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How to Leverage Social Media for Your Travel Business · GowayPro Travel Tales

• 0:03
  Hey there everyone, I'm Don, Professor Goethe and welcome to the GoethePro Travel Tale podcast.
• 0:08
  Travel far and travel often.
• 0:20
  Hey there everyone, I'm Don Professor Goway and welcome to the GowayPro Travel Tale podcast.
• 0:26
  Here from expert guests, including conservationists, explorers, tourism professionals and everyday globetrotters to discover fascinating stories in the world of travel and be
• 0:35
  inspired to travel far and to travel often.
• 0:38
  Listen and subscribe to GowayPro Travel Tales on your podcast app of choice or check out episodes on the GowayPro YouTube channel for video podcasts plus other exciting content on
• 0:48
  the world of travel with Goway.
• 0:50
  Inspire motivate and educate write your own travel tale go a pro travel tale podcast today I'd like to welcome Michaela Q and I got it right.
• 1:00
  Yeah I got right.
• 1:02
  I wish you had a technical glitch and we had to restart and I am Clarifying Michaela's surname earlier on we got it.
• 1:10
  So Go away prior to Michaela joining us had a social media presence, but it
• 1:19
  functional, let's say, or very good or very robust.
• 1:21
  Let's put it that way.
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  It was robust.
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  We put a lot of work in, it wasn't robust.
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  We weren't the experts and Michaela is an expert.
• 1:28
  So what we like to do before we get going into our podcast is to get to know our guests a little bit better.
• 1:34
  So Michaela, can you tell us about your life before GoA and why social media is your thing now?
• 1:41
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:43
  So I'd
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  Basically, my social media career has been my entire career.
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  I have always loved social media.
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  I kind of like grew up with it in a sense.
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  In high school, for example, I had a fashion blog and it's called the Pink Life, which I do on the side in addition to go away.
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  I just want to interject there for those who are watching the video version of this, you'll see Michaela is in pink.
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  And this is not for today.
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  This is every day.
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  So you want to up your phone cover as well?
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  Yep, I've got pink.
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  Everything.
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  So the Kaila is also known as the lady in pink around go away.
• 2:18
  yes.
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  Yes, I love it.
• 2:20
  no.
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  All good.
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  All good.
• 2:22
  Yeah.
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  So I've always loved social, always been very involved in it.
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  I basically have always worked in a social role within marketing.
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  So I've worked for many different industries, I guess, started in like fashion, beauty, moved to even like finance,
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  My position before GoWay was working for a private lending software company doing social media, was definitely a huge learning opportunity, but great in that I can still apply my
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  skills with social to basically any industry.
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  So yeah, it's always been like a really, I guess, like passion of mine to create content.
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  So social kind of embodies everything that I love doing.
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  So that includes
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  Writing, storytelling, photography, video, editing videos, anything like that.
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  So yeah, it's always been fun for me.
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  Right.
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  So again, for those who are watching our video version of this, you'll see an age difference between us.
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  And the reason I bring that up is for me, the web and social media was not a thing and then became a thing.
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  But I'm making an assumption here for Michaela that probably you grew up with it.
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  So is that one reason you think you were attracted to it?
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  Because it was part of your social
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  or cultural world as such, the fabric of your youth?
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  I would say it definitely played a role for sure with me growing up with it.
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  I'd say, for example, Instagram would have launched when I was in high school.
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  So it was still a newer -ish thing.
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  And it definitely
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  my career goal, guess, to work in social media, but I knew that I loved it.
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  I knew I was a very creative person.
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  So it wasn't probably until I went to college for fashion marketing.
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  That was when I was introduced to the idea of social media for businesses and that actually being like part of a marketing role, like a job title.
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  That was kind of when I learned all about it and through like internships and stuff like that, being able to actually learn how social and creating content helps businesses.
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  It was really fun for me and kind of, yeah, introduced me to the whole world of it.
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  So what made you or had you look at this as a structured career versus what is very common these days, people who pick up the skills and become for want of a better term an
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  influencer and they do
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  themselves.
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  you could quite easily with your fashion side particularly, which you still run, what was it called?
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  The Pink Life.
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  There you go, cross promotion.
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  You could quite easily have gone off or do that solely and wholly like a lot of people do and I'm learning through TikTok and everyone else.
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  Again, like everything in this day and age is click this, earn some dollars here through everything else.
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  So what sort of steered you towards, again, this is my choice of word, a structured social media career?
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  It's a great question.
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  for me, think just maybe personality wise, I love being able to work in a team and a collaborative environment.
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  So working somewhere like go away with amazing people.
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  It just makes me, I guess, very excited to get up and do my job every single day.
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  So I love that versus like if I was doing my content creation on the side full time, I would be a very solo job.
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  It'd be a very
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  isolated work from home kind of thing.
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  Not to say that I wouldn't collaborate as well with other brands and stuff like that, but it would definitely be more isolating for me.
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  I also am a person who loves routine structure and staying super organized.
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  So working at GoWay, being able to, I guess, of like learn in a different industry.
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  So travel versus fashion and beauty.
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  I love to be able to, I guess, dive into that, learn new things and really embrace my, I guess, structure and routine here.
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  With all of the organization that I do with our socials.
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  Okay, so you mentioned in that answer there are a things which probably answer this question So your last job, I think you mentioned was in the finance world.
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  That's correct Yes, but you did fashion at university still do a fashion thing on the side So other than us placing the ad what attracted you to go away was it the world of travel?
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  Absolutely.
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  So for me, I feel like
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  especially knowing where I had come from before, with it being a little bit more of like a dry topic, harder to put a spin on it and make it fun and exciting.
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  I knew that like my creativity had so much more opportunities, so I wanted to go somewhere where I could really let that shine.
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  So travel, there's so much content opportunities and so many, sorry, and it's just like so it's so much more like exciting and fun, I guess.
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  And it also very much complements what I'm doing on the side and it's not competitive at all, which I liked.
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  So like travel and then I get to still do like fashion and video on the side So it's just kind of like the best of both worlds and really I guess ties in all my own like personal
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  interests and things that I find exciting Right, and I guess one key thing there as well You'll discover as we keep talking is travel offers so much variation in content.
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  You're not talking about the same thing Exactly, there are endless ideas.
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  fashion's pretty varied as well.
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  But yeah, so let's go back to finance.
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  That's gonna be pretty That is exactly where travel's got their roots.
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  I mentioned the generational differences between us and how I came into this, you grew up in it.
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  For those that are out there who may be a bit nervous about social media, as I've learned, you shouldn't be.
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  There's a lot to learn like anything.
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  It's gone from just the original Facebook is sharing stories to it being a marketing machine, a advertising machine at all levels.
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  So I coach a women's rugby team and I'm often...
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  Educated I do air quotes for those listening and not seeing About social media platforms and when I mentioned Facebook my younger place.
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  that done that so old people old person type thing so of All the media platforms out there do they all offer equal?
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  Opportunities do they offer equal market share?
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  Which I guess what I'm saying is which ones should a travel agent focus
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  getting into it or expanding from.
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  Absolutely.
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  So I would say in terms of popularity, market share, also where people are, you know, maybe most likely going to be looking for travel.
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  It's a very like visual immersive kind of thing that you want to get someone inspired by.
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  So think a lot of visual content and that's where I
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  probably Instagram and Facebook are gonna be your best bets there.
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  Very popular platforms and they're owned by the same company Metta.
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  And I, like, I guess if you were to start out, I would probably start with those as your main platforms.
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  If you wanted to dive into say like long form video and really get some business that way, YouTube is a great option to really get those leads in.
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  If you're looking to dive into long form content, is a little bit more time consuming to create.
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  and requires, I think, little bit more maybe like technical skill.
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  But yeah, Instagram and Facebook are definitely a great, easy starting point as a beginner, and I definitely recommend them.
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  However, TikTok, for example, I know there's lots of buzz about it being, you know, for a younger generation, there's lots of young kids on there and stuff like that.
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  Depending on who you're looking to reach, I still think that you can reach whoever your target audience is, even if it is on TikTok.
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  Because for example, I was telling Dawn earlier, my mom is even on TikTok.
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  so even in her age range in her 50s, she is also on there.
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  So really you could like anyone in any range is going to be on, for example, like TikTok, YouTube.
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  And it's all about creating that content that's going to resonate with your end key audience, I guess, individual that you're going after.
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  And yeah, what resonates with them, what kind of content they're consuming, how they're using the platform and yeah, just how to best reach them.
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  So in summary, like I guess the big four, though there are many others and that'd be getting down into rabbit hole.
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  So the big four will be Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
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  yeah, yeah.
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  Sorry, just as a beginner, I would say don't try to do all of them at once.
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  I would recommend you stick to one or two to start with.
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  For example, putting like 80 % of your efforts into Instagram while the other 20 % into Facebook.
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  You never know exactly who I guess you'll come across with your social media.
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  The whole point of social is you're basically casting a wide net.
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  It's a very good awareness tool, brand awareness.
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  And think of it like a funnel.
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  If you're trying to get your clients into a funnel and get them down to that last point where they make the sale, social is at the very top, the very wide part of it.
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  So that is the very first thing, I guess, in terms of just making sure that people are aware of what you're doing and your services and what you have to offer.
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  So think of it that way.
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  Now I've learned by speaking to Michaela and seeing the output that she has, because the way it's structured here at GoWays, I generally do, I guess, what you said, the long form
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  and the key word you just told me, evergreen.
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  product which has a longer shelf life.
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  It's not going to last forever, but it will last longer than social media content, which is my point in that speaking to Michaela, understanding the amount of work that goes into
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  it is that it's to get not repetitive, but it's got to be constant.
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  That's correct.
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  Consistency is something.
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  My podcast and this will have a long shelf life or longer shelf life.
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  Whereas Michaela's stuff will have a shelf life of a day, maybe two before we replace it ourselves or someone else comes over the top of us.
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  So I guess the key aspect to that is you have to be consistent with your messaging, correct?
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  That's correct, yes.
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  Being consistent, I'd say, is probably the number one important thing, one of the number one important things when it comes to social.
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  So having that organization, having a content calendar where you are committing to, whether it's even starting with posting once a week and outlining when are you going to
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  brainstorm that content
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  create the ideas for your calendar?
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  When are you going to actually create the content that those ideas hold?
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  And then when are you going to publish that content?
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  So being consistent is so important, know, continuing to be top of mind, making sure you're reaching new people all the time constantly, as well as feeding and nurturing your
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  current audience.
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  So it's very important.
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  with all that you just mentioned, and you've mentioned some of your other answers before, are skills that are important.
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  things like photography, videography, content writing.
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  But I guess the most, so they're all important, but the one you keep coming back to probably unintentionally is being organized.
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  That's correct.
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  So of all those, let's go, let's photo video content for the most part, and then organizational skills, which comes first.
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  I would definitely say organization.
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  Even if you literally have no photography, video editing,
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  skills, even copywriting, I would say that's the least of your worries.
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  You can learn that, you can get into that.
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  There are tools to help that make that easier for you.
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  But yeah, the organization piece and just like the commitment to being consistent as I keep saying, is really, really important for social media.
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  think that that's key because I've learned that again, my stuff is bigger in length and shelf life and pre -production time.
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  Like I do a lot of our co -ops work with our tourist boards.
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  We spend six weeks planning it, getting it down, doing an interview like this, editing it, et cetera.
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  So I have a bigger window, but organizational skill.
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  I couldn't do it unless I was anally organized, which I am now.
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  speaking to Michaela, getting to know her and her job a bit more, the amount of output that Michaela does for the company is incredible.
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  And that's what I'm amazed at that it's, compared to what I do, yeah, you've said there's more technical skills, editing skills, post -production type stuff, but.
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  Chilling it out, which is what social media is, correct?
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  Yeah, we always try to be as quick as possible.
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  But I love to be planned ahead.
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  So for example, right now what we're hitting almost end of July, I already have all of August planned in terms of what I'm doing.
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  I haven't created the content yet, but I exactly what she did.
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  And that was my question because there's organization and what I want to touch on is the planning.
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  So it's not just thinking what I will post next week.
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  It's kind of a bigger picture exactly because what you're trying to do is almost storytelling a sense.
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  And again, when you think about the funnel, you can't just post something with a special and expect people are going to jump on it right away.
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  You kind of need to introduce them to you, your brand, your services, what you offer in terms of value.
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  They need to feel like they're gaining something from you first.
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  And then once they're familiar with you, it's almost
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  Think of it like this, social media is social.
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  You're there to make connections and to bond and to have like little digital relationships.
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  So in a sense, you want your audience to feel like they can trust you and they're gaining like real knowledge from you.
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  And so when they do want to book a trip or they do see a special from you, they've already seen all these other posts that are amazing and they have already that trust in you.
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  So they're willing to make that booking a lot quicker than if they were to
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  see it and never know about you before.
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  Right.
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  So I think key to what Michaela just laid out there is that social media, at least initially should not be seen as that instant get a sale.
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  Absolutely not.
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  It's you've mentioned a few times it's brand awareness.
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  Yeah.
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  Particularly in the travel industry.
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  I think a lot of it is about like the personal skills and expertise of the person putting themselves out there.
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  Yeah.
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  Because Go8 sells Peru.
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  everyone else sells Peru.
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  But if you're the person who knows Peru better than other people, then that's what will hopefully get people coming back or being interested in your social media content and then
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  in time booking.
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  So social media should be viewed as not a long, long term goal for sales, but it's not short term, it's planned.
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  So again, I think the word you used was excellent storytelling.
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  So when you look at social media content, which leads into my next question, what is the best content, regardless of what it visually is,
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  it should be leading constantly somewhere, not just a buy this from me, I'm the best.
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  And then next week the message changes.
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  It should be a constant story about you and your skills, be it for a country or region or another skill, be it a fashion skill, whatever it may be, correct?
• 16:55
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
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  So within that, what is the best content?
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  Stats would say that video draws more eyes and grabs more attention than photos.
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  Right, that's true.
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  for people starting out and everyone has an iPhone which is what's recording over there.
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  So getting content is not difficult and there are other ways if you're not a skilled photographer or videographer, if you're willing to pay for it, there are lots of sites out
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  there which Go Away uses.
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  I use one which Mikhail also uses.
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  Our marketing team on the fifth floor have two or three other portals.
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  So these are generally subscription websites which give you stock videos, stock photos as well.
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  But when you're putting together your content for us,
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  What are you thinking from an engagement point of view?
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  Other than the nice phrase or words, what visually is driving you?
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  So there's a few components there, I guess, in terms of what makes great content and what's going to get people's attention.
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  Obviously, baseline, you want the content at the end of the day to drive what your main goals are with social.
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  So whether that's brand awareness, whether that's getting people to go to your website, whatever that may be, you want to make sure that your content is addressing those things.
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  The other thing is obviously you want to make sure that your content is reaching the right audience.
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  again, making sure you're on the right platform, making sure you're speaking to them the way that they want to be talked to and also what kind of content they want to consume.
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  Do they have certain like questions that they've been like wondering about?
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  Do they want to know specific things about different destinations?
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  What is ultimately going to make them want to consume your content and learn something from it?
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  So
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  As Don mentioned, video content is huge right now, especially short form video where you find on Instagram Reels or TikTok.
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  So that is a great place to start if you're willing to dive into video.
• 18:44
  I would say that when you're looking at getting engagement and you really want your social media content to do well in the algorithm, there are three things that I would keep in
• 18:53
  mind.
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  And I guess you can call it, it's been around on the internet before, it's called the three E's.
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  So those three E's are educate, empower, and entertain.
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  And so if your content is at least doing one of those things, you are typically going to have well performing content.
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  So that would be educating, so like sharing different facts about a destination, answering questions that your audience may want to know about.
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  empowering, like inspiring more like in the travel industry, so inspiring them to go somewhere.
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  You talked about visuals, so visuals would be lots of like bright colors, something like very immersive where they can almost like picture themselves, what it would be like to be
• 19:37
  in that resort, be on that beach, you know, be doing that activity or excursion or having that experience and who they would want to share that with.
• 19:45
  So that would definitely be very inspiring and the other last final piece would be to entertain so Entertainment would be something like showing them something very beautiful
• 19:57
  Maybe something funny that goes with the travel industry Something that just kind of makes them go.
• 20:03
  yeah, that was really cute It really funny that I saw that from them and you associate very like positive sentiment then with your business.
• 20:09
  So yeah, yeah, I
• 20:11
  One thing I try to do with our Academy modules is why the content is education.
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  We want people to learn.
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  not, we take ourselves so seriously that you want some fun built in there, but it's like straight out humor or inspirational stuff.
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  it's not, cause again, at the end of the day, we are trying to sell travel.
• 20:28
  are trying to make money, but our industry is, you know, we don't sell Carolyn Wepley, our VP of retail, sorry, direct brought up the other day with our staff.
• 20:37
  don't sell.
• 20:38
  product per se, we sell an idea, we sell inspiration.
• 20:41
  So in travel particularly, I think what Michaela's touching on there is that inspirational side of it is key.
• 20:47
  Now, when Michaela joined us to some of her Facebook posts that she sent down to me were asking questions of agents and Michaela was a little disappointed we didn't get the
• 20:55
  engagement we had with the agents coming back and answering certain questions and I sort of explained that the agents are very, very busy out there and even though they might
• 21:04
  respond with an answer, them seeing it
• 21:08
  to your point.
• 21:09
  This awareness keeping us top of mind.
• 21:12
  So this leads into my next question of if you ask a question and you don't get answers or you're putting social media out there, like it's very difficult to see results because
• 21:23
  that's your return on investment.
• 21:25
  Yes, absolutely.
• 21:26
  you're putting stuff out in the ether and hoping people are seeing
• 21:29
  How do I know this is doing well?
• 21:34
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:35
  So there are many ways you can determine this.
• 21:38
  Like if how a post has done, how well it's performed.
• 21:42
  So obviously you're going to be comparing it to your other posts.
• 21:46
  I know it can be very easy to look at other maybe like other businesses out there that are like super successful and like a lot of times we look at that and it look, it's very much
• 21:55
  like a thinking
• 21:56
  vanity metrics.
• 21:57
  Obviously, the more the better and it makes you look better.
• 22:01
  But at the end of the day, what really matters is comparing maybe like your first post to a month in or two months in have things improved.
• 22:09
  So the key things that you're going to be looking for on the back end.
• 22:12
  So any time, any platform you use in social media, there is a back end, whether it's called reporting, metrics, insights, you go back there and you can find it and you can
• 22:21
  drill down.
• 22:22
  what your best posts are, what your worst posts are in terms of likes, comments, shares, saves, all of those things.
• 22:29
  The ones that I would be looking at the most would be shares.
• 22:33
  The algorithm really weights that as this is a valuable piece of content.
• 22:39
  If someone either shares it, for example, on Instagram to their Instagram story, if someone shares it with a friend in a direct message, anything like that is a very
• 22:48
  important metric.
• 22:50
  Why?
• 22:50
  Again, you might know the answers, but why is that weighted so heavily?
• 22:53
  Because if I'm in the industry and I see a Go Way special, okay, I know that Go Way sent that to all the other Go Way agents out there in the world.
• 23:06
  My first reaction is not to share it with you because you've either probably seen it or you're another industry person.
• 23:11
  Do I really want to share a special or a good bit of news when...
• 23:16
  One, I'm so busy.
• 23:17
  know sharing is just literally hitting a button the way it goes.
• 23:19
  But I just find that interesting that's weighted so heavily.
• 23:22
  I would have thought something like people liking it because they like it versus sharing it.
• 23:27
  A like is actually a very low, I'd say, weighted.
• 23:30
  Really?
• 23:31
  Yes.
• 23:31
  Now, likes look great in terms of vanity metrics.
• 23:34
  The more likes you have, like, that must be a really popular post.
• 23:37
  again, likes, I mean, it's great to see all the likes, but what the algorithm actually cares about would be the shares.
• 23:44
  as of lately, is very, this is new in terms of, yes, and it's always moving target.
• 23:50
  The algorithm's always changing, but yes, shares right now on Instagram, the save button is also very weighted.
• 23:57
  Now see that's a different, different call because I do save a lot of stuff on Instagram and Tik Tok for later reference, be it a recipe or something like that.
• 24:05
  it tells the algorithm it's valuable.
• 24:07
  You liked it so much that you're willing to save it for later.
• 24:10
  guess, yeah, I see more value in a saved.
• 24:13
  statistic than a shared statistic.
• 24:15
  I'm just curious, that's all.
• 24:16
  Well, share, guess the way I think of it as if some, client looked at a travel advisor's page and shared the promotion with a friend of theirs or their family member.
• 24:26
  They're like, Hey, do want to go on this with me?
• 24:28
  That is, exactly.
• 24:30
  Now I see the importance.
• 24:31
  That's it.
• 24:32
  And no, because that's a different, area.
• 24:35
  Cause I'm thinking, cause I deal with the trade.
• 24:37
  Abdominally, yeah, you're I know it but now the B to C to C that's correct now that now I can see the value and that's I guess I'm bringing up because I didn't realize that that's
• 24:50
  good for me now there to realize too that We're talking to you as the trade but the cows obviously looking at from both sides.
• 24:56
  Yeah, sure So handles our direct social media marketing as well as our trade social media marketing.
• 25:02
  Okay, that's good now on the statistic collection if you're
• 25:07
  Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
• 25:11
  Now they all have their individual backends where you can get the stats.
• 25:14
  Is there something where you can get all your platforms in one spot?
• 25:19
  Yes, absolutely.
• 25:20
  Is there one or many?
• 25:21
  Yeah, there are so many.
• 25:22
  Yeah.
• 25:23
  Third party tools that you can literally plug all of your accounts into and it will spit out spreadsheets and different things for you to toggle between to look at all of your
• 25:32
  platforms.
• 25:32
  which one's doing better than the other.
• 25:33
  Exactly.
• 25:34
  Exactly.
• 25:35
  Are they normally free or are they subscription?
• 25:37
  So you come either or.
• 25:39
  Either or.
• 25:40
  There are free options out there.
• 25:41
  Absolutely.
• 25:42
  And then there are, I guess, like tiers of paid plans where you get, you know, more perks with different ones.
• 25:48
  Okay.
• 25:52
  Is a website considered social media?
• 25:58
  I wouldn't consider it social media.
• 25:59
  website is a piece of place on the internet where you own.
• 26:04
  Social media, you do not own that.
• 26:06
  If something happened where like meta goes down and whatever, you'll lose your Instagram page, your Facebook page and that content that's there.
• 26:15
  Now working in social media, as much as I love social, I always...
• 26:18
  do recommend that you don't only stick to social pages and you do have your own website, your own email list, your own space where you have control over everything.
• 26:27
  That way you will never lose touch with your main audience.
• 26:30
  You still have your email list, you still have your website where people can find you.
• 26:34
  But yeah, I wouldn't consider a website social So that I guess leads to this question.
• 26:38
  Once a social media content is created, you then post it on your avenue of choice.
• 26:45
  But as you just mentioned, if you have a website and your own client database, be it 10 people, be it 1 ,000 people, you can also send that created content via other avenues
• 26:57
  other than the Facebooks and Instagrams.
• 26:59
  That is correct, yes.
• 27:00
  Multi -purpose, exactly, cross -promote, you got it.
• 27:05
  So that's important in creating it.
• 27:08
  So let's get a little bit technical here, because we touched on, don't necessarily need those photography skills, et cetera.
• 27:13
  One skill I think would be vital to work on, touch up on, or get assistance with would be the content writing.
• 27:20
  Yeah.
• 27:20
  Because I think it's easy to grab a photo or video from a stock website, somewhere like that.
• 27:28
  But the way you describe it, be it long worded or short worded, which a lot of social media is important.
• 27:36
  AI within social media.
• 27:38
  Now I know AI is up and coming.
• 27:40
  I'm not anti it, I'm a real tech head but I'm very wary of AI, not because it's robots gonna take over one day, which they could.
• 27:46
  But right now it seems it's a lot of talk, it's still in development.
• 27:52
  Should people run their content, sorry, their wording through AI if they're unsure of their content writing skills?
• 28:01
  Is it recommended is what I'm asking.
• 28:03
  I would say if you are uncomfortable with writing, it's not a bad place to start.
• 28:07
  Now, when I say that if you were to get AI to write something for you, now as much as you can still tweak it and maybe put your own spin on it.
• 28:18
  At the end of the day, it probably will sound like a robot wrote it.
• 28:23
  So I would recommend throwing in your own spin, tweaking it a little bit and
• 28:30
  Hopefully not having it sound like a robot wrote it.
• 28:33
  Yeah, with my academy stuff, I, everyone kept saying, you should use AI and I don't because one, the content I write for the academy is too detailed in, cause we're training
• 28:44
  people, educating on countries and stuff.
• 28:45
  But I do at times, as Mikaela mentioned, if I get a mental block or I'm trying to come with like a flowery exit to something, I do throw it in AI, but I then, I don't cut and
• 28:55
  paste.
• 28:56
  I'll take it out.
• 28:56
  I take bits, add my flare to it because
• 29:00
  And I've experimented with, I've said, write something about this country, write something about this country.
• 29:03
  And if you read them side by side, it's almost exactly the same structure, but with obviously relevant things to each country.
• 29:10
  So it's a good tool to have as a backup and not to rely upon.
• 29:14
  Would that be fair?
• 29:15
  Absolutely.
• 29:15
  A starting point, brainstorming phase.
• 29:17
  Right.
• 29:22
  Should social media, we sort of touched on this before, like it's not gonna get immediate results.
• 29:27
  And I think you touched on it as well with having a website as a backup and then obviously other collateral around which works for your audience.
• 29:34
  Now there's audiences out there who still don't like digital, don't like social media, so flyers, though they're a fading thing, may be an option for some of our agents out there.
• 29:45
  And I guess that's an old school social media flyer handing out.
• 29:48
  still, yeah, you're still passing on a message.
• 29:51
  go away.
• 29:52
  If you look at this camera, you'll see our globe trotting magazine.
• 29:55
  That's the only printed thing we do now.
• 29:57
  We've got rid of all our brochures because it's one, not good for the environment.
• 30:01
  Two, it costs a lot of money, which is why digital is also good because it's, I wouldn't say free, much cheaper in distribution at least.
• 30:09
  Yeah, cost effective.
• 30:10
  There you go.
• 30:12
  But what's key to me with our new social media
• 30:19
  care of Michaela and the marketing team upstairs all came off the back of this.
• 30:23
  Our new look, our new brand.
• 30:24
  And what I've noticed, I started this off saying our social media presence was not so robust back in the day.
• 30:32
  It is now, extremely.
• 30:33
  But what I love about it is the uniformity of, one, the messaging, which we've touched on, keep the story going and focus on that particular story or stories, plural, but the look.
• 30:46
  Yeah.
• 30:47
  So by your reaction, I'm guessing that's an important aspect to keep in mind when you're rolling things out, planning ahead, before you even get going, come up with a logo or
• 30:57
  color scheme or a visual template for want of a better term.
• 31:04
  that?
• 31:05
  That is such a good point on, I'm glad that you mentioned it.
• 31:08
  Yes.
• 31:08
  And the other thing about social is like I said, it's very visual, especially on a platform like Instagram or Facebook where it's very photo and video heavy.
• 31:18
  You're going to want to have obviously a nice look, but at the same time you want a consistent look.
• 31:24
  There's that word again, but basically, yeah, if you have a color scheme, if you're going to pick like specific, maybe like two to three colors that you're going
• 31:34
  focus on, you're really going to get that, drilled down recognition.
• 31:38
  that's what you're trying to do is social again, being top of mind brand awareness.
• 31:42
  So if you're using the same color schemes, the same kind of templates, if you will, for your posts, you're much more likely to be recognized, even if someone's just scrolling
• 31:53
  their feet and happens to go past it.
• 31:55
  there's your business.
• 31:56
  And then there you go.
• 31:57
  I think that's key because I've noticed as a growing into.
• 32:03
  Digital not so much social but the world has become so much more quick in regards to everything but obviously content Absorption is it's gone from like I get bored if it's if
• 32:15
  they don't get to the message quickly I'm on by moving on.
• 32:18
  Yeah, right.
• 32:18
  It's got to be something I'm passionate about to let me stop and read Yeah a long story and I think key to that and this is what I love about the new go away Look is that if you
• 32:27
  are scrolling left right up there, which are you doing it?
• 32:32
  Yeah, once like now, Go away has that that has this look, it has that recognition and Michaela's posts similar, but not repetitive.
• 32:41
  So to your point, you flick through and you'll you mightn't stop, but you'll know that there's Go away.
• 32:46
  exactly.
• 32:47
  And hopefully you will stop.
• 32:49
  But yeah, it's still top of mind.
• 32:51
  Totally back to your original points.
• 32:53
  Totally, totally.
• 32:55
  One other thing I wanted to touch on, which links back to a website, which
• 33:01
  A lot of people probably know about in general terms is SEO, which is search engine optimization, correct?
• 33:08
  Which goes back to meta tags and keywords.
• 33:10
  This is all stuff that's from a website point of view that's built into the back of the website that the bots and all these things, not bots, what's the word?
• 33:22
  Is it bots or robots or something?
• 33:23
  There's some funky word for it.
• 33:24
  running, yes.
• 33:25
  I don't know the term.
• 33:27
  There's some funky word where, like the Googles of the world go out and they search for all these meta tags and stuff in the background to list your website, to bring it to
• 33:34
  prominence.
• 33:35
  So is SEO part of social media?
• 33:37
  Like when your post goes up, it's up there for an hour, a day, two days, and then moves on.
• 33:44
  Does it live in the background somewhere?
• 33:46
  It does.
• 33:47
  And this is what I want to reassure everyone about.
• 33:51
  Basically, if you're looking to post consistency in social media and you're scared that, you know, is this going to be a waste of my time?
• 33:59
  Is this going to be worth the long term, I guess, efforts?
• 34:03
  And is it going to pay off in the long term?
• 34:05
  So the thing that's really cool that has been happening more and more lately is that SEO, so a platform
• 34:12
  Google, for example, if you're searching for something, will actually now pull social media posts as one of the things, as the results, as you're searching for things.
• 34:21
  So your social media post could actually turn up in a Google search.
• 34:26
  It doesn't necessarily, I guess, disappear or become irrelevant a few days after you post it.
• 34:32
  So, yeah.
• 34:33
  So when you're copywriting, it's
• 34:36
  goes in with content creation, but as you're copywriting, you want to make sure that you're using, again, think of it like SEO when you're writing for a website, you want to
• 34:43
  use keywords, you want to maybe ask the questions in So let me just clarify something here.
• 34:48
  Okay.
• 34:48
  Because keywords, so I mentioned websites, it's code in the background.
• 34:52
  That's right.
• 34:54
  lot of social media posts, visual, you see, let's use a go away one, there's a nice image in the background and the card comes with a nice little slogan, but that's part of the
• 35:03
  image.
• 35:04
  So Google's not picking that up.
• 35:05
  So all the wording, the copywriting you're talking about.
• 35:09
  So it's not just the visuals that are presented.
• 35:12
  It's the description for want of a better term.
• 35:15
  So explain the importance of which you were just about to before I really tried to importance of what goes there and this whole thing of now I'm going to play the old person
• 35:25
  here.
• 35:26
  Hashtag verse at like what is the difference?
• 35:29
  What's the relevance?
• 35:30
  Sure, yes, absolutely.
• 35:31
  So when you're writing your caption and you're thinking of in terms of SEO, you're going to want to think about what people are going to be obviously searching for and what kind
• 35:40
  of questions I guess they're asking Google.
• 35:42
  So your caption can repeat that question in it, use keywords.
• 35:47
  Does it have to be a caption?
• 35:48
  Because again, I see a lot of posts where it's like, know, travel, I'm going to use Latin America again.
• 35:53
  Travel to Peru because it's beautiful, like written out.
• 35:56
  But then you'll see like 35 hashtags
• 35:59
  Peruma, Tepichu, Llama.
• 36:01
  So what's the difference between those two?
• 36:03
  Sure, sure.
• 36:04
  So okay, hashtags themselves are really only gonna be relevant to the platform you're posting on.
• 36:10
  So not SEO.
• 36:13
  I guess like there's still text, right?
• 36:15
  So it could potentially be picked up in SEO, but I would say that it's a hashtag is more for the purpose of searching within that platform.
• 36:24
  So if you're using a hashtag on Instagram or Facebook.
• 36:28
  people are searching within that platform for something and they're searching for hashtags, then they can find your post under that hashtag, that kind of thing.
• 36:36
  It also hashtags within the platform, help the platform know what your content is about.
• 36:42
  And again, an algorithm thing where it's using your hashtags as keywords to then push it out to people who are interested in those things.
• 36:50
  So they've already interacted with content with similar hashtags.
• 36:53
  Right.
• 36:53
  So hashtagging the correct words.
• 36:55
  And that's important.
• 36:56
  The correct
• 36:57
  will bring higher awareness, push it to the top of the pile within the platform.
• 37:03
  Yes.
• 37:03
  Where SEO was more of a worldwide hookup.
• 37:08
  Exactly.
• 37:09
  Exactly.
• 37:09
  Yeah.
• 37:10
  So when you were writing your captions, again, I interrupted you.
• 37:14
  What do you need to be aware of for the SEO side of things?
• 37:17
  Yeah.
• 37:17
  So SEO, like I said, questions are typically Googled.
• 37:22
  So I'd say definitely include
• 37:26
  the question itself and of course the answer.
• 37:27
  why you're on questions in your posts.
• 37:29
  Okay, that too.
• 37:31
  So there's the SEO side of it, but then there's also the engagement side of it.
• 37:36
  So like I said, social is a social platform.
• 37:39
  You're there to get people's opinions and weigh in on things and I'd say...
• 37:43
  and bad.
• 37:44
  Good and bad, true.
• 37:47
  But yeah, asking questions and prompting people to share their thoughts on your post is also really important in terms of actually getting those saves and shares and comments.
• 37:57
  And I guess also to kind of continue what we were talking about in terms of what the algorithm really weights is when you do get comments, I'd say that is much more
• 38:07
  significant than say a like.
• 38:09
  So saves, shares, comments, and then
• 38:12
  final piece would be messages, direct messages.
• 38:15
  If you're getting, for example, your clients messaging you on Facebook or Instagram, the algorithm will actually pick up on that.
• 38:23
  The conversations that are being had there, whether it's longer sentences, like longer sentence comments, longer sentence,
• 38:30
  direct messages all of that is weighted in value.
• 38:33
  Really?
• 38:34
  I didn't know the DM was part of that as well.
• 38:37
  is!
• 38:37
  The DMs absolutely and there's a lot of business that can be done there.
• 38:41
  Again think of it like a social till you're getting to know each other that kind of thing so when you are conversing.
• 38:46
  Sorry?
• 38:47
  No worries.
• 38:48
  So when you are conversing on social over direct message
• 38:52
  it definitely the algorithm does weight that as you are a valuable source for these topics or this information.
• 38:58
  Okay, so I'm going to maybe deflate Michaela's balloon here a bit.
• 39:04
  Just a suggestion to our travel agent out there.
• 39:07
  I would not get into, particularly if it's about bookings and the product and what you're trying to do, DM messaging a conversation.
• 39:15
  It's better that comes back to email.
• 39:17
  like direct them back to your email.
• 39:18
  You might then yeah, if you're in that stage, yeah, Yeah, you're in that stage because you want to be on record and secure it somewhere, not as a direct message.
• 39:25
  So I'm now talking the practicalities of booking an engagement with a client.
• 39:30
  Yeah.
• 39:30
  But to get it...
• 39:31
  I understand the importance, but just sort of...
• 39:33
  For sure.
• 39:34
  throw that out there for sure.
• 39:35
  yeah, it just...
• 39:37
  I guess more so like casual conversation, whether they have like quick question or something like that.
• 39:42
  It definitely does show that people, you know, are showing interest and there is weight in that.
• 39:47
  So, this also leads to another aspect of social media, because everyone, like when I sat down and started talking about it, the first thing is, okay, what to post, when to post,
• 39:56
  how to post, visual, all things we've discussed.
• 39:59
  But what I also know from looking after our Facebook agent group only is we do, what MacArthur, we get a lot of comments, which I'm learning
• 40:07
  weight, which are important to us.
• 40:09
  But here at Go Away, we are very, very conscious and trying to be as punctual as we can in responding to the comments via our social media, as Michaela does more on the direct side.
• 40:19
  And we often have conversations.
• 40:21
  have a complaint come through or a question, you know, Michaela say, Don, you know, how do we answer this?
• 40:26
  Or who do we answer?
• 40:27
  So we're on top of that.
• 40:28
  So I guess once you've got it out the door and it's there for a day or two days, but as we've learned, can now sit in the,
• 40:35
  Wide World Web for a length of time.
• 40:38
  They can still find it.
• 40:39
  Still find it.
• 40:40
  But also gaining you more awareness through all the backend bots and robots and stuff like Absolutely.
• 40:47
  Being punctual and quick on communications as a result of your social media posts are as important as the post itself.
• 40:55
  Yeah.
• 40:55
  Community management is a huge piece in social media.
• 41:00
  you're learning all the vocab.
• 41:03
  But yes, that is an
• 41:05
  Crucially important piece, checking in on your audience.
• 41:09
  So when they do ask a question, when they do comment something, they're not just saying it to outer space.
• 41:14
  It's like they're actually gonna get an answer from a real person and being able to personalize that response.
• 41:19
  So using their name in the response, maybe using a fun emoji to relate to something that they commented on or something like that.
• 41:26
  Again, making those genuine connections.
• 41:29
  Again, social should be a social place.
• 41:31
  Definitely being responsive and getting on top of those in terms of following up and responding.
• 41:38
  I think it's key in our industry to add that personal touch to it because we are wanting you out there listening to us and watching us to come to GoAE and our expertise is what
• 41:49
  sells us to you, hopefully, and you, your expertise to your client sells you.
• 41:57
  When you put all that work into a social media post, as you've learned probably, I hope you've learned that it's not just, well, you can just throw something up, of course.
• 42:04
  But if you want it to be successful, there's work and planning that goes into it.
• 42:07
  There's a lot of work.
• 42:07
  And we said it's not free, there's cost effective compared to other things.
• 42:14
  creating the post, coming up with a photo, either buying it, finding it, sourcing it, putting it together, it's all time, your time.
• 42:20
  Your time costs money.
• 42:22
  Don't waste it by then ignoring or not getting back to responses, clicks, like, even if it's a like, say, hey, thanks for liking it.
• 42:29
  Little things like that.
• 42:31
  Absolutely.
• 42:31
  So it's not, think what, because it's not just, you know, out, I'm not sure the term you use, but people don't see just, it's something out there.
• 42:39
  Like it's a real person or people behind the post.
• 42:42
  So it's not some AI bot doing it all.
• 42:45
  which we see a lot of out there as well.
• 42:48
  So that's really cool.
• 42:49
  Okay, I think we've covered most things here today, Michele.
• 42:52
  Is there anything I've missed or you'd like to bring up to our listening audience about social other than it's fun?
• 42:58
  You love it today.
• 43:00
  But yeah, is there anything I missed, you missed, you wanna bring I would love to share with everyone, I guess how GoWaze platforms can help.
• 43:09
  yes.
• 43:09
  And how you can share and utilize our content to help grow your business as well.
• 43:15
  So like Don mentioned, I manage a lot of our socials.
• 43:18
  If you follow us on Instagram at GoWayPro, I'm in charge of that account.
• 43:22
  So I manage all things GoWayPro.
• 43:24
  And we post a lot of different destinations on there, a lot of informative posts, valuable posts.
• 43:30
  We do video content, carousels, inspiring images, everything like that.
• 43:34
  And there
• 43:35
  posts on that platform that you can actually share with your clients.
• 43:39
  If you have an Instagram page already, it's super easy to do.
• 43:42
  You can go ahead and click that little share icon, little paper airplane, and share it to your Instagram story.
• 43:49
  If you even want to go a step further, you can use different tools to download the images, download the videos, and you can, if you want to, copy and paste our caption and utilize
• 43:58
  that on your platforms as well.
• 44:01
  So you could take it even further on your Facebook.
• 44:02
  So to download content,
• 44:05
  from Instagram or something like that.
• 44:08
  how do they do it?
• 44:09
  Is it within the app or do you have to get a third party again?
• 44:11
  You would use a third party app.
• 44:13
  So for example, a photo, I'd say best bet is probably to screenshot it unless you have access to a, like I guess a stock photo place, you can go and reverse image search and
• 44:26
  find it yourself to download it.
• 44:28
  But I would suggest screenshot is probably good enough there.
• 44:31
  Because quite a lot of our content is a photo without
• 44:34
  caption again written over it as embedded within the image.
• 44:37
  So if you reversed search the image, you get the image, not the...
• 44:41
  Exactly.
• 44:42
  If there's any kind of like graphic detail or anything go away related on it, you would then just get the clean image.
• 44:47
  Exactly.
• 44:49
  For the video, it's a little bit easier.
• 44:50
  I would literally just type into Google, download, for example, download Instagram Reel without watermark because if you download the video straight from Instagram,
• 45:00
  It does that weird watermark on it and you probably don't want that go ways watermark all over your video.
• 45:05
  so I would suggest going to a third party.
• 45:07
  You can find a website when you search that in Google, and literally just copy and paste the Instagram real URL into that system.
• 45:15
  And you'll be able to download the video straight from there.
• 45:19
  and use it on your page.
• 45:20
  Now, if people want to do that, you can then rebrand it as well, not rebrand per se, but you can add your logo and your language to it as well.
• 45:28
  have no issue with that.
• 45:29
  Again, the content is created for you.
• 45:31
  It's created by us to present to you.
• 45:34
  again, as Michaela said, you can repurpose it and it's there for you to use.
• 45:39
  And that goes for some of our flies and stuff.
• 45:41
  That's more, you can speak to your account managers about that side of thing.
• 45:46
  Okay, so you can share our content.
• 45:48
  Anything else you'd like to let
• 45:51
  industry partners know about?
• 45:53
  guess if we're going to do a little bit of a sign off, guess just to, I guess, encourage everyone to try it.
• 45:58
  You never know the thing with social is it, it is definitely an experimentation.
• 46:03
  And it's always like that, even like I've been in my role.
• 46:06
  I'm almost going to celebrate my one year anniversary with Go Way next week.
• 46:10
  yeah, it's always an experimentation phase.
• 46:13
  You're always trying different things, new things, what's going to resonate with your audience?
• 46:16
  What more do they want to know about?
• 46:18
  And don't be intimidated if you, for example, don't want to be on video.
• 46:22
  You can do a lot of writing posts, graphic posts.
• 46:24
  If you're not maybe as strong in writing, you can literally just talk to the camera.
• 46:28
  Like whatever suits you and whatever feels most comfortable, I'd say go with that and start small.
• 46:33
  Even if that is just committing to one or two platforms,
• 46:36
  once a week, I think that that's great.
• 46:38
  And then also just another reminder, it is a little bit more of a long game.
• 46:42
  You won't necessarily see those results right away, but social in the long term will definitely help you achieve your business goals at the end of the day in terms of brand
• 46:52
  awareness and perhaps even getting some sales.
• 46:55
  So yeah, all great things to remember.
• 46:58
  And I think one thing, exactly what Michaela said, you got to be consistent with it.
• 47:02
  Don't start, then stop, start and stop once you commit.
• 47:05
  Take your time to plan it.
• 47:06
  Work out that six month calendar if you can.
• 47:09
  And then stick to it and plan ahead.
• 47:13
  Now, Michaela doesn't know this yet.
• 47:15
  It was only sort of just decided the other day or two.
• 47:18
  As part of the Travel Academy, we're gonna start working on a marketing 101 module which will lay out everything from the social media and we'll be seeing you and Michaela again
• 47:27
  and getting the how -tos and a lot of what you've discussed today will break it down into like, how do
• 47:34
  literally do Instagram, how do I, how do I, how do So that's gonna come along.
• 47:38
  It'll be a little bit in the making.
• 47:39
  We gotta gather a lot of assets here together.
• 47:41
  We have a lot of expertise here, which we'll into.
• 47:44
  So if you enjoyed today's standby for that, there'll be something you can literally pause and play and work with coming up as well.
• 47:52
  So on that note, I'd like to thank Michaela for today and for all her work here ago, as I've mentioned a few times throughout our little chat today, our social media's gone from
• 48:01
  being there to being like.
• 48:03
  They're consistent all the time, looking fantastic.
• 48:07
  It's working for us and she's made a big difference to our overall marketing platform here, our reach, our awareness, which you can do through social media.
• 48:19
  Any questions you can email me I can pass them on to Michaela.
• 48:22
  Yeah And we can maybe answer some of those if we missed anything today for you.
• 48:26
  So again, okay Thank you very much.
• 48:28
  Really appreciate your time.
• 48:29
  Thank you so much for having me and thank you for that whole little spiel.
• 48:32
  That's amazing Well, thank you so much, I really appreciate it and yeah any questions at all Feel free to let Don know and I'm happy to answer them.
• 48:43
  Thanks.
• 48:43
  Thank you so much
• 48:45
  See you.