How Travel Marketers Can Tap Into User Generated Content

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This is an excerpt from Olapic’s FREE Strategy Guide, How Earned Content Is Transforming the Travel Industry.

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A light breeze blowing through a set of palm trees, the sun hangs on a backdrop of crystal clear cerulean blue, waves gently ebb from the shore, a wash of relaxation pours over you. Exhale. Sounds amazing, right? This is the type of experience that is instantly conveyed when looking at nearly 36 million photos with #vacation on Instagram. This is also the type of compelling content travel brands are desperate to create. Modern travel marketers are realizing the power of visual user-generated content (UGC), or “earned content,” and putting it to work across all marketing efforts.

Evolving social trends are favoring a major travel-selfie revolution. Today, 72% of consumers post photos on a social network while on vacation, and 76% post them after they return.  Additionally, people are shopping in an increasingly visual manner, looking to their friends’ and families’ content on Facebook and Instagram for trip inspiration. Stock photos simply do not offer enough context or keep people engaged – in addition to being wildly expensive to stage and shoot.

With the prolific volume of consumer-generated content found on Instagram alone, brands are missing a huge opportunity to put this authentic, affordable content to work on their own site and provide travelers with the confidence they need to make a purchase without clicking over to a third party.

In this guide, marketers can expect to learn how to:

• Encourage loyal travelers to create high-quality visual earned content on behalf of their brands
• Activate earned content as the connective tissue between all other marketing initiatives (both on-and-off-line)
• Utilize earned content to create authentic marketing experiences at scale.
• Measure the impact of earned content to increase bookings and traveler engagement

Brands like Marriott, Hyatt, and Norwegian Air are already tapping the power of their travelers and realizing success through earned content initiatives. To achieve the same results, download Olapic’s free strategy guide, “How Earned Content is Transforming the Travel Industry.”

Download the Report, Free!

This content was created by our partner, Olapic.