AS the new year kicks off and companies get ready to start putting their best foot forward to have a tremendous year, I thought it would be fun to look at some of our key companies that have a major role in the development and building of Jamaica and see how we can improve their digital strategy and overall marketing efforts.

So why not start with Caribbean Airlines? The world has reopened and the travel bug has bitten me once again. I decided to check out Caribbean Airlines’ social media platforms just to see what’s happening in the world of travel and it sparked today’s article.

I wanted to give five strategies to Caribbean Airlines in hopes that they can improve their digital experience.

Looking at their social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn), I was a bit underwhelmed because it was too static, text-heavy and didn’t really create an experience or showcase anything significant that would make people want to see the Caribbean. Caribbean Airlines needs to be a major advocate for all things Caribbean and should be a curator of Caribbean experiences.

Whilst they do have Caribbean Beat and Wanderer magazines, none of that content gets turned into any other form of content that can help drive traffic back to its platforms or turned into some great social media content.

Look at Qatar Airways, just looking at their Instagram alone gives you a ton of reasons to make you want to see Qatar or at least fly with them.

So, let’s look at five strategies that would help Caribbean Airlines marketing.

Travel Guides — With over 20+ unique destinations that CAL flies to, they should have no trouble creating travel guides for each destination. Your travel guides can give you endless amounts of social media and downloadable content to keep folks coming back to your platforms to learn, be entertained and aid in the planning of their trips. Your travel guides could include destination highlights, must-see attractions or sites, airport transportation details, currency, accommodation details or recommendations, food and restaurants, culture tips, activities, maps and so much more. The list is endless!

Behind The Scenes — BTS always makes for great content! Show us the behind-the-scenes of how it all works. Day in the life of the pilots, how do the planes get packed up, how do the planes get maintained, pilots in training, a tour of the airport amenities, a look into airplane catering. Again, there is tons of content that will allow us to become more invested and connected with the airline itself.

Travel Blog — The number one to drive traffic back to your website is to create web content and have a strong SEO strategy. There is currently no blog on the CAL website, and this is a missed opportunity to create a world-class travel blog. Remember, not everybody consumes content the same. Your brand needs to create written, visual, and audio content to appeal to everyone. When you do a quick Google search, you realise that over 80 per cent of the results are links to websites. This a great platform to create written guides, add great photography for reverse image search on the search engines, give tips and tricks, downloadables and explore travel trends. Blogs are great for long-form content and can always be converted to short-form social media content. Web content will also help build your e-mail list and grow your pixel pools for retarget marketing.

Infographics or Social Media Carousels — Who doesn’t love a good infographic? You can even turn infographics into carousels on platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok or slide decks on SlideShare. You can break down the differences in your classes (economy, business, etc), outline the travel experience from booking a flight to arrival at the destination, break down the environmental impact and carbon emissions of the different aircraft types or the benefits of joining the loyalty programme.

FAQs — Scour your social media platforms, customer service, e-mail, and forums and look for the top questions that your audience continues to ask and turn that into the appropriate content. If one person is asking the question, then many others are probably thinking about it.

Podcast — A travel podcast would be an amazing and new way to connect to your audience. This would be a great time to interview different stakeholders in travel, interview customers who have recently travelled to a destination and share their experiences and talk about travel trends with industry experts and enthusiasts. Podcasts continue to grow in popularity and are the only medium that allows for passive consumption. Your audience can drive, work out or do chores and listen to your content.

These five strategies will allow Caribbean Airlines to create new, useful, and exciting content. It transforms them into a hub for all things Caribbean and moves them away from a lot of the static, generic content they are currently creating.

This will also expand their digital footprint and give the audience more ways to discover the Caribbean, consume the content and truly be an advocate for the Caribbean.

Keron Rose is a Digital Strategist that works with Caribbean businesses. Learn more at KeronRose.com or check out the Digipreneur FM podcast on Apple Podcast/Spotify/Google Podcast.