6 Steps to Booking Weddings With Trip Advisor For Honeymoon Travel & Destination Wedding Experts

Search pretty much any destination wedding travel topic on Google and what comes up on the first page?  Go ahead, take a wild guess.

Trip Advisor.

It’s the best known and most widely used travel review site on the internet.  And it manages to appear EVERYWHERE in travel-related searches, like some sort of travel review fungus.  (Ick.  That was an unpleasant simile.)

Trip Advisor is the perfect place to meet brides and grooms who are searching for destination wedding or honeymoon travel information.

Here’s the problem:

You can’t promote your wedding business directly on Trip Advisor, so how can you get access to those leads?

Rest assured, it can be done!  Just proceed with caution and follow these guidelines.

*Trip Advisor may update its guidelines and features at any time, so be sure to check the most recent Terms of Use and Forum Guidelines before proceeding.

How to Book Weddings With Trip Advisor

STEP 1 – Join Trip Advisor and create a profile designed to attract real leads.  

If you want to get real leads, you need to include: what you do, who you work with, why they should care, and what they should do next.

• Use your real name or Facebook account to create your profile.  Since you won’t be able to directly promote your business, you need to make it as easy as possible for interested couples to find you.

• Fill out your profile completely, including photos, places you’ve traveled, and a detailed description.  This is a social media network and you want to present yourself as a real person, so take the time to complete it.

• Include a compelling call to action and your full website url (include the http://) in the first sentence of your “About Me” section.  

This way whenever someone clicks on your profile, they see your offer without having to open “Read more.”  Your website url won’t be clickable in this section, but they can easily copy and paste it into a browser to visit your site.  See the image below.

• Include an Elevator Pitch that describes exactly who you work with, what you do for them and why you’re such a hot shot.  Make it juicy!

• Add the destinations you’ve visited to your travel map to demonstrate your travel expertise.

• Connect your social media accounts to your profile.  This will make it easier for interested couples to find your business information.

Here’s an example of what the expanded profile looks like:

Hey, no fair making fun of my anemic profile.  I’m too busy writing articles to travel the world right now.  🙂

2)  Post at least 5-10 reviews (or more!) of venues you’re familiar with in your area of expertise.

Remember: Trip Advisor is a social media community.  You need to prove yourself as a valuable, contributing member before anyone is going to interact with you, let alone hire you for the wedding.

Post helpful reviews of the places you’ve visited.  You’ll get networking bonus points for promoting venues that can send you potential business.

3) Observe and browse the Travel Forum for one week before posting.

Learn how people conduct themselves in the forums first before you start answering questions.  You have to be very careful NOT to directly promote yourself or your comments will be deleted and you will damage relationships before you even start.

4) Answer questions and share resources in the Travel Forum, especially in the Honeymoons and Romance section.

Follow the guidelines about what you can and can’t do when it comes to promoting your business and when in doubt, don’t publish it.

DO:

• Share informational links to blog posts and other helpful resources that are NOT associated directly with your business.
• Answer questions about businesses or locations you’re familiar with.
• Answer questions about your own venue (if you are the owner or manager) but be sure to identify yourself as such in your post.
• Include your PERSONAL blog or social media account (personal Facebook page, Pinterest account, Twitter account) in your signature so that people can contact you and find your business.

Here’s an example of a link to a personal blog included as a signature, which conforms to Trip Advisor guidelines:

Notice that if you visit Samantha’s personal Travelling King blog, they have a big DISCLAIMER explaining that this is a personal, not professional, travel blog. However, you can contact them via their contact form or subscribe to a free eBook.

I wonder if you could turn those contacts and subscribers into leads with this strategy?  Hell, yeah!

DON’T:

• Don’t share promotions, specials or offers for your business.
• Don’t include a link to your business website or blog or your post will be deleted.
• Don’t post negative comments about a competitor or spread gossip about other businesses.  It’s bad karma.

5)  Participate in the Travel Forum community on a weekly basis.

If you’re using this to get leads for your wedding business, spend a minimum of 30 minutes each week answering questions about your area of expertise in the forum.

Remember: your goal is to share valuable information and become a respected member of the community, NOT to promote your business.  If you do this right, you will get leads.

6)  Share your Trip Advisor activities on your social media accounts.

Trip Advisor connects with your Facebook and Twitter accounts, allowing you to automatically share your reviews, comments and activities with your social media network.  This is a great way to demonstrate your travel expertise and provide helpful resources that will attract clients beyond Trip Advisor as well.

Embed Trip Advisor widgets on your website, blog and social media accounts to show off your travel expertise even more.

If you’re ready to take your lead-generating to the next level, try out these advanced strategies.

Advanced Trip Advisor Marketing Strategies

• Earn badges for your profile.  You can earn badges for submitting reviews, traveling to destinations or as rewards for helpful forum comments.

• Become a Trip Advisor destination expert.  After you’ve proven yourself as a valuable member of the forum community, you can be voted a destination expert.  You’ll get a special expert category included on your profile, which boosts your reputation and credibility.

• Create a personal travel blog to use in your Travel Forum signature.  A personal blog with filled with travel articles and a prominent “contact me” link will generate leads each time you post a forum comment.  (See the Travel King blog example.)

• Consider Trip Advisor advertising.  Destination content marketing offers are most promising for wedding travel experts.

Is Trip Advisor Right For Your Wedding Business?

Be aware: this Trip Advisor strategy is not going to generate leads overnight.  It takes time to build your reputation and relationships in the community.

This strategy works best for wedding pros who naturally love communicating and sharing their knowledge with others.  If you consistently deliver valuable content and use these tips that make it easy for visitors to find your business information, it WILL work for you.

What do you think about Trip Advisor?

Photo Credit