Establishing Strategic Positioning

The first part of our strategic planning process is research and discovery. During this time, we interview organization leadership, hold a team visit in the case of destinations and attractions, conduct secondary research and host a creative strategy workshop with leadership and stakeholders.

We first started working with tour operator Old Sod Travel on their digital advertising in 2021 as people started returning to travel. During the research and discovery phase, we learned why travelers would want to use their service, what differentiates them from competitors, and what luxury travelers are looking for. The results of this research formed the strategic positioning for the brand:

• Transformational Experiences. Relaying the emotions of travel and connect with the aspiration of planning a trip of a lifetime.
• Authentic Luxury Tours. Guests wake up knowing they’re someplace special and spend the day among the new and different. This is about having cultural immersion within a destination, and soaking in high-end experiences.
• Hand in Hand Planning. Tours are fully customized for each trip, there are no pre-set itineraries. The travel consultants at Old Sod tailor each itinerary to the travelers wants and interests.
• Once, Again. Taking more than one trip of a lifetime. Crossing off multiple bucket list items with the singular experiences Old Sod provides to many destinations.

In addition to positioning themes, every strategy we work on contains strategic insights. Both the insights and strategic positioning form the basis for the key messages and inform the messaging across all channels. With these

What are Strategic Insights?

According to Mercer Island Group, a top agency search firm that works with some of the world’s largest brands, a strategic insight is “a penetrating truth that elevates strategy, enabling highly differentiated tactics.”

Defining a strategic insight starts with collecting research and data points that fit into several focus areas. We pull all that knowledge together through evaluation and analysis to come up with a strategic insight for each focus area. These focus areas typically are brand, consumer, and competition. We’ll sometimes bring in community for a focus area too, as it fits so well with destination marketing.

Using Your Data

Once the data is collected, we look at it to draw conclusions and comparisons about what is there. The data is telling a story, and we want to look at what’s on the page and make sense of it in terms of the focus area it’s in. As we pull these interpretations out of the data, we distill all of the research and work into clear, strategy-driving statements that will lay the foundation for messaging, approach and tactics.

The Overall Strategic Insight

Creating the focus area insights involves going beyond the data on the page, beyond the comparisons and coming to the big-picture truth for each focus area that makes the most sense for your organization. In defining a strategic insight, we look for the point where the insights from the 3-5 focus areas intersect. It is a compelling statement rather than a simple summary. It’s all at once an “ah-ha!” and an “oh! of course!”

Once we reach the strategic insight, it informs the messaging, tactics, approach and much of the rest of the strategy. It is a piece of the strategy that we come back to again and again to keep the marketing pointed in the right direction (the goals).

A Strategic Insights Example

This example comes from our work with Cayuga County, NY on the Harriet Tubman campaign. These brief summaries show a glimpse into the research completed and findings of the competition, product and consumer analyses. Then, you’ll see the corresponding insights and overall positioning statement.

Focus Area: Competition

Three other destinations can claim Harriet Tubman among their residents during her life: Dorchester, Maryland; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; St. Catharine’s, Ontario. Of the three, Maryland has focused most heavily on Tubman in their tourism marketing with both Visit Dorchester and Visit Maryland promoting her prominently on their websites.​ However, the communities don’t seem to embrace Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad story as most of the focus is on the history. 

Competition insight: Cayuga County has the opportunity to tell her story differently by embracing her spirit.

Focus Area: Product

Auburn is surrounded by places known for their part in the equal rights and women’s equal rights movements. Auburn is full of places Harriet visited and frequented along with tributes and sculptures. ​Unlike anywhere else, Auburn is Harriet’s final resting place, her chosen home. It’s where she brought her family, married her husband, owned her own home and land, and spent her time in freedom. Auburn is where she lived as an equal with her neighbors and found community.​

Product insight: Auburn has historically been a leading community in equal rights and still is to this day.​

Focus Area: Consumer

Social justice travel is an upcoming tourism trend. Socially conscious people’s demographics and travel patterns have not been widely studied. However, social justice tours and tour operators have started to pop up. Articles about how to travel in a socially conscious or equitable way are being written. These travelers’ interests overlap with popular travel trends today: conscientious spending, experiential tourism, connecting with nature, togetherness, demand for authenticity, searching for fulfillment. Socially conscious travelers want to learn the history that’s not taught in schools. They want to go deeper and especially show their children the Truth, the history and break stereotypes.

Consumer insight: Socially conscious travelers want to learn the history that’s not taught in schools.

The Overall Insight

Now with our insights identified, we looked at how these insights intersect and where Cayuga County could stand out from the crowd in telling the story of Harriet Tubman in Auburn, New York.

The challenge: How do we promote Cayuga County’s current and historical connections of equal rights to attract visitors?

Overall insight: Welcome visitors to walk in Harriet’s steps to discover their truth in Cayuga County.

The post The Art of Strategic Positioning for Attracting More Visitors appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

According to ABA Foundation (American Bus Association) the most recent statistics (2022) state that in the United States and Canada there were 211.5 million motorcoach passengers. Digging into the census data, we can see that more than 138 million of those passengers were part of charter groups, tour packages, and sightseeing trips. You can use these four strategies for marketing group travel to reach out and grab a piece of that pie.

Get into the Mind of Your Buyer

The travel trade market is a B2B (business to business) sales cycle, so when you are marketing for group travel, it’s important to understand your buyer and their needs. With group tours, you’re not directly selling to consumers, but rather to tour operators who will then promote and sell your destination to their clients. Tour operators need to be comfortable with you and your destination, so they can confidently offer it to their customers. Therefore, nurturing relationships with tour operators becomes crucial in the sales process. 

Connect with Tour Operators at Travel Tradeshows

Travel Tradeshows offer you a ready-made audience of tour operators, sometimes in the hundreds – no need for cold calls! Consider attending key annual North American travel tradeshows, or attending more if you’ve been to one or two.

Tradeshow Tips: 

• Find out who will be attending the tradeshow (this is usually found on the tradeshow website) and then research them. Look for who they are, what type of tours they offer and where they go. These shows typically are appointment-based and you request who you want to meet with.
• Reach out to the tour operators prior to the tradeshow introducing yourself and asking if there is any specific information you can bring for them when you meet.
• During the tradeshow be sure to take detailed notes on each tour operator you meet.
• Remember – tour operators are counting on travel destinations to help them be successful in their business.  They have a need and you have the answer – make sure they know it!

Follow Up with Your Tour Operator Contacts

Follow-up is always important, but even more so when you attend a large trade show with short appointment times where you are only scratching the surface of what you have to offer. There are several ways you can follow up and make the most of your new contacts:

• Follow Up Email. Send a follow up thank you email and additional information after the tradeshow. This is where the selling often begins.
• Mail Information.  Sometimes good old-fashioned snail mail is the best way to get your information in the hands of your audience. Send a nice presentation folder with general material and any specific information they are interested in based on the conversation you had. If the tour operator requests information to be sent only via email, make sure you have the same information in digital form.
• Phone call.  That’s right – actually pick up the phone and make a call! Even if it’s just to say, “Hi, I mailed you something and want to make sure you received it.” Take the time to call and say hello.
• Keep notes.  Through this entire process, document in a sales database where you are in the sales cycle with each tour operator you are communicating with.
• Follow up again!  Even if you don’t get a booking immediately, continue to take the time to follow up with your prospects. This can be through mass communications, like email newsletters, but remember to keep personal touch points. You can also take advantage of the time of year. The holiday season is a great time to say thank you and remind them what you have to offer.

The Best Way to Sell Your Destination to Tour Operators

The most effective way to sell your destination to tour operators is to give them a chance to experience it for themselves, on a FAM tour (familiarization tour). FAMs can be done as a group or individually. This is a great way to show firsthand all the assets of your destination while also having the opportunity to spend more time together and build your relationship. Here are some tips for hosting tour operators on FAMs.

• Make sure to qualify the tour operator as a prospective buyer, and then invite them on a FAM.
• Include a survey at the end of the FAM to have a clear understanding of the tour operator’s perspective.
• After the FAM, contact the tour operator and offer to prepare a customized itinerary based on their specific needs or offerings they want to provide to their customers.

Read more tips for creating a successful FAM

Remember – tour operators are counting on destinations to help them be successful in their business.  They have a need and you have the answer – make sure they know it, and your hard work in marketing for group travel will pay off when those buses pull up to the curb.

The post Marketing for Group Travel: Building Solid Relationships with Tour Operators appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

1. Research & Discovery

“Research is creating new knowledge.” – Neil Armstrong

Review research from your own organization (if it is available), local, regional and state tourism offices, and relevant industry associations. Here are links to research organizations we reference regularly:

• Destination Analysts
• Family Travel Association
• Longwoods International
• MMGY Global
• NYS Tourism Economics Reports
• U.S. Travel Association

When you approach research, collect everything you find into a folder and then as you comb through it, look for common themes or high-level findings that relate to the goals you are trying to achieve with your marketing plans. Approach this as a learning experience and see what floats to the top.

2. Situational Analysis

In order to plan for the future, you need to recognize where you are today. Take a step back from thinking about next year and focus on the insights you already know.

What are the key attributes of your brand? What types of visitors do you attract? Who is your competition? What is the brand experience of your destination? What trends are you seeing in the travel and tourism industry? Use your data and research as much you can as you explore the answers to these questions.

When summarizing your findings and writing your situational analysis, answer these questions: What is the one truth that can elevate my brand? What makes our brand relevant and differentiating?

Case Study: This campaign used the PESO model to develop a holistic approach to marketing, driving visitation, and hotel occupancy within a destination.

3. Setting Goals & Objectives

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” – Tony Robbins

Start your travel and tourism marketing strategy plan by answering this question: What are the top 3-5 goals that you want to accomplish in the new year? Try using the SMART goal format – make your goals specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based.

• S: Increasing visitation from 400,000 to 450,000 annually is an example of a specific goal.
• M: Goals should be measurable – increasing brand awareness is not measurable. Adding a qualifier such as increasing intent to visit of our target audience by 25%, can be measured before and after a campaign.
• A: They should be attainable; having a lofty stretch goal is good and motivating but in your one-year plan focus on what is practical and attainable. Be sure to consider the additional resources you have available to positively impact your goal.
• R: Your goal needs to be relevant – make sure your goals relate to current industry trends and what is happening economically.
• T: Finally, goals should be time-based – they need a timeline associated with them.

4. Target Audience & Strategy

It is important to know who your audience is when formulating your plans. You may have several audiences or target markets and understanding each one is a must for creating a successful tourism marketing plan. The more specific you are with understanding your audience, the easier it will be to craft your tactical plans and key messages to reach your target.

I explored this topic in-depth with Susan Baier on episode 96 of my podcast, Destination on the Left. In that episode, Susan talked about getting beyond the who, what and where of your audience and getting into the why. She sees the “why” as the most important piece of understanding your customer. It provides the insight needed to tailor communications to speak to them. Take time to think about the audiences you want to reach without thinking about their demographics. Think instead about what they are looking for and what they might find appealing about your brand and why.

Write down your target audiences and then ask yourself, are these targets too general? If you take away the demographics, how would you describe these audiences? Do any ideas come to mind on how you might reach each of them differently?

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well, the product or service fits them and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker

We teamed up with Susan Baier and her team, Audience Audit, to research and statistically find out what makes collaborations successful and how important they will be in helping the recovery of tourism. Download a free copy of our Executive Summary to find out the results.

Key Messages

It is important to remember that one message does not fit all. For each audience think about what is most relevant to them. What messages will pique their interest or motivate them to interact with your brand? Does the targeted audience care about what you have to say? Will they be better off for having the knowledge that you are sharing? How will this knowledge help meet your marketing objectives?

In the simplest way, put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Think through how they might perceive your message. You want to make sure there is something in it for them.

Next, consider if your message is timely. Consider where your target customer is in the buying journey and what they need to know at that time. For a travel destination, if the buyer is in the dreaming phase, they are most interested in inspirational messages that appeal to their emotions. If they are in the planning phase, they need more specific information like where to stay, eat and things to do. You can craft the best message for the audience but if it is delivered at the wrong time, it will fall on deaf ears.  Thinking through the timing and hitting the timing right makes the difference between marketing success and failure.

Write down key messages for each of your target audiences. To help get you started, think about where they are in the buyer’s journey. Is there a problem you can help them solve? Are there questions you can help answer?

“Effective, stand-out content is both business-centric and customer-aware.” – Nick Westergaard, author, Brand Now

5. Tactical Plan

A tactical plan is your actionable marketing plan. These are the tasks; the detailed action plan that includes timing and details of all major steps.  Tactics could include collateral, digital marketing, social media, websites, public relations, and trade shows. They can also include conferences, email marketing, word of mouth, direct sales, and lead generation. These are all the things that you will do in order to accomplish your objectives. This section includes a tactical implementation strategy, timeline and budget.

Start your tactical plan as a bulleted list of tactics that will support each marketing objective and reach the identified target audience. Next identify the resources needed to execute each tactic (time and money). With your bulleted list, you can dive deeper into each tactic by expanding on how you will effectively execute on it. This could be a full-blown PR plan with its own set of objectives, strategies, tactics and timelines. It could be a social media calendar identifying key messages, posting times and channels, or it could be a content marketing plan detailing out how you will produce and distribute content across multiple channels. The important thing to focus on in this section is identifying the tactics that will get you to those goals and then following through with a detailed plan of how you will implement each tactic.

This section needs to include your marketing budget with a detailed budget for each tactic. Be realistic with the amount of tactics and your timeline. A solid travel and tourism marketing strategy plan is one that clearly identifies the objectives, strategies and tactics and includes the resources to get it done!

6. Measurement

After building your tactical plan, include how you will measure the effectiveness of the tactic. By pulling together key numbers monthly, our team and and clients have the ability to accurately inform stakeholders on current statistics, identify trends, provide a benchmark for success & growth as well as inform campaign adjustments and course-corrections as needed.

Examples of metrics that you might use include:

• Reach
• Impressions
• Website traffic
• Followers and follower growth rate
• Email opens and click rates
• Social media reactions, comments and shares
• Media placements
• Actions taken such as sales conversions, downloads and newsletter sign-ups.

7. Action Plan

Plan out the full year, month by month, detailing which tactics will take place when. Some tactics might be ongoing and happen every month such as social media or email marketing. Other tactics might occur only during certain times of year based on the seasonality of your brand or timing of a trade show. The more detail you can put into your timeline the more likely you will be to stay on track with your plan.

Remember this is a living and breathing document, it’s not written in stone and it can easily be changed and adapted as you move through the year. Just having the plan is a huge step in helping you to achieve your goals in the new year.

“Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Want more guidance on creating your own travel and tourism marketing strategy? Download our 7 Step Strategic Planning Guide in the sidebar, or access it from our resource library.

The post Creating Your Travel and Tourism Marketing Strategy and Plan appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

Experiences Attract 

It’s all about the experience. Tourism marketers have known that visitors are looking for experiences that they can’t have anywhere else. They want to know what the options are, how to best enjoy them and when they are available. The same goes for people looking to relocate. They are evaluating a potential new community based on what it has to offer and how closely those experiences align with their personal interests. In order to draw in new residents, you should take inventory of the assets that your community has. Next, you should package those offerings in a compelling way.

It didn’t take a pandemic for Southern Idaho to realize the importance of aligning tourism assets as economic development and talent attraction assets. Hear how this community built collaborations to support talent and business attraction in partnership with the tourism office by listening to Episode 117 of Destination on the Left.  

Destination Brand and Storytelling 

Understanding your community’s brand and telling an authentic story about your destination are important strategies. These strategies can help draw tourists to even the smallest destinations. The same brand and story that works for visitors will resonate with potential residents as well. People want to live somewhere with a strong sense of community. They want a place where they feel they belong, and somewhere they would be proud to call home. A consistent brand, including the tone and voice of that brand, can convey these feelings of connection.

Discover Cleveland saw this connection a few years ago when they launched a pilot campaign designed to encourage expatriates to return to Cleveland for a better lifestyle. In my podcast interview with David Gilbert, President and CEO of Greater Cleveland Sports Commission and Destination Cleveland, he shared the initiative his organization was launching. The initiative aims to harness the power of visitors to help generate economic development. David referred to the one million visitors that Cleveland sees each year as “first dates.” He noted they are the best opportunity for conversion into future students, business opportunities or residents. Hear the full interview in Episode 128 of Destination on the Left. 

Local Ambassadors 

Local residents, business owners and frontline staff are the best salespeople for any community. These folks provide first-hand testimonials about what it’s like to live in your community. In fact, they often represent the fabric of that community. Tourism marketers know that visitors are looking to “live like the locals,” when experiencing a destination. There has been a trend for more authentic experiences and off-the-beaten-path attractions. These curiosities with a pull towards deeper exploration will serve a community well when trying to attract new residents, talent and future businesses. These are the elements that set a community apart when someone is looking for a new place to call home.  

Judy McKinney Cherry, Executive Director of the Schuyler County Partnership for Economic Development, knows the importance of tourism to the fabric of her community. On episode 207 of Destination on the Left, she describes the industry as an important economic driver for every community. Additionally, she explains that building relationships with visitors can lead to deeper connections and growth opportunities.  

Partnering with Economic Development Offices 

The importance of tourism as an economic driver for communities became apparent in 2020 when most travel came to a halt. During these times, we noticed destination marketing organizations stepping up to the plate in new ways to support their communities. Many partnered with local economic development agencies to support local businesses through the challenging year. Others became the communications conduit for everything from where to get take-out to virtual experiences to re-opening guidelines and protocols. These organizations and new collaborations proved the power of what is possible when everyone works together. As our industry navigates the future, my hope is that the lessons learned and partnerships formed during the pandemic help build stronger communities for the future. This includes tapping into the power of tourism marketing for talent attraction.  

One of my favorite examples of what is possible can be seen in the collaboration between the Finger Lakes Visitors Connection and the Ontario County Economic Development Office.

The post Applying Tourism Marketing Strategies to Talent Attraction  appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

Our second-ever Destination on the Left Virtual Summit kicked off in April 2020 with 12 amazing presenters and three full days of content focused around digital marketing, travel trade and niche marketing within the tourism industry. The topics ranged from food tourism to family travel – but more than that, our presenters tailored many of their topics to focus on necessary shifts that destinations and tourism marketers should be making during the COVID-19 pandemic and what to expect in our “new normal” post-pandemic to prepare for tourism recovery.

There is so much knowledge to be gained from these expert tourism professionals. So we’re rounding up key points they made and the takeaways you can focus on now and in the near future.

Adapt experiences

Right now is a great time to get innovative and prepare by building your community and establishing brand trust within the digital world – Jennifer Barbee, Destination Innovate

Within this pandemic, Barbee notes, we are living in an entirely new digital civilization. The standard digital marketing that we are used to – focusing on a heavy sales message, pushing for overnights and conversions – cannot be the norm. Instead, this time should be about discovery, mentally planning for future trips and learning about new destinations, attractions and resorts. She encourages destinations to think now about experiences that they can offer online (like virtual museum tours or video content) and also about new in-person experiences that they can develop for the future. Online, tourism marketers need to focus their efforts on building a community, engaging with their potential customers and establishing a more personal connection with their target audience. She also suggests the use of Facebook groups as a great way to encourage consumers to authentically engage with your travel brand.

Start a tourism recovery plan

At no time has the economic value of travel and tourism been so clearly seen in local communities – Andria Godfrey, ADARA

The folks at ADARA have been measuring travel sentiment and impact since the COVID-19 pandemic first began in China. They even have a resource center on their website that is updated daily with new travel data. Godfrey notes that these data points lead us to believe that local and regional travel – drive market travel – will be more important than ever as we come out of the pandemic, and that now is the time to prepare. She advises destinations to begin creating a recovery plan and outline steps for a swift rebound, keeping an eye on inflection points to get ahead of the curve as travelers eventually pivot back to hotel overnights and air travel.

Destinations should also consider

• What new drive markets can make the most impact in the short-term
• Looking at seasonality changes as school dates shift and families plan for missed travel over spring break
• Preparing for action in what will quickly become a cluttered marketplace

She advises including stakeholders and partners in a recovery plan and setting measurable goals together, as destinations communicate the value of the DMO as part of community economic recovery efforts.

Hone group travel strategies

The group tour market can take between one and three years to generate consistent business. Now is the time to make a plan. – Sally Berry, Bristol Creek Tourism Consulting

Breaking into the travel trade and group tour market is all about playing a long game, so Berry notes that now is a great time for destinations to create a plan for success and educate themselves about becoming group tour ready. Start by developing a strategy for entering this space that includes:

• A presence at trade shows
• Dedicated outreach to operators and sales calls
• Development of a standard operating procedure (SOP) for staff that will untimely interact with group tours
• A method for tracking group tour specific visitors.

Destinations new to the group market can use this time to educate themselves on popular travel trade lingo, explore tools that are commonly used in the group space (like WeChat) and pick up tips on attracting and booking group tours. This is also a great time to create (or update) tour-specific materials like a profile sheet or brochure, a landing page on the destination’s website and integrate group readiness into an online social media presence.

Engage consumers

If every destination goes to market with “something for everyone” then nothing you have ends up mattering. The narrower your focus, the broader your appeal. – Josiah Brown, The New York Sherpa

After talking to more than 10,000 consumers each year, Brown has reshaped his travel views into a true consumer-first perspective. Often, destinations fall into the trap of marketing in the way they are funded, the way memberships or stakeholders are structured, or by the geography of their region or state. But for consumers, their attention is on location (distance + proximity to major attractions) and the destination’s alignment with personal interests like hiking or craft beverage. Brown encourages destinations to take this time to consider their unique positioning and “be famous for something.” Put a stake in the ground and talk about it on their website and Instagram through direct recommendations and attention-grabbing images. He advises marketers to steer clear of posting “well designed ads” and instead look at the best ways to engage with consumers. As consumers begin to look at planning future trips, they are less likely to put their time or money at risk when traveling, instead considering locations that are famous for something they truly care about.

Prepare health & safety messages and plans

Messaging will need to change in the tourism industry – at least in the short-term – to communicate safety, intimacy and storytelling. – Erik Wolf, World Food Travel

Post-pandemic, Wolf predicts a sudden demand for travel as pent-up consumers begin to re-emerge from their homes. But in order to capture interest immediately, destinations will need to change up their messaging and start planning for a more cautious type of traveler. There will be more need to communicate health and safety measures, in particular to ensure visitors feel safe at various attractions, restaurants, tours or even getting back on an airplane for the first time. Smaller group activities are also more likely to occur, so destinations should consider limiting measures – taking large group experiences down to four or six people instead of the regular 12 or 15. Wolf also encourages marketers to consider and communicate the “why” of a visit or tour, stating “people will be desperate to experience other people again.” He instead encourages destinations to make a real move towards storytelling – giving the stories and faces behind the scenes – instead of just the features of the tour itself.

Tell your story

People don’t buy your product. They buy your story. Invest time and energy into thinking about what that story is. – Glenn Clark, Crafting a Brand

Echoing the sentiments of a few other sessions, Clark dives into branding and storytelling and talks about how important it is now for destinations and attractions to sell their unique story to customers, not just the product they offer. Now is the time for marketers to take a step back and think about the true attractors that drive visitors to select their destination, stay at an accommodation, or dine at a restaurant. He advises tourism professionals to think beyond the sales angle and dive into the who and how – how did your business get started, what makes it different, who are the faces behind the counter, has someone famous visited or stayed there? Without a story, your destination is just another on the list, another bottle of wine, another bed to sleep in.

Keep learning

The April Destination on the Left Virtual Summit came during a time of great change for our nation and our world. But the lessons learned are important keys to helping marketers navigate that change and come out of this pandemic with a strategy, a plan to move forward and the tools to make an impact and stand out in the crowd.

All of our Virtual Summit presentations are available for free until April 30, 2020. Register to view them all at: https://breaktheicemedia.com/podcast/summit/.

Break the Ice Media is also offering a new online course called “Strategic Marketing Planning for Post-Pandemic Recovery.” We’ll take you through the specific steps we use at BTI to create strategic marketing plans for our clients, built out as a 7-week course complete with resources and homework assignments meant to guide you through our process. Sign up today to continue learning and add new skills to your marketing toolkit for tourism recovery!

The post 6 Strategies to Prepare for Tourism Recovery appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

Facebook

Of all the platforms, Facebook arguably has the most in-depth analytics and measurement capability. This comes from Facebook’s sheer power to track people both within its platform and outside. However, this amount of data can be overwhelming, and it can be difficult to sort through and find the analytics that are most relevant to you. Find your Facebook measurements by visiting your page and clicking on the Insights tab at the top, and you can also export them to an Excel sheet. A few key metrics:

• Total reach: The number of unique users who have seen any content associated with your Page.
• Reach of Page Posts: The number of unique users who saw any of your Page posts.
• Total Impressions: The number of impressions seen of any content associated with your Page. (Total Count)

Facebook also breaks their analytics down by daily, weekly, and 28-day, depending on what you’re looking for. When I’m looking at Facebook analytics, it’s usually for a monthly report, so I’ll focus on their daily analytics to get a complete picture for the month. If you’re making a summary of your year, Facebook limits how much you can download at one time. The maximum is around 3 months, so download a set of data for each quarter. I still recommend looking at the daily column of the analytics here.

Facebook reports on everything and anything, so take 30 minutes to download a report and familiarize yourself with all the measurements they provide. From obvious numbers, like page likes, to more niche analytics like total check-ins from a mobile device. Your analytical needs will vary based on your organizational needs, and even month to month.

Twitter

Of all the social media measurements, Twitter’s are the easiest to understand at a glance. Twitter has an analytics homepage that allows you to quickly see key measurements, like top tweets and number of mentions in one month. However, Twitter is also the only platform that makes you choose to enable analytics- so make sure you do! If you haven’t yet, now is the time to turn these on and have them for the future.

Twitter also allows you to break down further into each month and see analytics for individual tweets, audiences, and more. For smaller accounts, the home page analytics are sufficient.

Instagram

Instagram is the newest platform to analytics (on this list). Facebook revamped the analytics after taking over the platform, and it’s still a work in progress. In order to access the analytics, make sure your Instagram has been converted to a business account. Not sure how? Follow these steps to convert your regular Instagram profile to a business account.

Instagram builds analytics over a 28-day period, with changes from the last seven days. Due to the mobile nature of Instagram, this is a static view and the dates currently can’t be changed, which means that Instagram analytics fluctuate every day. Yes, this can be as frustrating as it sounds. In the future, Instagram may update to be able to show analytics from specific time frames, but that’s currently not that case. This doesn’t make the numbers less valid or inaccurate, but if you’re looking at a specific time frame, there’s no procrastinating.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a great platform for travel and tourism organizations, but their analytics are difficult to navigate. The analytics home page shows some measurements, but for the most part it’s a jumping off point. Rather than having everything in one place, Pinterest allows you to explore analytics in three main tabs (with subtabs) and you can customize the date range you’re viewing. The main categories:

1. Your Pinterest Profile
2. People You Reach
3. Activity from Your Site

While Pinterest’s analytics aren’t the easiest social media measurement to access, the information they have is well worth the dive.

Google Analytics

While Google isn’t, strictly speaking, a social media platform, the analytics they provide on your website can help formulate your marketing and public relations plans in 2018 and beyond. Google can tell you more about your website audience than almost any other source, and that can give you insight to your social media as well. Is your Facebook referring people to your site? Is there a disconnect between the people on your site and the people on your social media? Tracking analytics from your site can help make sure your social media audience aligns with your overall marketing goals. Google Analytics has a lot of information, and like Facebook, it can be overwhelming. Remember to adjust your date range!

Start with these sections:

1. Audience
   • Number of Sessions
   • Users
   • Pageviews
   • Pages per Session
   • Average Session Duration
   • Bounce Rate (under 30% is ideal)
   • New vs. Returning Visitors
   • If you haven’t yet, enable the demographic section
2. Acquisition
   • Acquisition channels
   • Referral sources
3. Behavior
   • Under “Site Content,” look at Landing Pages
   • Site Speed
   • Bonus! Check out the Behavior Flow chart to see how people move through your site

Applying Measurement to 2018 & Beyond

Tracking social media measurement and analytics from your website can help make sure your social media audience aligns with your overall marketing goals.

Building in goals for your channels can help give structure and regular checkpoints. Some of our clients prefer a monthly social media report to track growth and engagement. Others prefer quarterly reports, or reports after large events or projects. Such reports can be useful for building a case to put more money behind social media, assess your efforts and build a strategy for moving forward. Regular checkpoints also make end-of-year reports easier, since the data is already organized.

What should your goals be? Take stock of your channels as they are, and note the changes from the last 12 months. Keeping your social media strategy and budget in mind, set reasonable growth goals. Are you focused more on organic growth, or can you put money behind ads? Are you looking for more followers, or do you want more engagement with the ones you have now? Would simply posting more often be a better solution than running ads?

Don’t set yourself up for disappointment. If you currently have 1,200 likes on Facebook, getting to 5,000 likes by the end of the year isn’t reasonable without an aggressive paid campaign. Engagement on your page won’t suddenly skyrocket, and people won’t be inspired to write a review out of nowhere. Be realistic in setting your goals, and keep in mind that growth won’t happen unless your fans believe your content is valuable. Don’t sacrifice quality content for quantity of followers!

However, you can use your analytics to see what type of content your followers are looking for. Which posts, tweets and pins received the most engagement? What do they have in common? Look at the content that wasn’t as powerful – and what could be changed. Is the photo appealing? Could the post be phrased differently? Was the time or day it was posted less than ideal? Take stock of what did well and what your followers weren’t as fond of. How can you expand on the popular posts? What do they have in common? Use analytics to build that knowledge into your 2018 strategy.

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