Social Media – Can It Help Your Business?
For many caravan & tourist parks, social media is not a subject many want to discuss, considering it a too hard area for marketing your business. However it is important to know that around 70% of travelling nomads are on Facebook and or Instagram. The beauty of Social Media is that it gives you direct contact with your audience and it need not cost you a cent!
Park Talk wants to provide you with some useful tools to get the most out of social media . This is the first in a 3 part series brought to you by Melissa Chambers of All Around Oz
An introduction
Love it or hate it, Social Media is here to stay. There is just no denying that if you own a small business and you do not have some kind of a social media presence, you may be missing out on potential customers.
- Let us look at the facts and figures
Almost 8 in 10 Australians use Social Media – that’s a whopping 78%! - 1 in 2 people check it everyday.
- 59% of people access Social Media every day, up to 5 times a day.
- 71% of users are online during the evening.
- Facebook is no.1 at a huge 94%, followed by Instagram at 46%.
- Social Media isn’t just for the young – 66% of users are aged 50-64.
- 47% of small businesses are on Social Media.
https://www.sensis.com.au/about/our-reports/sensis-social-media-report
What Social Media platforms are there?
There are so many different social media platforms now, that it can become quite confusing to choose the right one for your park. Each one has major differences when it comes to how people interact.
The most common medium is Facebook. A social networking site which allows you to connect with family, friends, workmates and potential customers. On Facebook you can have a personal page, a business page or a group.
- A personal page is just that – a page just for you. Facebook has very good privacy settings so you can choose what you share or what others can see. You can send people you know a friend request and vice versa. As your personal page you can like business pages or join groups that may be of interest to you.
- A business page is a page you set up to help promote your business. This page is public and anyone can see it, like your posts or comment on content that you share. But again you control this. You can set it up how you want it. You will require a personal page to launch a business page.
- A group is like an online club. They usually focus on a particular area of interest such as caravanning or camping. A group can be secret, closed or public. Groups are controlled by an admin and again they can restrict who can see, join or interact with the group. An example of a Group is Friends of Kui parks
Instagram is all about the photos. This is a great app to use if you love taking photos. You can also share short videos. Instagram relies heavily on hashtags, which are then searchable within the app. If you share a photo on Instagram it is easy to share it directly to your Facebook page at the same time.
Pinterest also focusses on images. It allows users to ‘pin’ photos that they like to ‘boards’ so as they can easily find the info next time they are looking for it. The format is focussed on specific subject areas. For example laundry layout, BBQ areas, garden shrubs, vintage caravans – the options are limitless. Pinterest can be a very effective marketing tool if you have the time to put into it. Portrait size images with a brief text heading on them work best for Pinterest.
And many more…
There are many other variants of the three mentioned above, including Snap Chat, Twitter, Linked In, You Tube, What’s App and Tumblr to name just a few. Of these, Linked In and YouTube would be others to look at using for your small business.
So which one should you choose?
If you are not familiar with social media or aren’t a fan, I would recommend at a minimum that you set up a Facebook page for your business. A good Facebook post can be shared dozens and dozens of times, meaning that 1000’s of people could see a post about your business. More and more people are relying on Facebook to find out about places to stay and things to do in an area.
For example, a recent post on the Kui Parks Facebook Page welcoming new owners of Wangaratta Caravan Park to the Kui Parks network had a reach of over 5,600 with a total of 95 likes, shares and comments. That’s lots of sets of eyes on your business!
Next time on Park Talk, I will share my hints and tips for setting up, branding and posting and sharing so you too can run a successful page on Facebook.
Visit All Around Oz
