Using influencer marketing to promote your tourism business

How can you use influencer marketing to promote your business? Find information on what influencers are, why to use them, and more.

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What is an influencer?

An influencer is a person who shares content online with a group of people who strongly value their opinion. Consumers trust real people!

Traditionally this was a role fulfilled mainly by journalists, celebrities, and reality TV stars.

Recent years have seen the growth of bloggers, YouTubers, and social media stars as influencers.

1. Why should I work with influencers?
2. What content could an influencer create?
3. What should influencer activity goals be?
4. How you can identify the right influencer
5. How do you work with an influencer?
6. What free tools are available to you?
7. ASA guidelines and disclosing partnerships
8. Working with VisitScotland

1. Why should I work with influencers?

Although you can create and share your own content online, an influencer tends to have a larger following than your business channels.

Their audience also tends to be highly engaged with what they talk about – so more likely to look up things they mention, or click through to find out more.

As a direct result of working with influencers, your business could see:

more traffic to your website
an increase in your social audience
more positive engagement on social media – like, comments, shares
an increase in product or ticket sales
brand recognition

Content by an influencer ticks a lot of boxes

Search Engine Optimisation

Improving search engine optimisation (SEO) to your website
Encouraging engagement

From people talking about, researching or even booking your business offering
User generated content

Rather than you saying how great it is, this is a valued, authentic and respected opinion
Longer-term benefits

Potential for longer-term benefits from having the content assets to use again in the future, to working together again

Working with Chinese influencers

Influencers in China are known as KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders). They operate within a totally different social media landscape.

Popular social media channels in China include Weibo, WeChat, Douyin, etc. This is because Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), or YouTube aren't available in China.

Blog posts

This would be SEO-friendly, include links to your website and social channels, and can tell your story in a longer format.

YouTube videos

SEO-friendly, this content is evergreen and could continue to deliver results long after the campaign is over. Video is a popular way of storytelling amongst influencers.

TikTok content

Short form videos from 15 seconds to 1 minute.

Instagram content

Instagram is a versatile platform that allows a range of content types including photos, videos, live steams and stories which can include polls, quizzes and swipe up links to drive traffic to a landing page.

X (Twitter) posts

Short form content delivered in 280 characters or less.

Facebook posts

Good for sharing links to other content, or pictures and videos.

Assets

High resolution stills and video footage to help build your asset library.

3. What should influencer activity goals be?

Influencer content follows the same process and drives similar benefits to creating your own content. Your top goals should be to:

publish content on relevant platforms
reach existing and new audiences
increase brand awareness and engagement amongst their audience
ensure conversations and engagement take place amongst the content creator and the audience
generate positive sentiment in the form of likes, comments, and shares
create more advocates and brand ambassadors

4. How you can identify the right influencer

If you want to work with an influencer, there’s a few things to check when you pick who you would like to work with.

Things to be mindful of when picking influencers

Audience

The age, market and interests of their audience - do they match your target audience?
Engagement

The engagement they get from other social media posts – do people like, comment and share their work? Look for around a 3-5% rate for an average post.
Response

The response they get when they do advertising on their channel – are the comments from their audience positive in response?
Authenticity

How they talk about other brands – do they seem authentic in their opinions and are they honest about their experiences?
Quality

The quality of their content – how good are the images, and the text with their social media posts?

When you make contact with an influencer, make sure you ask for a media kit or professional references of completed work.

5. How do you work with an influencer?

Three steps to find an influencer

Finding and working with an influencer can be daunting. Please use our three simple steps to make this process easier.

1
Where to start

Start by checking who is already using your (relevant) hashtags across social platforms you're looking to ustilise. From there, you can find similar influencers who you may not already be aware of.
2
What to ask for

Be upfront about deliverables and expectations. If possible, draft a contract to set up the agreement of your collaboration. This can include:
- number of posts published per day and on which platform
- usage rights of content
- fees
- timings and deadlines
Deliver a detailed brief on what you expect from them. Be clear on what you want them to do.
3
Make it personal

Create a bespoke proposal adapted to their audience and interests – but be flexible!  An influencer might have a certain angle for a trip that you may not have thought of.

Remember to organise activities their followers will also be able to do if they decide to come to Scotland.

6. What free tools are available to help you?

You can use these free tools to discover how well a certain influencer's content performs on similar pages to your own. This can help you decide to enter a partnership with them. You can also use it to track this partnership's success once it goes live.

Analyse website traffic

analytics.google.com

An essential tool in tracking where your web traffic is coming from.

Track content performance

buzzsumo.com

This useful tool allows users to identify what content is performing and who the major influencers are.

Monitor influencer performance

ninjalitics.com

Track the growth (or decline) of the audience, the top content, and the engagement rates with the influencer's username.

7. ASA guidelines and disclosing partnerships

This becomes important when a brand gives an influencer a payment. Once you make a payment, any posts promoting or endorsing the brand or its products or services become subject to consumer protection law.

Payment means:

any form of monetary payment
a free (loan of a) product or service, such as free accommodation or a free meal, whether requested or received out of the blue
any other incentive

Read the influencers' guide to making clear that ads are ads on asa.org.uk.

Connect with creators to make and amplify content on instagram.com.

8. Working with VisitScotland

At VisitScotland, we work with a variety of different influencers who make all kinds of inspiring content.

From time to time, we will ask businesses to host an influencer. In this case, we have a campaign lead who will organise the negotiations by doing the following:

create a campaign / activity brief
research relevant influencers and create shortlists
conduct outreach by contacting the shortlist to outline the campaign and gauge their interest
negotiate / confirm deliverables, fees, and dates
send the influencer a contract to sign
book travel, accommodation, activities, and everything else required
execute the trip
amplify / engage content
provide reporting and feedback

Three women have lunch in Dory the Double Decker aka The Bothy Bus

Using influencer marketing to promote your tourism business

What is an influencer?

In this article:

1. Why should I work with influencers?