Travel is the most talked about topic on Facebook

Facebook travel vertical lead Paul Nahoun believes that mobile is more than just important to consumers, and is in fact the damn “remote control” that’s dictating our entire lives.

But, he asked the audience at the Travel DAZE conference in Sydney yesterday, “how do you cut through when people are using mobile devices all the time?”

Apparently, it all comes down to the thumb, because “the thumb is in charge,” Nahoun said. And in a world where our thumb determines whether we ‘like’ something or not, it’s a pretty big deal to get it right.

“You can’t stop the thumb if you’re not in front of the thumb,” he added.

Nahoun said it comes down to two key things; visual-language storytelling and “telling the right story to the right people at the right time”.

One in three minutes of people’s time on their mobile device is spent on Facebook and Instagram, and there are 10 million people active on Facebook via their mobiles every day, with ‘travel’ the most talked about topic on the medium.

Seventy-nine per cent are talking about the ‘dreaming’ phase, 73 per cent are looking for inspiration from family and friends, and 55 per cent are using mobile devices and Facebook to plan, seeking travel-related activity recommendations.

Nahoun said photos, while still a popular way of sharing on Facebook, simply can’t compete with videos on Facebook. “There’s been a video explosion on the platform with a 94 per cent growth year-on-year and eight billion views daily,” he said.

“And one really good example is Qantas,” Nahoun added, with any campaign that really pulls on people’s heartstrings a real knockout.

Nahoun said if brands want to get attention, they need to follow the rule of “stories not second”, placing primary emphasis on the narrative behind the advertisement.

“If it’s relevant, people will watch it and people will engage with it.”

Another example Nahoun cited was Tourism New Zealand’s ‘The Kombi Diaries’, which ensured it stood out by telling its story in reverse.

Timely advertisements and campaigns are also key to scoring some serious engagement from consumers, Nahoun added, and demonstrated its effectiveness by showing wotif’s quick witted campaign during the time of the Tony Abbott leadership spill, which in its Facebook ads read, “More thrills, less spills” with the cheeky budgie smuggler image.

Cheers to being on holidays! Where there’s no shame in standing on the beach in your budgies ???? http://t.co/dB1S36298u pic.twitter.com/prKKoVa4bg
— Wotif.com (@Wotif) September 10, 2015

“It’s all about carrying them [consumers] along that path with you,” Nahoun said.

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

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