Best Experiences in Costa Rica
How can Anywhere Costa Rica leverage social media platform to increase its reach?
January 1, 2016 — I arrived to Costa Rica with sheer excitement to explore one of the biodiverse countries in the world. Visiting three different places with varying climate was just perfect way to spend my week-long vacation. Everything went super smooth: transportation was always on time, hotels had our rooms prepared and the activities went exactly as planned. I immensely enjoyed Costa Rica.
The limited vacation time became an obstacle for my natural temptation to explore the country by hitchhiking. Hence, i had to organize my trip prior to arrival. I started googling for travel itineraries and tour information. As usual, one would expect to get tons of results. However, one of the websites peaked my interest. Anywhere Costa Rica’s model was to combine all the tours, hotels, transportation and information in one site, so you get this comprehensive information about Costa Rica without having to search in other websites. You can book through the website the entire vacation or just parts of it (i.e. transportation, hotels, tours, and any combination). It is one of those websites that if you find, you will never leave and all of your travel querries will be solved instantaneously.
I was so happy and impressed with this website that i decided to launch a similar one for Armenia. I tracked its social media presence and marketing campaign. Strong Facebook profile with constant sponsored advertising seems to be their core social media tactic. While I understand that Facebook is a great fitting platform to reach their customers who tend to be those interested in Costa Rica or just travel in general, i do not think that is enough. A few additional social media platforms come to my mind that can certainly increase the reach of the company include Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Given the fact that I have only Facebook account and any one of the three additional platforms are new to me, i started to download and play around with Pinterest. I must admit I am still trying to figure out the nuances and how companies can use it more efficiently. However, it did not take me long to realize that this is an appropriate platform for travel companies. For example, if one is looking for Costa Rica or longest zip line or adventure or nature, I think Anywhere Costa Rica should come up in the list. Research shows that women tend to be the trip organizers. Given this information and the fact that Pinterest audience is skewed towards women, I certainly believe that this is another “must” platform that Anywhere Costa Rica should be.
To conclude, there are many opportunities for Anywhere Costa Rica to reach its target customers. Some of the efficient and relatively inexpensive ways to do so is through presence in social media where target audience is. Using only Facebook might have been enough several years ago, but nowadays, it is important to leverage others that fit with the company’s goal. My suggestion for Anywhere Costa Rica is to leverage Pinterest in addition to Facebook.
