With social media becoming an increasingly crucial part of marketing strategies across the travel industry, there are plenty of best practices for brands to follow as they seek to grow a presence.

Understanding how to get the maximum returns from social platforms is especially important now as options for travel discovery continue to grow. TikTok in particular continues its march on search media, announcing this week its Search Ads Campaign, a keyword solution for ad-targeting in its search results page – a potential challenge to Google’s dominance.

As TikTok has grown in popularity in recent years – with more than one billion monthly active users worldwide – brands have been figuring out how best to engage with their target audiences through the app. For travel brands new to TikTok, the best place to start – and a practice to continue while building a following – is quite simple, according to Danielle Johnson, Tiktok’s group vertical director for travel, tech and telco: go below the surface.

“Don’t just watch the videos. Go into the comments,” Johnson said during a session at the recent Skift Global Forum in New York City. “Some of the most interesting pieces that are happening are within the comments.”

She advises brand marketers to research what competitors are doing on TikTok – paying attention to tone and how other brands are bringing their products to life and also looking at trends.

Industry experts agree – observation is an optimal starting point for brands new to TikTok.

“TikTok creates culture,” said Kate Kenner Archibald, chief marketing officer at Dash Hudson.

“In order to engage or influence this culture, you need to have your ear to the ground to know what is happening and ultimately engage in conversation. For brands, this conversation can be measured in engagement,” she said.

And there’s still plenty of room for growth whether a brand is on TikTok already or considering joining.

“According to data from Dash Hudson’s latest cross-channel benchmarks report, TikTok continues to experience strong momentum, with brands experiencing an average monthly follower growth of 6%,” Kenner Archibald said.

Growth on TikTok requires a strong commitment to the platform, she explained, noting that brands that lead are posting six times per week on average, up from five times weekly six months ago. And engagement matters, too.

“Brands who are maximizing the platform are responding to consumer questions and asking their own questions to their community,” she said. 

Kenner Archibald’s point is bolstered by an August Phocuswright report, “F is for Funnel: Social Media and the Path to Travel Purchase.” The analysis pointed to signals of potential still to-be tapped – including under-targeted audiences – on social media platforms.

Tim Morgan, co-founder and CEO of Jerne, a platform connecting influencers with travel brands and a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2024, also believes observation is a priority. But he wouldn’t limit that practice to TikTok efforts.

“Just like any marketing strategy, it’s important for travel companies to go to where their target demographic is and intentionally listen and observe how they’re interacting with the company’s own content and the content of competing and complementary companies,” said Morgan.

Madeline List, manager of research and special projects for Phocuswright who authored the aforementioned August report, agreed. “As with any new platform, newcomers to TikTok should spend time in market research exploring the current content landscape to develop a unique and distinguished voice that feels true to both the platform culture and the broader brand.”

That said, Morgan believes the practice of listening and watching is also paramount because social media trends can be fickle. It has to be done with a discerning eye, though.

“There is a lot that can go wrong in following trends too closely that don’t align with a brand’s fundamentals,” he said.

Mallory Kuenzi, head of influencer marketing at Expedia Group, who joined Johnson on the panel at event, said paying attention makes a difference – not only for ideation but also in partnership efforts.

“Fundamentally, influencer content doesn’t live in a vacuum, and when we think about creator[s], influencer[s] – these fabulous, famous folks on the internet – we approach them in really thoughtful ways,” she said. 

Kuenzi gave an example as to how having an ear to the ground on platform paid off in partnership efforts. Her team noticed when Ben Keenan, a TikTok creator, started going viral for his posts discussing rising costs of living in Seattle – he posed it would be easier to live at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico for a month by comparison.

“So we said ‘game on’ and sent him to Cabo for a month,” Kuenzi said. “He tallied all of his [expenses], went through this amazing experience, created daily vlogs of his content.”

Kuenzi pointed out that the partnership even received national media coverage. “It’s been really, really great to see how these fun, opportunistic moments that come from listening can really buzz up and create bigger moments and milestones for our other marketing colleagues as well.”

While watching and listening are elemental in finding TikTok success, there are other tools on TikTok that are available to help companies looking to engage in something of a creator mindset, too. 

And there’s plenty more to think about than just what is already trending on TikTok. List shared some tips on jumping into the conversation while creating content. 

“It’s important to think about featuring content that adds value for travelers. Plenty of social media content is eye-catching without actually being useful for planning a trip,” said List. “Of course, being visually engaging is important, but brands should also think about how to weave in quality and concrete information and advice, as this can help lead to more travel conversions ultimately.”

And there are tools meant to help in-platform, too. TikTok Symphony launched in June to give businesses access to an artificial intelligence-powered creative solutions built for the platform. Symphony helps businesses to connect conversation to creation, according to Johnson.

“It’s a really good ideator. There [are] also ways to be able to see what’s … trending content. What are the hashtags? So it’s really about getting in there and just seeing the puzzle pieces … then you find the authentic way for you to emerge into it as a brand,” she said.