Three Creative Ways to Use Facebook Live in Your Travel Marketing Mix
Written By: Cris De Souza, Vice President, Sales & Marketing – Nexion LLC
Facebook Live launched in 2015; the platform is still a relatively new addition to the travel professional’s marketing mix, and plenty of travel pros are still unsure how best to use it to their advantage. Following are three ways to use live video in your travel marketing mix to help you attract new clients and remind your existing clients why you are their trusted travel advisor.
1. Join forces with an influencer in your travel specialty.
Co-marketing is one of a travel professional’s strongest marketing tools. By teaming up with another company or influencer in your travel niche, you can increase your exposure to potential customers.
How do you achieve this with Facebook Live in your travel business? Identify a key thought leader in the same or similar area as your specialty and feature him or her in a Facebook Live broadcast. Let’s say your travel specialty is Italy, and you have three well-known Italian restaurants in your area. Consider creating a three-part, live video series, pairing yourself with each restaurant owner and chef, and broadcasting from each restaurant before opening hours in the kitchen. Have each restaurant promote the live broadcast on their social channels, and you can promote across yours, allowing for mutual lead generation benefit.
Pro Tips:
- To use this tactic in your Facebook Live marketing, locate a co-marketing partner, ideally a thought leader or influencer who people will recognize and you expect will be good on camera (remember, you want this to be entertaining).
- Next, identify a topic you want this person to speak about or demonstrate. In the chef example, ask them to demonstrate cooking a famous dish from their region of Italy and share the recipe.
- Remember, the key to co-marketing is creating a mutually beneficial relationship. During the broadcast, stay involved with your audience to answer live questions either on air or in the comments section. Make sure to mention the audience member by name when you answer questions in the comments (a Facebook-recommended best practice).
Key Takeaway: Facebook Live is a great vehicle to support your co-marketing efforts. Select a business partner to work with, and create a live video to move toward your respective marketing goals.
2. Take your audience places they haven’t been to yet.
As a travel professional, you help people experience destinations, unique events and encounters they have been dreaming about for their entire life. Facebook Live takes this to another level by allowing everyday people to see through the eyes of other people who broadcast. If you are an Italy travel professional visiting Lake Como on a FAM experience and happen to stop at Villa D’Este, live stream a virtual tour of the property, ask for an interview of the General Manager and ask them to share the history of the property and famous guests who frequent the villa.
Pro Tips:
- To use this tactic for your travel business, go live at your own travel industry event (ASTA, Cruiseworld or Cruise360) or a conference your clients would be interested in.
- Be sure to promote your broadcast early and often to ensure people know when you’ll be going live.
Ask them to share your broadcast with their audience. - To engage your audience, encourage questions in the comments and answer those questions if there’s a Q&A session.
- Keep a steady video image by investing in a mobile phone tripod.
Key Takeaway: Going live at your own travel industry event or conference session is a great way to give something valuable to your extended audience, exposing them to a moment they wouldn’t be able to experience otherwise.
3. Consider hosting a recurring travel talk show.
Remember that Facebook Live doesn’t have to be a one-person show. You can run talk show-like live sessions for your travel business to cover key topics in your travel specialty and engage your users.
Creating a talk show with two or three other agents in your network or loyal clients certainly takes the pressure off of one person, is more engaging for viewers and can help strengthen customer relationships by increasing familiarity. Airing a travel talk show takes a little planning, but it isn’t impossible to pull off. Weeks before you intend to broadcast, select your talk show hosts, identify key topics, and then plan each show as far in advance as possible.
Pro Tips:
What subjects will you address? Will you have guests? Will each episode follow a similar format? Don’t plan every detail, because you may be able to engage your audience further by soliciting suggestions for future episodes.
Entice your viewers to follow you to stay tuned into the series and offer incentives to watch and share the broadcast. For example, answer some questions the following week or hint that viewers will get a special discount or surprise gift with your agency.
It’s a good idea to select one person to monitor the comments for each live broadcast and answer them via a mobile device or on air. This person could be a member of your travel talk show group or someone off-camera. For the actual recording of your Facebook Live video, consider using a computer and an app such as Wirecast or OBS Studio for a more professional look.
Key Takeaway: The more the merrier! With a Facebook Live travel talk show broadcast, you can engage your audience and keep them coming back for more content.
Bonus Tip: Involve your audience in the broadcast. There are a variety of ways you can get your audience involved and participating in your Facebook Live broadcast for your travel business.
Here are a few tactics you might try:
- Consider aligning your broadcast with a non-profit organization. Consider running a live donation drive for a non-profit organization in the Caribbean that was hurt by a recent hurricane. Remember to frequently ask for contributions and update users regularly with progress toward your goal.
- Interview an industry thought leader using audience questions. Collect questions in advance from your audience via Facebook before the broadcast.
- Get customer testimonials, reviews and feedback on your travel services in a Facebook Live broadcast, and then share how you used that feedback in another broadcast.
- Whatever you do, make your audience feel like they are part of the broadcast!
Over time and with a little practice, Facebook Live will help you create new clients and bond them closer to you being their trusted travel advisor!