Andavo Travel reports that it is celebrating the one year anniversary of Compass, a fee-based custom social media service that brings new capabilities to its independent contractors.
Andavo Travel’s marketing team executes social media on behalf of participating travel advisors on a personal, custom level. Rather than automated, generic posts that are the same for all participating advisors, Compass offers posts that are tailored to each advisor’s specific travel expertise, Andavo said. Andavo’s marketing staff meets individually with the travel advisor at an initial consultation to discuss which social media platforms would be most beneficial to that advisor’s business, and what travel niches or specialties the content should focus on.
Then, Andavo’s team takes care of setting up the social media profile on the advisor’s behalf, and executes a set number of custom posts per week (the number varies by social media platform). In addition to posting on the advisor’s own profile, Andavo engages with other users on that platform as well; i.e. liking and commenting on other peoples’ posts, following other accounts, and replying to interaction on the advisor’s account. At the end of each month, the travel advisor receives a report showing analytics on their social media for the month and the opportunity to provide feedback on the content.
The Compass program is open to all of Andavo’s travel advisors, who can opt into the program at any time, for as many social media platforms as they’d like to enroll in.
Given social media platforms are continually changing their offerings, privacy/security settings, and capabilities, participating advisors also value not having to keep up with all of the changes and worry about how they will impact their social media marketing plans, Andavo said. Andavo makes any required changes or improvements automatically on their behalf.
At the one-year mark of the Compass program, Andavo surveyed its current participants to gauge their satisfaction and gain valuable feedback. Below is a sampling of key responses:
- 100 percent of respondents would recommend the program to a peer
- 87.5 percent are comfortable with Andavo’s Compass program managing their social accounts, while the remaining 12.5 percent are neutral
- 100 percent of Compass participants feel that the program is priced correctly
- 75 percent feel the content posted is tailored to their areas of expertise, addressing their target audience
What attracted them to Compass:
- 100 percent were attracted to the Compass program because they don’t have time for social media
- 75 percent feel they’re now able to spend more time focusing on selling travel, rather than marketing it
- 100 percent wanted to expand their business’ presence on social media
- 75 percent felt their business had hit a plateau, and weren’t sure how to attract new business
- 75 percent felt Compass created new content/marketing ideas that they wouldn't have thought of
At this time, the available social media platforms in the Compass program are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.
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