Joyce Manalo

Over the past ten years, digital video has matured and permeated the social sharing and mobile viewing environments. As ad products evolve to make video more interactive and audience more targetable, travel brands need to rethink their content mix to stay relevant.

A major shift took place two years ago that caused travel brands to lament the dwindling access to consumers through Facebook. Paid reach beat out organic reach and brands realized that they don’t have much of a choice but to stay put. As consumers drift into other branches of this multi-pronged platform, smart brands are keeping one eye on the data that matters and the other, on greener pastures.

Travelers are looking to their social networks for inspiration and recommendations, before, during and after their vacations. User generated content is native to Instagram. Consequently, it is becoming the most effective marketing platforms in the evaluation stage—one step away from the purchase decision.

With a the growing amount of technology platforms to reach brands, social media has become an important space for customer service. In order to keep up with the popularity of these platforms and increasing amount of social interactions, brands are adapting by structuring their teams and departments to deal with volumes of inquiries in a personalized way.