
Taking a selfie on West Sands Beach, St Andrews
© VisitScotland / Peter Dibdin
You can see why social media is important by understanding the customer journey of planning and booking a holiday.
Customers generally go through three stages – inspiration, deciding, and planning and booking. Although there are three stages overall, these stages do not always happen in chronological order. A customer might be researching holiday ideas and decide on a trip, but then go back to the research stage for a detailed itinerary. This could mean they book their accommodation or flights, but still need to decide what to do each day. Some customers are still looking for ideas even once they get to Scotland.
Social media has long been a place for inspiration, whether it’s getting ideas from images of trips taken by friends and family, or videos shared by an influencer you follow.
But social media is now used for much more – many customers now use it to search for things, as well as or instead of using search engines.
This means it is more important than ever that your business has a presence on the key social channels and that you look to post consistently and engage with customers online.
Why can social media be useful to customers?
- inspiration and ideas, including for unique places or those off-the-beaten track
- reviews and recommendations from people who have visited
- gives a clear idea of what it’s like to visit a place before they arrive
- ask questions
- make bookings or purchases
- leave their own feedback
How can social media be useful to your business?
There are many goals to use your social media channel for, including to:
- inspire potential customers to think about booking
- take enquiries from customers thinking about booking
- share images with customers who have visited
- take reviews from customers who have visited
- networking and building business relationships