Steer your business to success by using social media to promote your campground. Recent reports find that 75% of people globally use social media to find travel inspiration and ideas. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram let you showcase your campground’s features and connect with potential guests who might not have heard of your business otherwise.
With the right social media strategy, you can drive traffic to your website, increase bookings and grow your campground. Reach out to Kampgrounds of America, Inc. to learn more!
Benefits of Using Social Media for Campgrounds
Using social media to promote your campground offers the following benefits:
- Increase visibility: When you promote your campground on social media, millions of active users can discover your campground through keywords, ads, hashtags and referrals. Social media can also boost your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking and drive more organic traffic to your website.
- Showcase your campground: Through photos, videos, stories and reels, you can showcase your campground’s features, amenities, activities and testimonials to attract visitors. You can also share your brand story to stand out among competitors.
- Increase engagement: Communicate with your existing and potential customers in real-time by using social media. For instance, you might address concerns, answer questions and provide customer service. Over time, you can encourage user-generated content and build loyalty among your guests.
- Drive conversions: Social media can help you drive more traffic to your website, generating leads and bookings. You can share discounts, coupons and contests on your accounts while including call-to-actions (CTAs) and links to direct your audience to your booking system.
How to Promote Your Campground on Social Media
By having a clear understanding of your audience and learning what works and what does not, you can leverage social media for your campground marketing strategy. Here are a few tips to get the most from social media promotions:
Define Your Target Audience and Goals
The first step in any marketing strategy is identifying your target audience and goals. Knowing this key data can help you create the most relevant, engaging content for your audience that drives them to action. To define your audience, you need to know who they are, what they want and how they behave online.
Leverage tools like Google Analytics to learn about your website visitors and Instagram or Facebook Insights to learn about your social media followers. You might also create a buyer persona to represent your ideal customers and their needs and promotional preferences.
To create goals, think about what you hope to achieve through social media marketing. Keep your goals specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART). For example, your goal might be to increase website traffic by 20% in the next two quarters by posting twice a week on Instagram and Facebook.
Choose the Right Platform
Each social media platform has its set of features, audiences and best practices when it comes to marketing. When starting your campaign, choose the platform that best matches your target audience’s behaviors and preferences, as well as your own capabilities. Here is what the different social media platforms can offer businesses in the camping industry:
- Facebook: This is still the most used social media platform. Promote your campground on Facebook with a business page, and you can create all types of content, from pictures and stories to updates and special events. Leveraging Facebook Ads for your campground can help you reach an even wider audience, build awareness, generate leads and drive traffic.
- Instagram: Promote your campground on Instagram by showcasing features and unique amenities. This platform is all about videos and photos, so you will need high-quality visual content to really leverage it and inspire your audience. Like Facebook, using Instagram Ads for your campground can help you reach more people.
- X, formerly known as Twitter: Promote your campground on X, formerly known as Twitter, to spread awareness about your business and engage in real-time with customers. Customize and brand your profile, advertise, get verified and drive traffic to your website with frequent posts and updates.
You don’t have to use all of these platforms at once. Start with one that suits your goals and target audience best, then expand to other ones as your business grows.
Craft Compelling and Informative Content
Content is at the heart of your social media marketing strategy. It attracts, educates, entertains and convinces your audience to visit your campground. Campers are known for being very loyal, and using social media can help you develop long-term connections to ensure your business’s success.
To keep your content informative, engaging and visually appealing, try these tips:
- Make your content mostly educational and inspirational, such as sharing tips on outdoor activities in your area.
- Make use of varying formats on social media, including photos, videos, stories and reels.
- Aim for high-quality content that feels familiar and authentic.
- Engage your audience by highlighting upcoming events and sharing customer testimonials.
- Use resources like hashtags, captions or calls to action in every post to increase visibility and engagement.
Keep in mind that quality content is key. Captivate your audience with storytelling that paints a picture of what campers can enjoy at your campground. Creating valuable content will help you stay ahead of the competition, attract guests and retain those who have already stayed with you.
Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC)
Within the camping niche, you might connect with families and couples sharing their experiences with sizable audiences. One example would be inviting them for a free stay at your campground in exchange for sharing a post about it with their followers.
You might also encourage and feature your current customers on your social media accounts — think photos, videos, reviews and even social posts. This is real, authentic and unpaid content you can use to enhance your credibility. One way to do this is through a themed photo contest. Encourage followers to capture their favorite moments at your campground and share them with a unique hashtag.
As participants share their love of the outdoors, they inadvertently become brand ambassadors. This is just one way to amplify user-generated content, increase your campground’s visibility on social media and showcase that people are loyal to your brand. Sharing and resharing camper experiences can multiply asset reach and attract more visitors to your campground.
Highlight Unique Selling Points of Your Campground
Think about what makes your campground the preferred place for campers. Is it beside a serene lake, nestled in a tranquil valley or a host to exciting activities and comfortable amenities? Feature your campground’s unique selling points and use them as the pillars of your social media marketing strategy.
Consider the features that set your campground apart from competitors and integrate the exciting rarities into your content. You might describe your pet-friendly tails, relaxing amenities like pools or the limitless stargazing opportunities awaiting guests. Every little detail contributes to engaging content that may catch the eye of a future visitor.
By combining the unique points of your campground with the many social media tools, you can increase your brand awareness and inspire travelers who resonate with the aspirations of escape and adventure.
Post High-Quality Visual Content
Imagine scrolling your social media feed and coming across an image or video that takes your breath away — a starlit sky above a cozy tent or a flowing river bordering serene campsites. The impact high-quality visuals have on social media campaigns cannot be overstated. Photos and videos can showcase your campground’s unique features and engage potential visitors with a glimpse of the tranquility and adventures your grounds provide.
Create a collection of photos that reveal your campground’s beauty as well as its authenticity. Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are ideal for sharing visual content, where you can showcase nearby attractions and unique amenities to potential campers. Viewers will imagine themselves in the picture-perfect settings you display, piquing their desire to experience your campsite firsthand.
Consider Social Media Ads
While you will need to learn effective social media marketing, investing in advertisements can help generate new reservations for your campground. Pay-per-click (PPC) is a cost-effective, pragmatic approach that only requires payment when a user clicks on your ad. A PPC model can mitigate financial risk and encourage a performance-driven mindset.
Yet, the strategy also requires monitoring and refinement to yield the highest possible return on your investment. You will want to continually measure the impact of each dollar spent on advertisements and allocate future ad spending based on your findings.
Increase Engagement With Interactive Posts
Engagement is the foundation for any successful digital marketing campaign, especially when promoting venues like campgrounds. Use interactive posts to boost customer engagement. You can use polls and surveys on Instagram stories or Facebook to attract and identify the interests of your audience.
For example, when you post a poll asking about a favorite campground feature or a survey on preferred activities, you do more than gather feedback — you build community by making your target audience feel heard. Question-based posts can also gauge your audience’s preferences, such as inquiring about favorite memories or adventures they hope to embark on next.
Examples of interactive posts you might leverage include:
- Weekly polls about upcoming events or amenities.
- Surveys after peak camping seasons to make improvements.
- Open-ended questions that encourage storytelling about cherished camping memories.
Every interactive post you make is an opportunity to strengthen bonds with your camping community and elevate their engagement.
Drive Website Traffic
Naturally, your social media isn’t an end in itself. Its ultimate goal is to lead your audience toward a decision — driving conversions and increasing revenue. Your CTA waits at the finish line, guiding users to book a stay or learn more about your campground on your website. By blending the power of your visuals with clear, concise copywriting, action becomes the next logical next step for your audience.
Where you place your CTA or website link depends on your chosen social media platform. On Facebook, you can add a link to your profile section, stories, posts and groups. On Instagram, you can link to your campground website in your bio or stories. For X, you can link your website in your profile section or posts.
You will want to design your website so that when visitors enter it, they feel empowered to become future guests. The design should capture their attention and make them want to learn about your services. A well-written, easily accessible and engaging website is the link between your social media account and more reservations and revenue growth.
Measure Success and Optimize
Tracking and measuring the performance of your social media initiatives is critical to optimizing your strategy effectively. Tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and Instagram Insights can help you monitor metrics like engagement, reach, clicks, conversion and impressions.
These tools can provide the insights you need to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns and adjust your strategy toward more engagement and higher conversion rates. Track the following key performance indicators:
- Click-through rates (CTR): These numbers showcase how effective your ad is to your audience. Calculate CTR by dividing the number of users who clicked on your ads by the number of people who saw it, or impressions.
- Engagement levels: These reveal how well your content resonates with prospective guests. Calculate engagement by dividing the number of interactions your content receives by the total number of followers. Multiply the result by 100%.
- Impressions: Impressions are the number of times users saw your content, including multiple views from individual people. You can calculate impressions by tracking the total number of times your content was displayed on social media, like in a user feed or search results.
- Reach: This showcases the number of unique users who viewed a specific piece of content. Unlike impressions, which show the number of multiple views from one user, reach measures the size of the potential audience for that content.
Track and analyze these results consistently, from weekly to quarterly checks, and compare them with your goals. Test different content types, times and frequencies to see what works best. Keep updated on the latest trends in social media marketing and adapt accordingly. By staying on top of your campaign efforts, you will be able to see the elements that are thriving and those that require refinement.
Own a Kampgrounds of America Location
As social media and the campground market change, you want to keep growing your business strategy as well. When you own a Kampgrounds of America location, you get access to a wealth of resources, knowledge and marketing tools to set your campground up for success. KOA equips franchisees with a social media toolkit to leverage the different platforms, whether you buy an existing KOA or convert your existing campground into a KOA.
Appreciate all you need to advertise your campground and grow revenue each year. Complete an information request form today to get started.
