Measuring Metrics with Tripcentral.ca

The goals of any organization should be where the metrics for social media begin. Social media behaviour should contribute and align with these goals in order to achieve online success and ultimately drive sales.

Tripcentral.ca is a hybrid brick-and-mortar/online travel agency based out of Hamilton, Ontario. While many agencies are trying to stay afloat, Tripcentral.ca is still growing. They just opened a new storefront location earlier this month! Their Mission statement is “to make the best planning, booking, and travel experience for our customers by matching their changing needs, providing advice, and saving them time.” They have spent a lot of time and money building proprietary software for their online presence so they can do just that. They have a regular blog with excellent advice and suggestions for improved travel experiences. They have a Facebook page with a 4.8 star review rating that they typically respond to within an hour. But how do they measure their online presence? How do they qualify the worth of their social media efforts?

I spoke to Amanda Stancati, the SEO Copywriter & Blogger at tripcentral.ca about how they use social media to achieve specific business goals. She had this to say:

“Like any marketing strategy, it’s important to define objectives and track ROI for organic and paid social media marketing. Views, likes, shares, comments, reach, sign ups, impressions, engagement, and conversions are all ways to measure social interactions. For tracking purposes, we use social media analytics within the social platforms in addition to Google Analytics and other free and paid marketing tools. Social media is about quality over quantity: quality posts, quality conversations, quality engagement. You could be getting thousands of likes, but if these people are not your target market and are not converting, maybe that isn’t a good indication of success. Social media marketing is imperative in this digital landscape. It can become the largest source of traffic or revenue if done right.”

Tripcentral.ca takes their online presence very seriously. They encourage employees to create aligned accounts to share content and to respond to clients. They make it easy for clients to engage with them in social media through contests, email blasts, comments, and reviews. Using software like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, Tripcentral.ca manages and monitors all of their social content to ensure they always have a positive brand image. Their staff monitor the industry and email their agents with important information so that agents are always on top of the most current trends within the supply chain.

Lessons for Others

There are many companies out there who view social media like the old saying goes: “throw enough mud at the wall and something is bound to stick”. Any social media expert will tell you that this is not an effective strategy to drive sales. If you want your social media strategy to align with your organizational goals, you need to put forth a concerted effort to manage, monitor and measure your efforts. Tripcentral.ca is doing just this and is growing in strides because of it.

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

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