Experts urge agents to consider non-Facebook marketing efforts
csdude55
1:32 am on May 1, 2019 (gmt 0)
My girlfriend is an "independent vacation specialist", and she sent this article to me today. Travel agencies are pushing their agents to focus their efforts on marketing venues other than Facebook:
As attitudes about Facebook shift, travel agents are being advised to start diversifying their social media presence to avoid the full impact of what some researchers see as a declining user base in the U.S.
That's a perfectly sensible approach to take, imho, and it's worth a read to see how one industry might be approaching it.
There must be plenty of other avenues open to that sector.
LifeinAsia
4:19 pm on May 2, 2019 (gmt 0)
Good advice for just about any industry. Not just diversifying away from FB, but in general not being over-reliant on any one channel.
One of the major problems with travel is that the major ITNs (Internet travel agencies) will always have FAR more resources (budgets, staff, technical savvy, etc.) than smaller agencies and agents for marketing, social media, etc.
lucy24
5:45 pm on May 2, 2019 (gmt 0)
Marketing professionals need to be told not to put all their eggs in one basket? Honestly now. “We’ve always used billboards and nothing but billboards and we see no reason ever to change.”
csdude55
6:59 pm on May 2, 2019 (gmt 0)
Most of the "specialists" aren't actually marketing professionals, they're just first time business owners trying to turn their hobby in to some money.
When my girlfriend first signed up there were webinars and training that I could overhear. I was appalled to hear the trainers focusing so much on Facebook! The [u]whole[/u] marketing strategy was to set up a Facebook business page, invite your friends, and then post updates to it once a day. And that was it, that was 100% of the marketing training! And there were at least 40 people in that webinar.
Just a little more irritating... I've been self employed for about 25 years, so I know a thing or two about marketing. I tried to help my girlfriend, but she doesn't think that she needs a marketing budget or anything. The webinar said to just use Facebook for free... so that's what she's going to do! I can only imagine that 90% of their agents say the same thing.
jaleno
2:25 pm on May 11, 2019 (gmt 0)
The problem is that Facebook have the best targeting options. Rivals like Snapchat have nowhere near the same targeting capabilities or interest filters.
csdude55
7:23 am on May 12, 2019 (gmt 0)
If they're actually true... the one time I did a major marketing campaign with Facebook, I targeted residents of North Carolina for a website that I had just launched. I set the budget for $2,000 over a period of 3 or 4 days.
At the end of the campaign, more than 90% of my click-throughs came from California! And not one of the other click-throughs ever moved beyond the homepage. If I knew how to embed a picture on here, I'd take screenshots from Analytics and show you.
I contacted Facebook to complain, but never had a reply.
