TikTok for travel and what agents need to know about it
With over a billion monthly active users, TikTok has grown from an app used by teenagers doing dance challenges to a social media powerhouse loved by brands and consumers alike. According to an Adobe Express study, one in ten Gen Z-ers (born between 1997 and 2012) are more likely to use TikTok than Google as a search engine. Moreover, viewers trust brands 41% more, and are 31% more likely to be loyal to it, after seeing an ad on TikTok. With a staggering 95 minutes per day an average user spends on the app, TikTok is not a platform to ignore. How to use it though, and what are the ways travel agents can optimise their TikTok marketing?
● Use sound in your videos
It’s the feature that made the platform popular, a trend which changed user behaviour on other channels (Instagram trending audio being the best example). Ninety percent of TikTok users think sound is vital for the TikTok user experience.
● Work with creators and Influencers to produce the most engaging content
TikTok users trust real people and their experiences more than they trust branded content. Microinfluencers (below 100K followers) are a more cost effective way to get your content in front of a new audience.
● Create content specifically for TikTok
It might be tempting to just replicate content which goes on other platforms but in order for content to gain traction, it has to be optimised for TikTok. Use trending audio, templates and formats or challenges to increase engagement and which reflect your brand personality and values. Of note is Hayes Travel’s approach to giveaways which are all focused around what they’d say is their most important asset - their people.
● Inspire your customers
British Airways Holidays recently partnered with travel trends forecasting agency Globetrender on research that found that ‘23% of UK consumers use TikTok to get inspiration for holidays’. Of those, ‘almost one in five (18%) have booked a trip as a direct response to content they have seen on the platform’. The report states that those aged 18-24 were the ones ‘most influenced by the platform, with 66% using it for holiday inspiration and, of those, 24% booking a trip as a direct result of content they’ve consumed.’ Agents are better placed than anyone to exploit the inspirational nature of travel content to reach an audience ready and wanting to be inspired. Post wanderlust-inducing content showcasing the destinations or stays in desirable destinations.
● Tell a story
Agents have a captive audience that on average spends 95 minutes a day on the app - test long-form and short-form content to ensure you’re serving the audience what they want to see.
● Stay creative
TikTok has evolved and added new features, but creativity stays at the heart of all content. This, again, can be made easier by working with content creators - a great example being booking.com’s Brooklyn Beckham campaign to promote their Genius programme.
● Integrate your skills in search
Given TikTok’s new function as a search engine, cater to those searching for informative content around popular destinations. Seek out popular hashtags and try to produce content in line with them - millions of people use TikTok to plan their next trip so create content which can influence their decisions.
As with any social media platform, our advice with TikTok is threefold. First, experiment with it yourself - it’s impossible to build a community or produce engaging content without knowing the platforms’ native functionalities and user behaviour. Second, not everyone has a Brooklyn Beckham budget, but it can be as simple as researching the topics relevant to your brand or agency specialisms, see how people interact with them, and work out how you can add to those conversations. And finally, think carefully about why you’re considering using TikTok in the first place - are your customers really there and engaged, or do you think you should be because your competitors are? ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ is never a great basis for a marketing strategy.
