Customers can be touchy souls, especially on social media. Can you be sure that every post you make will create the response you hoped for?
Here are 10 questions every travel PR should ask themselves before making their next post.
Since revealing news of its financial difficulties last week Thomas Cook has continued to post special offers on its Facebook Page, only to be hit with comments from concerned fans about the company going bust. The past month has been horrible for Australian airline Quantas, which has faced PR disaster after disaster as customers have turned against them on Twitter.
If you have a Facebook Page or Twitter Profile how much consideration are you going to give to your next post? Cock it up, and your customers could be on the end of a rollicking from your fans and followers.
Travel PR guides to posting on Facebook and Twitter
1/ Are you going to upset customers who’ve already booked? If you are posting details of a new deal, how will your fans who have already booked react? If they complain, how will you respond?
2/ Who proofs the posts? You are talking directly to your customers and prospects, so is there someone to fact and spell check what you write?
3/ Who’s on the evening shift? If you put your news live at the end of the day, who’s going to monitor and respond to comments during the evening? If you post on Friday, who’s going to keep an eye on activity over the weekend?
4/ Is your message clear? Facebook posts have to be short and sweet, so are you giving enough detail to make your message clear? Where can you send people for more information?
5/ What’s your call to action? What do you want people to do after reading your post? Have you made that clear to them?
6/ What’s Plan B? If your message is hijacked, changed and twisted by followers, how can you get things back on track?
7/ Is one post enough? Your Facebook messages will only appear on about 60% of your fans’ newsfeeds each time you post, so do you need to plan additional posts to maximise uptake?
8/ Are you breaking any rules? For example, Facebook competitions should only be run via an approved app.
9/ How will measure success? Are you tracking comments and likes, click-through or bookings to justify the time you’re spending on Facebook?
10/ Help me out. What rule would you add to this list?