You can listen directly here. 

Getting noticed as a travel agent on social media can be challenging these days. As new platforms start there is more competition for attention from the consumer. Promotions and Advertising are also more aggressive.  

 

So how do you stand out and get noticed? 

 

In this episode, Ros talks about how you CAN stand out, get attention and be authentic. She shares some of her own pro tips that will help you with the algorithms and be seen. 

 

Why do I have no likes? Why aren't people commenting? And WHY aren't people booking with me through Social Media? Everyone else seems to make it work... 

 

If this is you, you are not alone. 

 

Want to know how to stand out? Check out this week's podcast and download our template to help set you up for success. 

 

It takes work, but you CAN do it! You can be seen and you can make sales on Social Media. You just need a plan...

Show Transcription: 

Announcer: Welcome to Travel Agent Achievers! The place to learn how to grow your travel business and have fun with it. Join Roslyn and her guests as they walk you through proven steps to a fulfilling and profitable business. 

 

Roslyn Ranse: Hey, guys, it's Ros from Travel Agent Achievers. Welcome back to another episode of our fantastic podcast. I am so excited to be here. And before I kick off today, I'm just letting you know, I think I may have had too much coffee this morning. I have been running around like a madwoman, not only with my travel business, but I am also putting together a number of international groups and we've got a travel Expo coming up. 

 

So I have been out and about, I think whilst being out, I've had too many coffees. So I am going to take note to slow down my speech a bit. 

 

But I'm sure you can relate to me, right? 

 

Sometimes we just need that coffee to get going and then, unfortunately, because we make clients, we may have a second or third. 

 

Are you like me or am I the only one that does this. Anyhow, we are kicking off today on an awesome topic. 5 tips to stand out on social media when it feels so crowded and as travel agents, we see this all the time. 

 

Social media is such a big thing. 

We're trying to work out where we fit and how we can serve our clients the best. 

So, 5 tips to stand out on social media. Let's kick it off! 

 

1. WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO? 

Do you know your client? 

Who is on your Facebook or Instagram page? 

 

Please tell me after this podcast you have got yourself your very own business page for your agency or for yourself. 

 

Business page versus a personal page. 

So on your Facebook page or on your Instagram page, check out the stats. See if you can work out (which I know you definitely can) are the people that are there and that are following you, liking your content and engaging with you. 

 

First question is, are they male or female? 

You need to know who you're talking to and who your clients are before you can start promoting anything and before you'll be able to stand out on social media. 

 

1. Are they male or female 
2. Age demographics. I'm not going to be an ageist. I am just asking you to check out who's on your Facebook or Instagram page. Are they male between 20 and 35 or is it a real cross-section? 

 

The statistics that we can get on our social media pages these days are awesome. 

You just need to know where to look. 

And on Instagram, it's super easy on the settings.

 

3.   The country or location where your clients of demographics are. Again, this is really simple to find out, then you need to see what is working or what's not working for the likes and comments. 

 

Instagram recently turned off the amount of likes that people could see, so they don't know whether 4 people have liked an image or 400 people have liked an image. Only you get to see that on the back end, and I don't know whether this is turning people off. I know for myself if I see a post that doesn't have any likes on it, I'm kind of a bit nervous, especially if it’s somebody who I really look up to or a business person that I just go wow, they're amazing!

But then if they've got hundreds of thousands of likes oh my, they may not need mine. So I don't know how this is particularly working just yet, and hopefully, over the next few months, we'll get more insight into the Instagram algorithm regarding this decision. 

 

However, you just need to know from a back end 

What's being liked?

What are the comments on?

When they're working for you or not?

 

Based on this information, male or female, age demographics, the country's or location, and then what's working or not working? You can then determine what sort of trips, travels or experiences that these people may like. 

 

You also need to put yourself out there and go “well, what do I like to talk about?”

What am I passionate about? 

 

If you're not passionate about cruising yet, everybody that is on your pages loves any post that you put on cruising. You may need to think about yourself here and what you want to sell. It may be that those people are following you because you give great content on cruising, so you could test this out a little bit..

 

Knowing the WHO and the what is the best place to start. 

 

It'll certainly help build your following if you have this information down pat, that's step one, 

Knowing who you are talking to. 

 

That is really the foundation to make you stand out on social media. It is crowded. 

 

There are so many people doing so many different things. 

You've got travel bloggers. 

You've got travel agents. 

You've got people that post their own travels. 

 

There is content out there for everyone, so you need to find out how you can stand out. 

2. POSTING RELEVANT CONTENT

You're not going to be everyone's cup of tea, which, unfortunately, as a salesperson, we think is a bit of a bummer, right? 

 

However, remember, you only need a portion of the market. You only need a certain amount of people in order to make your business grow. 

 

So let's get serious about what you want to talk about and who you want to serve and then post what is relevant. As an example, you might really like Viking cruises and how awesome they are with adults only offers and opportunities. 

It won’t appeal to a family of five that has kids and they want the water slides. 

 

So how do you work this out? 

 

You coming back to who's following you and also what you want to talk about Viking cruises is an adults-only, so why would you talk about an adults-only cruise when your clients might be the type that book ahead and want to include the whole family, makes sense, right? 

 

So just post the content that is relevant to the people that you're talking to or the people that you're trying to target. You might have high-end luxury clients that spend $1000 a night on accommodation. You're not necessarily going to sell them a budget motel. 

 

So if those people who your high-end clients are on your social media pages, you need to talk directly to them and promote the boutique properties promote the high-end five-star suites, the absolutely wow properties in the Maldives speaking to your client will make sense when you're actually talking to them in a language and when it comes to the trips that they want. So posting relevant content. 

3. CONSISTENCY

Ghosting. You've heard of this, right? I only heard this term recently. Yeah, yeah, I'm not in the singles market. But you know what I mean when you're talking to someone and they just disappear, this could be a client. 

 

Well, hang on a second. Maybe that tells some of my friends feel when I get distracted by work. Well, you know what I mean. It's consistency. 

You need to be consistent and you need to make a decision. 

 

When it comes to this, are you going to post three times a week? And if you are, what days are you going to do that, then I’d love for you up the ante on this and say, are you going to do a Facebook live on your business page each week? In addition to those three posts or on INSTAGRAM TV. 

 

If you are, you do need to stay consistent and you have to do this each week. It may feel like initially that people aren't watching or viewing these videos, but I can assure you that they are.

 

A little side note on this, you don't have to be perfect. 

You don't need to have studio quality with amazing back light and your hair done perfectly. And the full makeup on you just need to do it. 

 

Video is the number one platform for anything at the moment and people are consuming more video each day. Did you know that 100 million hours of video is consumed on Facebook each day? What 100 million hours of video. 

 

If you're not doing video, you need to. And on average, the general consumer is going to spend at least 20 minutes a day on Facebook. And if you aren't there, you need to be there. 

 

So what's stopping you? If getting on video is really difficult for you. Please reach out to me by a direct message, email, send me a comment I would love to know so that I can help you through it. 

 

For me, I didn't want to be made up every day. I didn't want to have to do my hair and makeup, and I felt as though for me I needed to be perfect. I was also very worried that people wouldn't be interested in what I had to say. Who was I to give an authority on something I hadn't gone out and been on the Today show or I hadn't had press in The New York Times, But guess what? Your clients and the people who book their travels with you or even the people that don't just yet but are out there, they want to see you. 

 

And they want the real you. 

They want the authentic person. 

They want you to stuff up. 

They want to see the bloopers, and they don't care how you look. 

It doesn't have to be studio quality. They just want to see you. 

The thing with video as well people feel a little bit more connected to you. They feel as though they have a relationship or because they've seen you. There is that connection there. 

 

So I'm really encouraging you Facebook lives or do some little boomerangs or a super video and just put them up on Facebook. If you want to get serious, reach out to me. I've got several tips and I've got lots of tools that you can use so that you can put something together, if that's what you need. So that's step 3 consistency. 

 

Just make a decision on how many times you going to post and then commit to that. 

4. ENGAGEMENT

Okay, so you're there, you're now going to interact with people. 

You've made the decision to post 3 to 5 times a week. 

You know who you're talking to. 

You know what you need to post. 

 

This is where the algorithms kicking in on all of the platforms Facebook and Instagram. You never know what they're going to do, but what they do love is the real you. And they love interaction, engagement and consistency. 

 

So what is engagement? It's the comments. The likes, the interactions that you're responding to people in a timely manner. But they're also reaching out to you and you're engaging with them. 

 

So the more that you do this in a real way, and when I say in a real way, I'm talking, don't be spammy like you don't need to go on to a suppliers page and go ‘That's awesome’ or ‘great shocks’ because that's another part of the algorithm that the Instagram and Facebook they think you're a robot, right? So they call them bots and they think you're a robot. 

 

But if you're engaging in a real or authentic way, you will be seen more and you'll show up more on people's feeds. So things like responding to a supplier or hotels post and tagging in some clients, saying this would be an incredible destination for you or have you thought about going to this place? 

 

So and so, the more that you are interacting and engaging

the more you're going to be seen.

5. THE 80/20 RULE

I see this all the time, you guys know that I don't like sales, sales, sales and sales and I see people on Instagram and on Facebook that have post after post after post, which is all a sale. There is no other content there other than ‘Hey, we've got this special deal’ or ‘Hey, this has just launched or ‘this is new and it's at a great price’. 

 

It's just selling, selling, selling and on Facebook, Instagram and social media. It's almost like the junk mail that we get in our post box. 

 

You know, the ones, the furniture store, all of the grocery stores that just have the weekly sales. And it goes into your letterbox each day or each week, and it's just sales. It's not content. 

 

Don't be like that unless your audience wants this and they respond to you about it. I recommend providing value. 

So what is value?

It’s telling a story. 

Make light of things in travel. As an example, the 80/20 rule right, 80% is content and value, 20% is sales. 

 

How to do this? 

Let's say you're posting six times a week. Make at least four of the posts value and content, sharing things about suppliers, destinations, tips and tricks for traveling. And then just two of those posts for a sale or a deal. So that will build trust with clients. And they're going to say that you're helping them, not just selling or pushing a deal all the time. You are giving them value and content that is relevant to them. 

 

You can make light of things. It could be a funny joke about travel. It could be a meme or a boomerang. As long as you're providing content and value for client, they will see that as an opportunity that you are helping them, and they will then come back to you for the sales. 

 

Those are the 5 tips, right? But I have a number 6 and this is a pro tip, have a plan, be prepared. 

The worst thing is not knowing what to post. 

 

So you just share anything and I know you get me when I say this, you wake up in the morning and something comes, of course, you desk and I'll quickly, I need to put that out there. The other thing is you're away on a trip or you've just returned from a trip and you've got 200 photos, so each post has one photo to it. 

 

Don't be like that. 

Have a plan, be prepared. 

 

You can post multiple photos to one post. Make a description and describe it and then promote it properly. Now, if you want a plan or you want some ideas on how to put one of these together, go to travelagentachievers.com/podcast and sign up for our social media plan. This is something that I've put together with my team to help you put together a plan. It'll give you some ideas on what to promote each day of the month and when to promote them. 

 

You do need to come back to number one working out when your people are online and have a look at your stats. Instagram will tell you whether people are online at 6 a.m. in the morning or 9 p.m. at night, and then you can post accordingly. Have a plan. Be prepared. 

 

Now if you haven't joined our Achievers in Travel Accountability Group, now is the time to do it. We are getting stuff done. We are keeping each other accountable and we have this incredibly powerful group that we're going to check in with each other and make sure that what we want to do moving out business forward is going to happen. 

 

I'm also going to run a very special master class on social media and how to get the most out of it on the 6th of October 2019. 

 

So, mark that time in your calendar now the 6th of October. You don't want to miss it. I do recommend again logging totravelagentachievers.com and join the waitlist for it. 

 

We'll send you emails and the details as those times come out. So that's our very special master class on social media and how to get the most out of it on the 6th of October. 

Grab your social media planner. Let us know what's working for you. What's not working for you if you want a couple of pro tips as well so we talked about having a plan and being prepared in our social media planner. But another thing that you may not know is Linktree. 

It is one like a website say where you can then put a whole bunch of call to actions. 

 

Now on Instagram you can only have one link in your profile that will send people to something. Majority of people will have this as their email address or their business website. But what I'm suggesting to you is that you can get a Linktree link for free and then from that, within that program, just go on to Linktree Google search it will also have it in the show notes. 

 

But you can then have specific things that you can send people to so on your Linktree, you might have to visit my website, download your free something, you might connect with me via email. You can have several different things there, depending if you join a plan or not, but it is giving you access to more than one link that would normally go on instagram, right? 

So that's Linktree. 

 

The second tip that I have for you is Canva. It is about designing images, and it's never been easier. I'm going to link to this in the show notes. 

 

If you haven't heard of it or you don't know how to put together a post and you need some ideas, Canva will help you. 

 

It's a graphic design website app for those that aren’t graphic designers. They have hundreds of thousands of free images that you can use. They have templates. They have everything from designing an A4 flyer through to putting together a social media post that will fit on Instagram and Facebook. 

 

Everybody has different sizings, and Canva will help resize things for you. It is amazing, and it has blown my mind. I've been using Canva now over the last few years just after it launched, and now is the perfect opportunity to jump in and have a look at it. So the link will be on our show notes as well. It's Canva, and we'll have something very special in time for you as well regarding Canva on how we can help you get the most ideal social media using this particular tool.

 

Alrighty, guys, that's it for me 5 tips to stand out on Social Media when it feels so crowded, I can guarantee you guys are going to blow it out of the park. You are going to be ready to be front and center for your clients, and you're going to know exactly what to post when to post it, to be consistent, to build engagement. And you'll have all the information there to make it a huge success for you. 

If you have any questions, please reach out to us. You know that I love to hear from you. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for your subscribes and following and the comments that I get through the podcast and our social media. 

 

Follow us on Facebook or Instagram Travel Agent Achievers. And don't forget, join our accountability group. It is awesome and we are going to have a ton of fun, kicking some goals as we lead in towards the end of the year and prepare for 2020. So that's it from me. 

 

Thanks so much everybody. I look forward to talking to you all again next week. 

 

Announcer: Welcome to Travel Agent Achievers! The place to learn how to grow your travel business and have fun with it. Join Roslyn and her guests as they walk you through proven steps to a fulfilling and profitable business.