How to effectively use social media to build your travel plans

There is no doubt that social media plays a huge role in inspiring us to travel.

Personally, it doesn’t take much to make me want to go to wherever my social media contacts point me to.  It doesn’t help that I’m super impressionable.   I go from deciding that I need to go to Turkey right this second, to returning to Morocco, to booking that sale tour to Antartica – all in just a few swipes up on my phone or several clicks on my mouse.

One look at my Instagram feed and I want to jump on a plane and get to that beautiful waterfall or that busy cafe in the middle of an exotic city.  Seeing friends’ travel photos on Facebook always adds a few more additions to my To-Go list.   Twitter is always enticing me to read one great travel article after another.  And of course, I could stay on Pinterest from hours, hopping from one board to another.

As inspiring as these outlets can be, having so many options and input can be confusing.  Avoid being overwhelmed by having a strategic way of curating and cataloging meaningful content for your travel game plan.  Whether you’re putting together your travel bucket list and doing research for an actual trip that  you are about to take, you can harness the power of social media to your advantage.

Here’s 5 strategies on how to effectively use social media to build your travel plans:

 1. Start a Travel Board on Pinterest.

You might be using Pinterest to get recipes and ideas for craft projects, but did you know that it’s a goldmine for finding travel inspiration?   Creating a Travel Inspiration board  is the simplest way to do this.  You can have one or a few boards, depending on how you want to organize them.  Find photos of places you want to go and pin it on your board.  If you have several trips in mind, create other boards for specific regions or countries.

Check out my Viajera Filipina Pinterest page for ideas.

Download the Pinterest tool bar for your browser and it will help you pick out the photos from the page you’re looking at and help you pin it to your desired board.

2. Follow talented traveler photographers on Instagram.

The quality of travel photography on Instagram is fantastic, if you follow the right people or know how to look for it.   You can start by following one amazing travel photographer or blogger and go through their posts for travel inspiration or to research details for your itinerary.

More than likely she or he would be following other great photographers or travel bloggers, so check those out and follow as you please.  One feature you can also use is the Activity tab and click on Following.  There you can see the photos that the people you follow recently liked.

Lastly, use the Search function on Instagram and type in your desired destination as a hashtag.  Be ready for the flood of images from that.

Shameless plug, start with my Instagram account.

3.  Save your favorite posts on Facebook.

You’ve probably seen some great travel articles on your Facebook feed but  you might not always have time to read it at that moment.  Use the Save feature by clicking on the arrow on the top right corner of the post with the link.  Click on Save link.

To read it later, go to your news feed page and look for the Saved tab on the left column.

If you can’t find it, type Saved in the Facebook search bar on the top of your page.  The results are organized according to type of post you saved.

4. Follow travel related accounts on Twitter.

There’s so many good uses for Twitter for travel planning but it’s a fast paced app that can really overwhelm you if you’re not careful.   Follow the accounts of travel media outlets and travel bloggers for links to great articles.  You can also interact with people to ask questions, get suggestions and feedback.    Make sure you create a list for this so that you can filter and read just their tweets.  As you can see, this is also a work in progress for me, as I am least active in Twitter.

5.  Check out the social media accounts  of the companies that you will be using for your trip.

For any given trip, you’ll come across a wide range of companies, organizations, and individuals who could provide valuable information.  From tourism boards, hotel chains, attractions and tour companies, pretty much everybody has a Facebook page.  You can choose to like their page or just browse them.  Some of these may have special deals and tips or will announce relevant information on their Facebook account.

If you start wandering aimlessly around different accounts and sites, stop and regroup.  Set a goal (i.e. Research walking tours in Rome) and an allotted time (i.e. 15 minutes).  Stick to your plan.  If you find something really interesting but not related to your main objective, file or mark it and get back to it as a different task for a different time.

Much has been said about the impact of social media on our lives.  Like with any other tool or resource, you should use good judgement to avoid getting sucked into spending way too much time that it defeats the purpose of why you’re using it.