Digital Marketing Strategy for Tourism

What is it? Facebook is one of the most popular social networking platforms, occupying 50 million users in the UK (Statista, 2021).

What is it good for? Facebook is a great platform for posting general information, live updates, text-only posts, images and video content. You can also create community groups, events, reviews and polls. It is a highly interactive, versatile social networking site - making it a pivotal hub for tourism businesses to engage directly with their customers in multiple ways.

Who uses it? The largest age group using Facebook in the UK is aged 25 to 34 years old, with 11.2 million users (Social Films, 2021). This makes Facebook an ideal place to connect with the Millennial generation.

What is it? LinkedIn is the designated social media platform for business professionals, occupying 30.9 million users in the UK (Statista, 2021).

What is it good for? LinkedIn is a good platform for posting industry-related content. Think helpful blog posts to assist other businesses in your industry, relevant third-party content, native video content, text-only posts, images and infographics.

Who uses it? In the UK, 58.3% of LinkedIn users are between 25 and 34 years old. (Statista, 2021). This suggests that LinkedIn is the prime place to go for professional Millennials as an overall audience as well as the corporate market.

What is it? Twitter is known as a microblogging social networking platform. The total number of Twitter users in the UK is 15.25 million (Omnicore, 2021).

What is it good for? Twitter prides itself on its short and snappy content. It is great for posting quick updates, opinions and links to longer-form content. For tourism businesses, it is useful for posting event reminders, teasers and announcements with links to the main website.

Who uses it? 28.4% of global Twitter users were aged between 35 and 49 years (Statista, 2021). This indicates that Twitter is best for targeting those that fall within Generation X.

What is it? Instagram is a visual-focused social media platform. In January 2021, Instagram had around 30.36 million users in the UK (Statista, 2021).

What is it good for? Instagram is made up of predominantly visual content, such as engaging static imagery as well as short and long-form video content. This makes it a prime place for tourism and hospitality businesses to showcase their offerings in an attractive and visually appealing way.

Who uses it? The largest share of Instagram users were individuals aged between 25 and 34 years old (Statista, 2021). This makes Instagram a key platform for reaching the Millennial generation.

What is it? Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas, made up of mostly imagery.

What is it good for? Pinterest is designed to enable the discovery and saving of images to create ‘pinboards’ (e.g. mood boards). This will appeal to many travellers mocking up their next trip itinerary. For the tourism industry, it is good for posting eye-catching imagery of destinations and food establishments in particular.

Who uses it? Worldwide, Pinterest appeals to a vast age demographic, with 35% of Pinterest users being 35-49 years old and 34% being 18-29 years old (Omnicore, 2021).

What is it? TikTok is a video-sharing social media platform that has over 3.7m active users in the UK (Social Films, 2021).

What is it good for? TikTok is mostly made up of short-form video content, which poses a great opportunity for tourism businesses to show snapshots of their business in a fun and unique way to the younger generation.

Who uses it? The largest share of users (26%) in the UK is aged between 18-24 years old (Social Films, 2021), making TikTok the perfect platform to target the Generation Z audience.

What is it? YouTube is a video-sharing search engine platform. With 2 billion users worldwide, it is the second most popular search engine after Google (Oberlo, 2021).

What is it good for? YouTube is a brilliant platform for uploading short and long-form video content. For tourism businesses, this allows them to create immersive online experiences, video playlists and build a lengthy list of dedicated subscribers.

Who uses it? YouTube is unique in that it attracts a high percentage of each age demographic. Here’s a list of what age ranges use YouTube:

• 90% of 18–24 year olds;
• 93% of 25–30 year olds;
• 87% of 30–49 year olds;
• 70% of 50–64 year olds (Social Spout, 2020).

One tip we would suggest when writing social media copy is to tweak posts and repurpose them to suit each individual platform. This will avoid repetition and make your posts appear unique, especially for those who follow you across multiple platforms.

Your website is the most vital channel of all. No matter what social media platform you use - it is essential that you make your website readily available in all your ‘About’ sections and bios.

If you are providing links, your end goal more than likely relates to getting more visitors on your website. This is why it is important to ensure your site’s user experience is a priority. It should be an easy-to-access hub for everything the visitor may need - including high quality information and content.