Leveraging TikTok for Travel Brands: Strategies to Enhance Content Reach

The travel industry has finally entered a growth phase because of emerging digital platforms like TikTok. This engaging platform, known for its bite-sized video content, has played a huge role in shaping the industry. 69% of users say they discover new travel brands on TikTok, proving its growing popularity. But, being a travel brand or agency, do you face the dilemma of capturing travel enthusiasts’ attention, creating relevant content, and ultimately converting them into customers on TikTok? With growing competition and over-polished content, marketers might get stuck and fail to utilize the platform’s full potential to do TikTok for travel business. If you are struggling to move ahead, we are here to help. In this blog, we have listed some of the best TikTok for travel brands marketing strategies, ideas, and challenges that can help you clear all your doubts and confusion. 

Let begin: 

Understanding TikTok’s Audience

Popular among Gen Z and millennial travelers, TikTok for travel business is a powerful tool for travel agencies to find new customers and convert them into their customers. The demographic reach of the hashtag #Travel is 37.8 million, which says it is all about the platform’s relevance. This dynamic platform is perfect for gaining travel inspiration and discovering new locations.

When looking at the behavioral patterns of these users, every 1 in 4 users use TikTok to research and shortlist their travel locations. According to the survey, 32% of users have booked a stay at a new resort or hotel they saw on TikTok, and 28% have visited an attraction they saw on TikTok. Hence, the platform’s wide reach and great user engagement make it ideal for inspiring customers to plan and book travel destinations. 

Benefits of TikTok for Travel Brands

TikTok for business can be great for travel brands for a number of reasons, such as:

1. Viral potential

One of the top benefits of TikTok for travel business is its popularity and ability to make your video viral. With the ad reach potential of more than 945 million makes it a valuable tool for travel brands to enhance their bookings and marketing. Also, TikTok has exceptional user activity and has been downloaded over 3 billion times from PlayStore and Apple Store. TikTok algorithm thrives on creative content, making it perfect for viral marketing. Use this in your travel business by crafting engaging content that resonates with your audience, creating an organic reach beyond traditional marketing. 

2. Authentic Engagement

Unlike other platforms that favor branded content, TikTok for travel business embraces authentic user-generated content that resonates deeply with your target audience. You can showcase your customers’ authentic travel experiences on the platform. This authenticity helps increase your travel brand engagement, as users will be more likely to share and interact. The longest videos, over 54 seconds, achieve the highest average of 38.5 thousand views, indicating that viewers increasingly engage with longer content.

3. Cost-effective Marketing

Many of the smaller travel brands on TikTok don’t engage with social media marketing because it requires a substantial budget. However, with TikTok as your social media platform, you can get valuable marketing opportunities with a limited budget. TikTok travel marketing is cost-effective compared to other platforms because of its organic reach potential. It also has paid advertising options where you can filter the target audience. By doing this much detail targeting, more travel enthusiasts interact with your ads, and you get the most value for your money. 

4. Collaborate with Influencers

One of the benefits of using TikTok for business for your travel brand is that it allows travel influencer collaborations on TikTok to amplify the brand’s reach. There are numerous travel influencers on TikTok with whom you can collaborate to promote your travel products, destinations, activities, and more. By partnering with influencers who align with your travel brand, you can benefit from their credibility to inspire and attract potential customers.

5. User Generated Content (UGC)

TikTok is the perfect platform for brands to collect UGC. It allows them to encourage travelers to share their travel memories using your branded hashtags and tagging the brand. Doing this not only creates excitement around the brand content but also provides a platform for travelers to share their journey. Additionally, the collected UGC also helps brands build impactful social proof.

Developing a TikTok Strategy for Travel Content

Now that you understand the relevance of TikTok for business for your travel brand let us develop a TikTok business strategy to get the most out of the platform: 

1. Identifying Target Audience 

To develop your TikTok business strategy, begin by researching your target audience to understand their interests and preferences. This requires thorough research and a deep understanding of the travel industry and your unique position within it. TikTok allows you to target various demographics based on age, and it is found that the most relevant niches are Gen Z and millennials. They account for over 40% of the total population and travel more than other generations.

2. Setting Clear Objective

Establishing clear, measurable goals is one of the most important factors when developing a TikTok business strategy for your travel business. This step is crucial as it sets the benchmarks against which you will measure your ad’s performance. Having clear objectives will keep your marketing efforts focused and effective. 

3. Explore How TikTok Algorithm Works

Understanding how TikTok for travel business algorithm works allows you to create a compelling content strategy that adheres to the algorithm. The TikTok algorithm acts as a recommendation engine for your travel brand, choosing which videos appear on the ‘For You’ page. The videos on this page will likely change over time based on the user’s viewing preferences. The TikTok algorithm values user interactions, video metadata, and user locations. It does not value the duplicate content, spam content, etc. 

4. Trending Sounds and Challenges

To expand your travel brand’s reach and engagement on TikTok, stay updated on the latest trends and challenges. Try integrating your user-generated travel content with trending sounds into your TikTok business strategy. You can also host a challenge that aligns with your travel brand and takes its engagement to the next level. 

5. Create your Own Branded Hashtag

Like every social media platform, hashtags are incredibly important for TikTok, too. For example, one of the most popular hashtags on Tiktok in the travel industry is #TikTokTravel. Like this, try creating your own hashtag that aligns with your travel brand. Then, encourage your customers to use them on TikTok to get the most engagement and visibility. 

6. Use TikTok Ads

You can utilize the potential of TikTok for business ads to advertise your travel brand. TikTok provides different types of ads, such as in-feed or spark ads. TikTok displays in-feed ads between the content, which are hard to identify as they are similar to the regular content. Spark ads on Tiktok can be useful if you want to use regular content posted by creators as ads. It helps boost your brand’s views, visibility, and presence on the platform. 

Content Creation Tips for Travel Brands on TikTok

Here are some of the content creation tips that will help you with your TikTok travel marketing: 

1. Showcase Destinations

With its popularity, TikTok for business can best be utilized for travel marketing. It allows brands to captivate audiences by showcasing visually appealing destinations. When you highlight the destination’s beauty and uniqueness in your TikTok content, you can attract a large number of audiences and enhance your brand leads. Use high-quality destination images and videos, for example, to capture and display the place’s breathtaking landscapes, vibrant cityscapes, and cultural experiences. 

2. Behind the scenes Glimpses

You can highlight and share behind-the-scenes glimpses of your travel experiences, such as hotel tours and adventurous activities. This TikTok travel marketing tip will create curiosity and excitement in new customers and influence them. Providing them a sneak peek behind the scenes will drive leads as you build anticipation among the viewers. 

3. Encourage User Generated Content

You can host challenges that are trending in your content creation cycle and gather user-generated content for your brand. Travel brands on TikTok can host challenges encouraging users to share their favorite destinations’ travel stories, pictures, videos, etc., of their travel destinations. This not only enhances user-generated content but also creates a thriving community around your travel brand. 

4. Use Call to Actions

The best call to action should be clear, urgent, and enticing. A unique call to action in your travel content helps create excitement in the viewers’ minds and encourages them to take action. For example, phrases like ‘Book Now and Save Big,’ ‘Reserve Your Spot,’ and ‘Secure Your Booking’ create urgency and encourage users to finalize their travel plans.

5. Collaborating with TikTok Influencers

Identifying the relevant travel influencer collaborations on TikTok can help you enhance your TikTok travel brand. Collaborate with those TikTok influencers as they post content highlighting your travel brand for their followers. This TikTok travel marketing tip fosters engagement and attracts new audiences likely to convert or take action. Various tools available in the market can help you measure the success of your influencers in collaboration. For example, engagement metrics, follower growth, etc., can help you decide the best influencers around your audience. 

Challenges and Considerations for Travel brands

Let us explore some challenges that your travel agency might face while marketing on TikTok: 

1. Staying Authentic while Promoting Destinations

One key challenge when promoting TikTok for your travel brand is staying authentic while showcasing destinations. Authenticity in destination branding means staying true to the core essence of what makes your destination unique. Because of the trend-savvy era, there is a lot of fake and over-polished content in the market, which might confuse the users and make them doubt your travel brand. So, it’s important to balance promoting a destination and staying authentic to its unique culture and what you, as a brand, offer. 

2. Managing Potential Negative Feedback

The best way to respond to negative feedback on TikTok is to remain professional and diplomatic. Negative feedback can harm your brand’s online reputation and lead to decreased engagement and viewership. Therefore, it’s important to take the time to understand the issue and respond constructively to address the user’s concerns. 

3. Adhering to Platform Guidelines and Best Practices

Sticking to the platform guidelines and best practices while maintaining a strong brand presence is a challenge. TikTok has certain rules and guidelines around content, including restrictions on sensitive topics, violation of user privacy, legal and regulatory consequences, etc. Travel brands on TikTok must adhere to these guidelines to avoid content removal or account suspension. 

Embed TikTok Video on the Website to Get More Reach

If you are looking for embedding options to increase your reach and views on TikTok and your travel website, Tagbox is the solution. It is the most innovative TikTok marketing tool on the list, helping travel brands on TikTok boost their online presence. Using Tagbox’s Tikok widget, you can easily curate a feed and embed it into your travel website. To create a feed, you can choose from the feed options such as personal account, URLs, etc. Further, after creating a feed, you can remove irrelevant content from the feed with Tagbox’s advanced AI moderation feature. This maintains your website’s content relevancy and professionalism, attracting more visitors and bookings. Here are some of the top features of the tool:

• Various customization themes and layouts are available so that you can match your feed with your website design and visuals. 
• Moderation features to filter out the best content for your website.
• Use in-depth analytics, such as audience behavior and sentiment analysis, to optimize TikTok travel content and improve campaign performance. 
• No coding is required to embed TikTok video into your website. 

Conclusion

TikTok is an excellent platform for connecting with young travel enthusiasts. By embracing its unique features and organic reach potential, you can easily enhance your travel marketing strategy within budget. This article lists some of the best strategies, such as exploring the TikTok algorithm, strategic CTAs, etc. We have also jotted down a few content creation tips for you to manage your TikTok travel content. Get inspired by them and expand the reach of your travel brand.