To ALG Vacations®, Small Business Saturday isn’t just an opportunity to boost visibility and sales for our travel advisor partners. It’s also a chance for us to share resources and skills that will help them be successful throughout the entire year, perhaps even longer.
That thinking led us to create a special social media and brand-building webinar series for this year, where we invited some of travel’s most influential influencers and content creators to speak to topics that directly impact travel advisors. And the best thing is, while these live webinars took place in the weeks prior to this, we recorded all three for on-demand access for those who couldn’t make it. So catch up here on TravelBlogue, as we provide some of the key takeaways from each of these sessions … then click to watch the whole thing!
Elevate Your Brand on Social Media for Small Business Saturday
Speakers: Kirstie Pike and Christine Diaz, LGBT travel and lifestyle influencers
Follow on: @onairplanemode__
- Make your posts “quick and snackable,” and don’t feel bad about recycling any of it!
- Use high-resolution images and make sure text is legible, especially since it should include a call to action
- Keep your cover photos consistent to ensure for an upscale, curated aesthetic
- Make sure your bio is engaging but also professional, and it reflects your expertise
- Show your face or voice! It’s all part of getting your audience to build a relationship and connection with you
- Give your audience the next steps to booking with you, and make sure you respond to comments and DMs to build relationships
- Don’t be afraid to partner with other travel advisors or travel bloggers as well as hotels, destinations, or tour operators like ALGV
- Think of your social media as your business card!
Creating Scroll-Stopping Content
Speaker: Bernice Padilla, who specializes in bucket list travel and has amassed over 145K followers on TikTok.
Follow on: @trendytraveler__
- Use short form videos! Most social platforms favor this format in their algorithms; you want to aim for under 60 seconds
- The first few seconds are the most important part of any video – that’s your hook, an attention-grabbing opening line or visual
- A great hook includes bold statements or visual intrigue … or both, if you can manage it! They can be questions, statements, or reveals
- Storytelling is what turns viewers from passive scrollers to engaged followers, connecting them emotionally to the experience and motivating them to watch longer and share
- Don’t shy away from voiceovers! These can communicate more that visuals alone can’t, which is where your expertise can shine through as professional advice
- Plan ahead with shot lists, including scenic shots, cultural experiences, personal moments, and detail shots, to name a few
Mastering the Algorithm for Small Business Saturday
Speakers: Sarah Rau and Megan Weisser, the social media leads for ALG Vacations®
Follow on: @algvacations, @AskATravelAdvisorALGV, and @TravelBeatALGV
- Travel advisor marketing should focus on you as an individual and your unique expertise, helping you to build a personal brand
- If marketing for your travel agency, make the services offered, such as packages, partnerships, and deals the primary priority of your messaging
- Post consistently and at optimal times, when your specific audience is most engaged (details in the webinar!)
- Encourage and respond to engagement such as likes, comments, and shares, to show the algorithm that your content is valuable and should be shown to more people
- Leverage new features to give your content an algorithmic boost
- Make content meant to be shared and saved, and don’t be shy about encouraging your followers to do both in your caption
- Use professional assets, such as what we create for you on ALGV360⁰
For easy access to our entire suite of resources, ALG Vacations® has launched a vibrant hub site to easily direct you to everything Small Business Saturday. It will take you to free marketing materials and social media posts, learning webinars for professional development, articles with tips on capitalizing on this day, our Black Fri-YAY sale, and more. And the URL is easy to refer to. It’s www.ALGVacations.com/SBS.
