Form content has traditionally been defined as the much-loved, and often underrated blog. Content of this nature is not only great for keeping your audience engaged at every step of the journey from dreaming to sharing, but is instrumental in supporting your SEO efforts through creating strong backlink building opportunities. On-site content is more important than ever when it comes to aligning your brand with highly topical keywords and phrases that will, in time, begin to support a brands visibility on SERPs.
Travel brands can embrace long-form content with the creation of topical on-site hubs that include destination guides, travel tips and recommendations or highly curated inspirational pieces that showcase your offering, while differentiating your voice and product from competitors in your niche.
Exhausted all your topic avenues? Use data to your advantage. Whether it be your own Sales or Search Data or insights pulled from tools such as Google Trends – before you start writing, first identify what your audience wants to read. Establish their content needs based on popular queries, searches and page visits, and create a content plan that weaves your brand’s offering in with what your target audience needs.
Aim for quality, not quantity – and learn from the performance of your existing content to inform your next move.
How To Get Started With Your Content Strategy?
The old listen and learn adage has never rung more true than when it comes to planning a content strategy.
Whether social media, on-site, or straddling both, travel brands can learn a lot from paying attention to what types of content are pipped to perform in the months to come, and adapting their Content Marketing Strategy based on what’s working for them to ensure they are reacting to the demands of industry and consumer alike.
Need help getting a Content Marketing Strategy in place from your travel or hospitality brand, get in touch: [email protected]
