Social Media Engagement for Travel Brands

In 2017, we sent over 5 million cold emails, bought Instagram accounts with 700K followers, and partnered with hundreds of influencers—all to answer one question: Can we build an email list of 500,000 subscribers in less than a year? The answer: Yes. Here’s what worked, what didn’t, and the unconventional strategies that helped us scale: 1. BE STRATEGIC WITH YOUR COLD EMAIL: We didn’t blast random people. Instead, we used data from Instagram to target the right audience. → Hashtags like travel and wanderlust. → Geotags from Bali to Iceland. → Accounts they followed, like National Geographic. This allowed us to write hyper-personalized emails that felt authentic. Best subject lines: - “Your hashtag photo” - “Came across your Instagram” The result? - 200K subscribers. - 45-50% open rates. - 10-15% click-through rates. Big lesson: Cold email isn’t spam when it’s done right. Personalization is everything. --- 2. TURN GIVEAWAYS INTO A GROWTH ENGINE: We gave away what our audience loved most: free travel (flights and hotels, paid for with rewards miles). Every giveaway included a viral referral system: - Participants got bonus entries for sharing with friends. The results? → 5K-15K new subscribers per giveaway. Tools we used: Gleam, ViralLoops, and DojoMojo for co-branded efforts. Big lesson: People don’t just want free stuff—they want relevant free stuff. --- 3. BUY YOUR WAY INTO ORGANIC SOCIAL: Instead of building from scratch, we bought Instagram accounts in the travel niche for $10K. We rebranded the accounts and created a network of pages tailored to different travel styles: - Van life. - Luxury travel. - Budget backpacking. This grew into 2.2M followers, sending consistent traffic to our landing pages and giveaways. Big lesson: Sometimes, the fastest way to scale is to skip the hard part. --- 4. SCALE WITH COMMUNITY: We launched an ambassador program with hundreds of micro-influencers, giving them points for every email they helped us collect. Some earned free flights and hotels. Most didn’t—but they still added thousands of subscribers. Big lesson: People love rewards, but they also love being part of something bigger. --- Here’s the truth about growth: It’s not about being conventional—it’s about being creative. - Use data to find your audience. - Automate the parts that don’t scale. - Build a system that feeds itself. In the end, your email list is the one asset you own. Treat it like gold.

How to Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC) Introduction: User-generated content (UGC) helps brands connect authentically with audiences, as people trust peer recommendations over ads. Showcasing real user experiences builds credibility, strengthens community bonds, and turns customers into advocates, driving organic growth and engagement. Key Concepts -Social Proof: UGC demonstrates trust and recommendations, often more effective than ads. -Authenticity: Real customer content fosters trust as genuine endorsements. -Community Engagement: UGC encourages customer connection and sharing. -Content Variety: UGC provides diverse, reusable content for multiple channels. Challenges in Implementing UGC -Quality Control: Curating UGC for brand alignment can be challenging. -Permissions: Obtain creator permission to avoid legal issues. -Negative Feedback: Be prepared to manage unfavorable UGC without harming your reputation. -Incentivizing Participation: Encourage customers to share experiences through incentives. Strategies & Solutions To gather and utilize user-generated content (UGC), brands can create hashtag campaigns, run contests for product photos, and showcase testimonials on social media for credibility. Highlighting curated UGC demonstrates real product use, while repurposing it in emails and ads maximizes reach. Engaging with creators by tagging and sharing their posts strengthens connections and encourages more sharing. Benefits of Leveraging UGC User-generated content (UGC) enhances credibility and trust by showcasing authentic customer experiences, leading to higher conversion rates. It fosters brand engagement and loyalty while being cost-effective, filling content calendars without high expenses. UGC also improves SEO by generating relevant content that boosts discoverability through branded hashtags and reviews. Insights for Effective UGC Campaigns To maximize user-generated content (UGC), prioritize authenticity by encouraging customers to share genuine experiences instead of scripted or promotional ones. Monitor UGC performance by tracking metrics like engagement and conversions to understand what resonates with your audience. Additionally, create a streamlined content submission process with direct upload links or clear instructions to make it easy for users to share their content. Conclusion: User-generated content (UGC) builds social proof, fosters trust, and engages communities. By incorporating UGC into your marketing strategy, you transform customers into brand advocates, enhancing reach and connections. Utilizing hashtag campaigns, reviews, contests, and social media features encourages sharing experiences and cultivates a loyal community that spreads your brand's message organically. #UGCmarketing #brandUGC #contentstrategy #digitalmarketing #usergeneratedcontent #UGCstrategy #brandengagement #socialmediastrategy #contentcreation #UGCcommunity

You don't need to send 50 cold messages to strangers. You need to show up where your people already are. Here's how I approach it (and honestly, it's simpler than you think): 💜 Start with likes – I know, sounds basic. But when you consistently like someone's content, they notice. You're on their radar now. 💬 Then add thoughtful comments – Not "Great post!" but something real. Share your take, add value, ask a genuine question. This is where people start remembering your name. 🤝 Send connection requests to people you've engaged with – They've already seen you around. Now you're not a random face, you're someone who gets their content. ✉️ DM with intention – Once you're connected, say something specific. Compliment their recent post, mention something you both care about. Make it feel like a real conversation, not a pitch. ☕ Suggest a coffee chat – If the conversation flows well, take it off the platform. Virtual coffee chats have led to some of my best collaborations. 🎯 Collaborate when it feels right – Co-create content, do a LinkedIn Live together, feature each other's work. This is where your network turns into your community. Your personal brand grows when you're genuinely interested in others, not just interesting to others. The connections that matter? They start with you showing up, being helpful, and staying consistent. P.S. Want to build a personal brand that attracts the right connections? DM me for a free consultation call. #PersonalBranding #LinkedInNetworking #ContentCreators #CommunityBuilding #NetworkingTips #LinkedInGrowth #AuthenticConnections

𝗧𝗿𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗱𝘆 - 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁? Most companies chase commerce first and try to bolt on community later. It rarely works - communities can’t be manufactured on demand. Travel Buddy did it backwards, and that’s exactly why it’s working.  • 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 (2020–2023): No app, no monetization, no shortcuts. Just city chapters, 2,200+ offline meet-ups and people showing up for each other around a shared love of travel. It grew to ~0.5M quarterly active users the hard way - organically, into India’s largest travel community. This phase many founders skip, because there’s really no revenue to show for it while you’re building it.  • 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁: The community didn’t just gather - it talked, shared, and created. That ongoing conversation is what turned strangers into a network people trusted enough to plan trips with.  • 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲 (2023 onward): Only once the trust existed, did the business layer happen. First supply partnerships (MakeMyTrip myPartner, Marriott, Taj, Wyndham, Satguru), then in Dec 2025 the tech platform itself: AI-powered discovery, matchmaking, chat, and a subscription engine. The result is rare: a subscription business (98% gross margin, sub-1-month payback) sitting on top of a community that converts into real travel bookings organically - at no incremental CAC. 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 → 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 → 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲 is a hard but great journey. It’s the actual sequence Travel Buddy was built in, in that order, over five years. To be fair, the pivot was not all pre-planned, but now seems the obvious way. The struggle is still on but looks like cofounders Saurav Chakraborty Paromita Bir Chakraborty are well on their way. 🤞 Tanmaya Vats| Chetan Mathur | Devesh Nayel | Pranav Jha | #Traveltech

easyGroup, creator and owner of the easy family of brands, Europe's most famous value brand just launched a new brand: easyInfluencer.travel - no it is not April 1st I have daily conversations with SMB travel businesses that tell me creator marketing doesn't work. The Easy Group thinks it works. They are building a whole brand around it to bring influencer marketing to their SMB hotel partners for a small monthly subscription. Congrats George Karavokyris on the launch. Welcome to the party. Klook thinks it works. They have a creator community 20,000 strong and run an annual "Kreatorverse" conference at their own significant expense to reward top performers. GetYourGuide thinks it works. They have one of the most sophisticated creator programs in travel. They get their suppliers to give them comped seats and then use the content created to beat those suppliers to the next booking by winning in social search. Accor thinks it works. They are currently running an in-house creator program in APAC to build an always-on machine so they show up for their keywords in social. Lee Besser who is helping to run that program will join me on stage at Arival next week in Brisbane. Our Videreo clients like Max Tours in Las Vegas know it works. They get 80% of their bookings direct, almost all from social media. What these companies understand is that right now, the most cost-effective pathway to new customers is by dominating the social search results, the place where most people are now doing their searching. For the OTA's in particular, every dollar not spent on the most expensive pathway to customers, Google or Meta ads, is what drives their margins, their valuations and their bonuses. And the past couple of years have been a golden age for those doing the work in the social search space. To be super clear: the most effective way to show up for your keywords in the largest search spaces in travel (Instagram and TikTok) is via creator content. https://lnkd.in/giecmpDV

Your customers scroll past 500 posts a day. Boring corporate content isn't getting their attention. Human content is. People are being spammed to death. Cold emails, Cold calls, LinkedIn pitches from strangers. It's harder than ever to reach people. But content consumption is as high as ever. So give your customers what they actually want: Useful, interesting, fun content that brings your brand to life. B2C brands figured this out years ago. Duolingo's unhinged TikToks. Ryanair roasting customers. None of it looks perfect. All of it works. B2B companies are still stuck in 2019. Snoozefest product updates, unactionable whitepapers and webinars. Here's what to do instead: 1. Employee-Generated Content (EGC) Exec perspectives, your team filming day in the life videos, product demos on their phones. People trust employees/execs over impersonal content every time. How to implement: • Get your execs posting consistently (work with someone like me to help) • Recognise employees who post in all-hands meetings • Monthly incentives for team members getting the most reach Example: Zapier, beehiiv, ClickUp 2. Creator-Generated Content (CGC) Creators making branded content that doesn't feel like ads. Tutorials, breakdowns, recommendations that fit naturally into their feed. How to implement: • Partner with educators already talking about your space - they have more influence than entertainers • Let them create content that looks like their existing content Example: Zapier, Gamma 3. User-Generated Content (UGC) Real customers sharing real pain points and results. Think before-and-afters and "Here's how I actually use this" videos. This converts because it's proof, not corporate promises. How to implement: • Feature customer posts on your company page • Build program tiers that reward UGC with early access or perks • Make them look good when they share your content You don't need the biggest ad budget to win here. The ones who are winning are building content systems - around their team, creators and customers. 📌 Want help implementing this? Send me a DM ♻️ Repost to help your network win at marketing in 2026. ➕ Follow me (Will McTighe) for more like this.

China is teaching Western brands the secret to travel content: show your audience, don’t tell them. In China, they’re booking trips directly from the videos they watch. When people are planning their next venture, they don’t open a search engine. They open Little Red Book, Xiaohongshu. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a social platform that’s a cross between Instagram, Pinterest, and Amazon, and is one of the most influential apps in China when it comes to consumer travel behavior. Audiences scroll, save and imagine themselves in the places they’re discovering. It’s a completely emotional, visual and experience-led journey. Brands are building their content like creators, not institutions. And it’s why platforms like Xiaohongshu are reshaping how the next generation of travellers make decisions, long before they ever look at a booking site. Meanwhile, in the West, a lot of brands are still publishing like it's 2013, focusing on static ads, stock content and campaigns built around conversions, not culture. They’re leading with messaging, rarely focusing on experience and using platforms to sell when really they should be using them to give audiences an insight into the world they experience when they travel. But what I’ve learned is that travel content isn’t about volume anymore. It’s about resonance. Travellers, and especially younger travellers, are looking for identity and relatability. They want to feel seen and want content that isn’t an ad. And that’s what China’s travel content is getting right. It shows rather than tells. Western travel brands need to stop seeing TikTok and Reels as purely distribution channels and treat them as inspiration-booking engines instead. That’s how the next generation is planning to travel and it’s the only long-term way you’re going to get them to book with you.

Expedia just dropped new research on what actually drives travel decisions in the AI era, and if you work in hospitality, you should be paying attention. Because this confirms what many of us have been seeing on the ground. 1. Video is not optional. Travelers are nearly 3X more influenced by video than static images, and 71% said video content shaped their decisions. That is not engagement fluff. That is revenue impact. If your property is still leading with static room shots and templated captions, you are invisible. 2. Authenticity wins. Authentic, user generated content consistently outperformed fully AI generated material. Less than half of respondents said they were comfortable with fully AI created articles or influencer content. Translation, travelers are open to AI assisting behind the scenes, but they do not want to feel like they are being marketed to by a robot. 3. Representation drives trust. 34% of respondents said seeing themselves represented in content increased trust in a brand. Diversity is not a PR talking point. It directly impacts booking confidence. If your marketing only reflects one type of guest, you are quietly telling everyone else they do not belong. 4. Structure matters. The research showed that clear storytelling with a strong beginning, engaging middle, and clear call to action increases comprehension and recall. Video scenes lasting 2 to 9 seconds hit the sweet spot. Overly fast cuts reduce engagement. Sloppy pacing loses attention. This is not about being flashy. It is about being intentional. 5. Social is critical for younger travelers. 71% of travelers under 40 said they use social media for inspiration. If your social strategy is disconnected from your broader commercial strategy, you are leaking demand. Period. And here is a stat that should make every GM rethink how they position pre arrival marketing. 85% of respondents said they go on a pre trip shopping spree. That means travelers are in a buying mindset before they even arrive. Smart brands show up during planning, not just at check in. The biggest theme running through all of this is simple. AI can enhance efficiency. It can optimize targeting. It can accelerate production. But it does not replace emotional intelligence, point of view, and human storytelling. I live in hotels full time. I can tell within 5 minutes whether a property’s marketing feels human or manufactured. The ones that feel real, that show real guests, real staff, real perspective, always stand out. In a world drowning in AI generated content, the competitive advantage is not more automation. It is stronger humanity. https://lnkd.in/eM8dDtZG --- If you like the way I look at the world of hospitality, let’s chat: scott@mrscotteddy.com

Most Brands Get ‘Community’ Wrong—Here’s Why “Build a community.” That’s the advice every brand gets. And 99% of them do it completely wrong. They think community means engagement metrics. They think it means a Discord, a Slack group, or replying to comments. They think it means “involving the customer in the conversation.” And then they wonder why no one cares. The truth? People don’t want to join your brand. They want to join a world that makes them feel something. That’s what separates a brand with an audience from a cult brand that people would die for. The Problem With the ‘Community’ Playbook Most brands follow the same tired strategy: ✅ Start a social media page ✅ Create “engaging content” (whatever that means) ✅ Launch a Discord or Facebook group ✅ Hope people show up and talk about the brand And guess what? Most of these communities turn into a ghost town. They have zero identity, zero mystique, and zero sense of belonging. People don’t want another boring brand forum where they talk about products all day. They want a movement, a belief system, a new way of thinking. And that’s why the most powerful brands don’t build communities—they build worlds. The Cult Brand Playbook: Build a World, Not a Community Let’s look at brands that actually get it right. 🔥 Harley-Davidson: You don’t just buy a motorcycle. You join an outlaw brotherhood. 🔥 Liquid Death: It’s not about drinking water it’s about murdering thirst. 🔥 Apple (under Jobs): Not a tech company—an anti-establishment revolution. None of these brands talk about “engagement” or “building a customer community.” They create a lifestyle, mythology, and set of beliefs that make people feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves. And that’s the secret: Cult brands don’t chase customers. Customers chase them. How to Stop ‘Community-Building’ and Start World-Building If you want to build something people actually care about, stop focusing on engagement and start focusing on immersion. 🔑 Define a Belief System – What does your brand stand for? (And who’s the enemy?) 🔑 Create Rituals & Symbols – What actions and language make someone an insider? 🔑 Make It Exclusive – Can everyone join, or is it earned? 🔑 Give It a Mythology – What’s the origin story, the legend, the deeper meaning? If you build a world people want to live in, they’ll fight to get in. If you just build a community, they’ll leave the second something better comes along. Most brands are just a conversation. Cult brands are a religion. Your Turn Drop a comment: ⚡ What’s a brand that has built a real cult following? ⚡ Have you ever joined a brand not just because of the product—but because of the world they built? Let’s hear your take. 🚀 #Branding #CultBrands #WorldBuilding

Ever wondered if we could consumer perceptions, attitudes, and intentions without running endless surveys? In our latest article, published in Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Raoul Kübler, Susanne Adler, Lina Welke, Prof. dr. Koen Pauwels, and I discuss how user-generated content (UGC) - things like reviews, posts, search logs, and even podcasts - can help approximate key consumer mindset metrics (like awareness, consideration, satisfaction, or recommendation). We propose a four-step process, which comes with concrete recommendations for various tools to put each step into action: 1️⃣ Identify what aspect of the mindset you want to capture 2️⃣ Find the right UGC source 3️⃣ Extract the information with the right tools 4️⃣ Validate that the results actually predict relevant outcomes It’s not about replacing surveys entirely, but more about combining the “old” and “new” to get faster, richer insights into consumer perceptions, attitudes, and intentions. Check out the full article (open access) here: https://lnkd.in/da-BK3qR LMU Munich School of Management Institut für Marketing - LMU München