Unlock the Secrets to Skyrocketing Your Travel Brand: Proven Social Media Strategies from Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia! (Blog#2)

Picture: Ronil Prasad, 2025. A display of learning traditional ethnic cooking in Morobe Province Papua New Guinea.

Creating engaging content for travel and tourism social media can be a game-changer for your brand. By leveraging brand community practices and customer engagement strategies, you can create value and foster a loyal following. Here’s how you can do it:

Building a Brand Community

Brand communities are groups of consumers who share a common interest in a brand and engage in collective activities that create value. According to Schau, Muniz, and Arnould (2009), brand communities thrive on practices that include social networking, impression management, community engagement, and brand use.

These practices help in building a sense of belonging among members, which in turn fosters loyalty and advocacy.

For travel and tourism social media content creators, this means creating content that encourages interaction and participation. Share stories, experiences, and tips that resonate with your audience. Encourage them to share their own travel experiences and tag your brand.

This not only increases engagement but also creates a repository of user-generated content that can be leveraged for future posts.

Customer Engagement Strategies

Customer engagement is crucial for building long-term relationships with your audience. Forbes Insights (2015) highlights that the best customer engagement practices involve understanding customer needs, providing personalized experiences, and maintaining consistent communication.

For travel and tourism brands, this could mean offering personalized travel recommendations, responding promptly to queries, and creating content that addresses common travel concerns.

Incorporate interactive elements such as polls, quizzes, and live Q&A sessions to keep your audience engaged. Use analytics to understand what type of content resonates most with your audience and tailor your posts accordingly.

Following video is a small project I did with Social Media content creators and travel bloggers, Stephen and Jess from Flying the Nest.

Video of Flying the Nest, travel blogging by Stephen and Jess, collaborated with Qamea Resort in Fiji during my tenure as Resort Manager in 2020.

Success Stories from Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia

Fiji

Fiji’s tourism industry has successfully leveraged social media to engage with potential travelers. By showcasing the natural beauty of the islands and sharing authentic stories from locals and tourists, Fiji has built a strong online community. The use of hashtags like #FijiHappy and #ExploreFiji encourages users to share their experiences, creating a sense of community and belonging. You can access the industry tool kit in your next Fijian content.

New Zealand

New Zealand’s tourism board, Tourism New Zealand, has been a pioneer in using social media for customer engagement. Their campaign, “100% Pure New Zealand,” uses stunning visuals and compelling stories to attract travelers. They also engage with their audience by sharing user-generated content and responding to comments and messages promptly. This approach has helped them build a loyal following and attract millions of tourists each year

Australia

Australia’s tourism industry has also been successful in engaging with travelers through social media. The “There’s Nothing Like Australia” campaign by Tourism Australia uses a mix of professional and user-generated content to showcase the diverse experiences the country offers. They also use social media analytics to understand their audience better and tailor their content to meet their preferences

TIPS for effective engagement: 

1. Be authentic – Allow customers to connect with your brand

2. Target emotional experiences – understanding customers’ emotional triggers

3. Promote openness and transparency – Build trust with your customers

4. Ensure inclusive and adequate representation – to show your customers of different backgrounds and align to their values

5. Personalize customer experience – Tailor your engagement strategy to be relevant and applicable to your customers

   
   

Conclusion

By understanding and implementing brand community practices and customer engagement strategies, travel and tourism social media content creators can create value and foster a loyal following. Share authentic stories, encourage user participation, and provide personalized experiences to build a strong online community. Learn from successful case studies in Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia to enhance your social media strategy and attract more travelers to your brand.

References:

Braze. (2024). The state of customer engagement in Australia and New Zealand. Retrieved from Braze.

Forbes Insights. (2015). Customer engagement: Best of the best. Retrieved from Forbes.

Schau, H. J., Muniz, A. M., & Arnould, E. J. (2009). How brand community practices create value. Journal of Marketing, 73(5), 30-51.

Thinkific. (2025). Thinkific. Available at Thinkific

Tourism Australia. (2024). There’s Nothing Like Australia. Retrieved from Tourism Australia.

Tourism New Zealand. (2024). 100% Pure New Zealand. Retrieved from Tourism New Zealand.