Thorne Travel owner Shona Thorne said agents using Facebook as their main tool should consider other social media platforms to attract different audiences and those who may have migrated to new channels as they have emerged.
Thorne said the business’s biggest social media platform remained Facebook, followed by Instagram – both owned by Facebook parent Meta – but cautioned against concentrating on only one or two platforms. Besides Facebook, Thorne also uses TikTok, Pinterest and LinkedIn.
"Facebook is great, but customers are looking for a lot more,” she said. “They’re looking for TikTok in particular – not just for the daft things, but the quirky.”
Travel is the biggest search term used on TikTok, which has 25 million adult users in the UK. According to Heath Heise, co-founder of digital marketing agency Llama, 40% of of these users are aged 35-plus.
Heise, who presented on TikTok at the recent Advantage Travel Partnership conference, describes TikTok as an “untapped marketing goldmine”, citing data showing how short-form video was helping 82% of users consider new destinations.
Heise added it was free to get started with TikTok, and stressed agents could make inroads with a relatively low minimum daily ad spend of around £20 – cheaper than Facebook or Instagram.
Thorne said her agency also used LinkedIn for targeted marketing. “Facebook is shouting, ‘here is our deal’, while LinkedIn is a bit more subtle, it’s more about sending a direct message – that’s been quite successful,” she said.
Thorne Travel has a history of experimenting with social media. It’s profile exploded in 2024 when its dance-led promotional video went viral on YouTube, something Thorne addressed speaking to TTG earlier this year about the agency’s 15th anniversary.
Thorne said the visual element was important for some customers, and advised: “Pinterest is great for getting customers to have ideas with a pretty picture, linked to your website for more information.”
The three-branch agency has a trio of staff covering social media, whose ages range from 17 to 48. Thorne said younger members of the team were quick to spot trends, whereas more experienced staff tended to have a better understanding of SEO – search engine optimisation.
"Analytics is the key, we study what works,” Thorne stressed, adding: “If we have someone that’s younger, they don’t tend to understand the product the same as an older person. Youngsters are very quick to get things out, but older staff look more at trends.”
She advised other agents to get personal: “Make it personal to your client, make it personal to you. Clients don’t buy into something that is generic. We could use ChatGPT, but it doesn’t bring out your personality.”
