How Building an Online Travel Community Helped my Spain Travel Business Grow
I’ll be honest, I never set out to become a community manager. I’m a travel industry professional, and that is why I built my own travel company, Spain Less Traveled. There I get to put my 20 years of professional travel industry experience into practice. Having my own travel company was my lifelong dream, but with (formally) zero concept of how to run my own business, having to do it all myself has been a journey.
Broadcasting my message, finding clients that I’d work well with, and displaying my professional expertise and passion for everything, Spain Less Traveled was a total game of trials and errors.
For me, the key turned out to be creating, building, growing, and managing the Travel Spain! Facebook Community. Thanks to my online travel community, my travel business gained traction thanks to being able to reach and speak directly to my target audience.
Here are a few tips that I have about creating and running an online travel community.
Be Able to Offer Something Different
It seems that there are a million Facebook travel communities out there. Everything from general worldwide travel to travel communities just for women, backpackers, people of color, older folks, etc. And of course there are country-specific communities. Most of the travel communities about Spain are spammy and filled with advertisements. And in most of the general communities, any question about Spain is usually met with endless responses about Barcelona— even if the question is about flamenco dancing in Andalusia or seeing the Alhambra in Granada.
I started Travel Spain! to give a space for travelers who truly want to know Spain, the parts of Spain that are less traveled and more off the beaten path. In building my community, I initially invited not only people looking for Spain travel tips, but intrepid Spain travelers as well, to help achieve this.
It worked, and I can proudly say that Travel Spain! is quickly becoming one of the more known sites for being a reliable place to get information about traveling in Spain.
We are different from general travel communities, which can range from Spanish backpack communities to those travel groups that feel like an endless advertisement— one of our guidelines is no self promotion, and since all posts are on an approval basis, my co-moderator and I are able to keep that up.
Promote, Promote, Promote but Don’t Spam
When you are first starting a community, and growing one, you need members. And soon, your immediate network and their networks aren’t enough. Especially if you are truly trying to grow something. How do you get around that when most of the other travel communities are no self-promotional?
There are ways.
For example, when I see a question about Spain in a general travel community, where I truly believe that my community could be more helpful to the original poster, I mention Travel Spain! But I never simply drop a link and run. I always try to best answer their original question and then mention my community.
For example, a few months ago, I came across a post in another travel community asking which smaller Andaluz towns people recommended. The answers varied from Barcelona (which isn’t nearby) to Córdoba (which really isn’t a “town”). I was surprised some answers even mentioned places not even in Spain— I am not lying. Someone recommended Porto, which is a city in Portugal!
Instead of simply saying “Come join Travel Spain! for that information,” I responded with something like, “Personally, I really love Grazalema, Olvera, and all of the towns in the Sierra de Aracena. They are beautiful, quaint, and much more off the beaten path than somewhere like Ronda. It really depends on what kinds of things you are looking for, though. If you want a more chill beach town, you might want to look into Vejer de la Frontera in Cádiz province too. You’ll probably get some other really helpful answers if you ask this in Travel Spain! as well.”
In that I am offering an answer, showing my knowledge on the subject, and inviting the original poster (and anyone else interested) to a community more targeted for their question.
In the past, I have been kicked out of a travel group, but be sure to read their rules to post. For me, providing accurate information is just as important as promoting my community.
The Welcome New Members Post Is a Must
Facebook community managers have an option to make a post tagging all their new members to personally welcome them to the community. For me, as a community manager, it is my way to personally get to know all of my new community members. And for our new members, it’s a warm welcome for them, and a place where they can post to introduce themselves in the comments.
For a while, Travel Spain! was growing so quickly, and Facebook was limiting the number of people who could be tagged in each post, so I had to temporarily stop my regular “Welcome New Members” posts.
I like to maintain a personal relationship with my community, but now that we are at almost 5,000 members, it’s impossible for me to know everyone. The welcome post gives me a chance to meet, and welcome, our new members. Although not everyone in my community is a potential client, I have found several of my clients through the new member post. And monetizing aside, to create the type of community that I envisioned Travel Spain! to be, the post welcoming new members is essential.
Quality, Not Quantity
I could easily be at over 10,000 members if I made my community open and let everyone join. But I didn’t. In fact, I reject member requests all the time. For me it is quality over quantity.
If I want a healthy community that is non-spammy and truly cares about Spain, I need to know that there is an interest before I accept new members to Travel Spain!
We are on a member approval basis. In order to find prospective members who are truly interested in traveling in Spain, I make sure they agree to respect the guidelines of the community and I ask them a few pre-membership questions, like:
What is your favorite place in Spain? Or if you have not been to Spain yet, where do you want to visit most?
Do you agree to follow the community guidelines?
By asking these questions, I can determine if someone really wants to be a part of the Travel Spain! community. I reject member requests often, and it is fairly easy to tell who might be a spammer.
Travel Spain! could be a lot bigger now, but quality is much more important to me than the number of members. And since the community truly is my baby, protecting its integrity is so essential.
It’s Your Job to Moderate
As a woman, there’s an idea and this constant issue where not everyone would respect a female leader. And sometimes it’s hard to step in and take charge when it gets ugly. But moderating your community is so important. People are not always kind to one another, members break rules, petty arguments can happen. It happens with all Facebook communities.
As moderator, it is your responsibility to ensure that everyone feels welcome, rules are being followed, and pettiness is kept to a minimum. Often this means stepping in. Sometimes this means blocking or silencing members.
It’s all part of what you take on when you start and grow an online community.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, my moderator and I were basically working overtime to keep Travel Spain! civil and sane. It’s not the fun part of managing a community, but it’s essential.
Bonus Tip: Seek Outside Help
So there you have it. My top five tips for creating, growing, and moderating a travel community. I am by no means a community building expert. Travel is my professional expertise. But if you are seriously looking to build a community for your business, I highly recommend hiring someone like Valentina Ruffoni to assist you. She’s someone who not only manages several successful communities herself, but she also works as a community consultant, helping clients create and build their own communities. She helped me get Travel Spain! off the ground, so finding an expert can really help you grow and curate your community.
Guest writer Karen runs Spain Less Traveled and it’s where travel dreams come true! She’s traveled to 60+ countries and has 20 years of professional travel industry experience! Her expertise (and passion) is all things Spain.