Social media has revamped our lifestyles. Do you notice people “love” going outdoors because of social media? Seems like social media benefits the outdoors.
You might not agree with this.
Wherever you go outdoors, you can’t stand those people taking their own sweet time to take selfies. – Why? Because they disturb the pace of others.
Besides, you can’t stand those people talking so loudly or damaging the environment. They don’t observe common ETIQUETTE in the outdoors.
So, do they truly love the outdoors? You don’t think so. And you think they go outdoors because of taking selfies for social media. – That’s all.
You’re right. Indeed, these are the problems of social media to the outdoors.
But, this is just half of the picture of social media. We can’t ignore the benefits of social media to the outdoors.
Surprisingly, you may not be aware of some benefits of social media to the outdoors. Well, can you think of the benefits?
Right now, I’m gonna show you 6 ways how social media benefits the outdoors. – Not only to you, but also to the community.
1. Economy
Since you are reading this post, I presume you are an outdoor lover.
When you see someone posting pictures of fun outdoor activities, how do you feel?
Those trigger your interest and curiosity, right?
And what do you plan to do? You’d like to try those, sometime in future. Plus, you need to prepare and buy the right gear for the activities.
The truth is, you are not the only one who thinks and does this. When so many people like you do the same thing, this creates an ECONOMIC effect.
As a result, this boosts the outdoor visitation rate and stimulates TOURISM growth. Other demands also increase, such as food and drinks, living accommodation, transport, souvenirs, etc.
Don’t forget the demand for outdoor GEAR and EQUIPMENT.
And these are all MONEY, the money that contributes to economic growth.
1.1 How exactly does the outdoors enhance visitation rate?
I believe you already know where we can GEOTAG our photos. This is a powerful, yet common feature in any social media platforms.
The logic is simple. When you see geotagged photos, you know exactly the place. And since you are interested in it, you can just simply google search for the location. – Bang, there you go!
What if you see nice outdoor scene pictures without geo-tagging, are you frustrated? Despite being intrigued, you don’t want to waste your time and do the tedious search, do you?
This study used geotagged photos in Flickr to estimate the visitation rate at 836 recreational sites around the world.
The researchers wanted to know whether this social media platform data could estimate the visitation rate.
The result turned out to be in line with their belief.
Again, higher visitation rate stimulates tourism, and so on……
2. Education
Let’s be honest. Although you love the outdoors, you won’t know certain fun outdoor places without suggestions from social media users.
You even argue where high visitation rate could lead to overcrowding of certain outdoor attraction spots. And it leads to vandalism and damage to the environment.
Yes, some people could be ignorant and don’t care about common etiquette when going outdoors.
But, this is just one side of the story. The other side is true, too.
In fact, social media is a powerful tool for EDUCATION. And this is how social media benefits the outdoors.
2.1 How social media educates us
We interact a lot on social media. We CLICK, LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, etc. These are all ENGAGEMENT.
And our engagement on social media becomes part of data. And this data is used to feed ALGORITHM on any social media platforms.
When we swipe or scroll on any social media platforms, we often get to see those contents that we like.
Sometimes, we wonder if these social media platforms are masterminds. For example, when we click on a photo about rock climbing, we might get the content on how to rock climb.
There is no secret. And this is just merely how the algorithm works. Literally, we tell the platforms what we like through engagement.
Hence, you’d notice how we can make use of this for education.
2.1.1 Search for information
Whatever content we are watching, don’t stop there. Next, you can SEARCH further for more information.
That’s the biggest trap as some don’t bother to search further. And they end up not having enough preparation for that.
For example, you are going on a hike. So, you need to search for relevant info to plan for your hike. You might need to know what equipment for your hike……
You can refer to so many sources, like FB posts, Youtube videos, etc……
The cool thing is, social media lets you get ready to go outdoors with knowledge and skills even if you are a total beginner.
And you can simply avoid the “trial and error” phase.
2.1.2 Raise awareness
Prefer staying indoors? You might change your mind as social media lets you see the beauty of going outdoors. And you wanna give it a try. – Talk about those aesthetic photos with amazing outdoor scenes.
Sick of those people who don’t observe etiquette in the outdoors and damage the outdoors? Well, that’s the perk of social media, too!
Some NGOs use social media to raise awareness of preserving nature. The cool thing is, you can even create your own content, ie. writing blogs, or creating videos, to help spread this message, too!
2.1.3 Self-paced learning
Do you know how important it is? You get to read or watch relevant content anywhere, anytime you want. – You do this without any stress.
Some people claim they hate going to school. And that’s why. We all don’t like those stupid comparison and grades that distinct us. And this totally defeats the purpose of learning.
3. Advertising
Do you still watch TV? Well, most probably you don’t. You already consume entertainment through social media, but not the TV.
Even if you still watch TV, I believe it is less frequent. And when any commercials pop out when you are watching TV, you either change the channel or do something else, while waiting for your favourite shows.
What does this mean to advertising? Well, clearly, there is a shift of trend, just like education.
Businessmen now learn that they can’t rely on traditional commercials anymore. With the emergence of social media, they need to embrace social media advertising to stay competitive.
3.1 What social media can do for advertising
Social media isn’t just a substitute for traditional advertising, but it can do much better than that. Let’s see how it works:
3.1.1 Research
Businessmen either conduct market research in-house or outsource to marketing agencies.
It’s standard and effective for marketing. But, there are some limitations, too.
For instance, it might take some time to gather useful results. Or, the sample size could be too small, which couldn’t represent the market. To have better results, the businessmen might have to spend more time and money on the market research……
But, what does social media marketing have? – Their powerful ALGORITHM!
And that contains all engagement from users. These social media platforms know exactly the taste and preference of their users.
Understanding these means understanding their DESIRE and PAIN. Meaning, it’s easier to have EMPATHY for social media marketing.
Hence, it enhances the chance of CLOSING SALES. After all, this is what marketing needs, isn’t it?
3.1.2 Target
Getting to know your target client is the key in marketing. In traditional marketing, businessmen tend to narrow down their target client to enhance the conversion rate.
Sometimes, they could only promote their products to the local people as being unable to reach the global market. Of course, promoting to the global market needs huge capital.
However, social media platforms have users that are from countries around the world. Meaning, they are good platforms for the GLOBAL market.
Marketing on social media means reaching your product to global users. Again, a bigger target audience segment means higher chance of conversion. – And this creates branding authority, too!
3.1.3 Engagement
Let’s face it. We don’t like to answer boring questions in the questionnaires. These questions are just plain and dry. And we waste our time filling up the form.
Sometimes, we simply fill up the form just for the sake of completing it. And it might not truly reflect our needs. Hence, it might not be a good proxy in marketing.
But, what do we do on social media? We click and comment on the contents that we like. For those contents we don’t like at all, we just pass.
So, what does this mean for marketing? Obviously, social media platforms know exactly what we like and hate.
Thus, because of the algorithm, these platforms will only suggest suitable outdoor products (in this case for instance) to the targeted users.
3.1.4 Call to action (CTA)
Closing sales is the main target in marketing. To enhance conversion rate, you need to prompt customers to take action, hence CTA.
But, what can you learn from TV commercials, billboards, etc? Some don’t even have CTAs. Even if they have CTAs, you hardly remember it after some time.
Hence, TIMING of CTA is crucial, too. While you hook potential customers on your products, you want to make sure they can place orders as soon as possible.
Social media is the perfect tool to fulfill both conditions. You can see many product COPIES with CTA. They either link to their sales page or landing page, or close the deal on the spot. – Meaning, they don’t allow customers to have buffer time to hesitate.
Besides, they provide instant chat boxes to manage feedback and comments from customers. This allows two-way interaction and helps foster stronger relationships with customers.
3.2 How businessmen utilize social media marketing
Social media marketing is a new area that businessmen can explore and test out.
But, in essence, you want to promote your product to the right TARGET customers and CLOSE the sales. And to do this, you need EMPATHY, ie. know your customers’ desires and pain.
FORBES has an article about how to boost social media advertising. The article has some fun, practical strategies. Some of the strategies when running online marketing campaign include:
- Create target video ad before the sales page
- Create on-site content (eg. blog posts to educate customers)
- Diversify platforms
- Build personalized landing page
- Have separate campaign between new and existing audience
4. Inspiration
Whether you like selfies or not, you won’t deny where those aesthetic pictures or videos with amazing outdoor views trigger your interest.
In your mind, you wish you achieve the same as the ones in the photos.
Next, you start to plan ahead in your mind. And to do that, you have to do some research.
Thanks to social media and the Internet, doing research is quite simple and instant. You get whatever info you want just by typing keywords. The only thing you should worry about is to filter out the unnecessary info.
Plus, thanks to the social media algorithm, it even suggests relevant content to you. Thus, this saves your time further.
Meaning, the posts on social media INSPIRE you to try new things. Though the preparation process might be tedious, it’s worth it when you achieve your plan.
That’s how you gather your outdoor experience, bit by bit. And you also slowly build your CONFIDENCE.
Had you not seen those pictures or videos on social media, you wouldn’t know these places even exist. And you wouldn’t even have the chance to explore……
5. Connection
Social media has a bad image where it alters the way we interact with each other. But, let’s put aside the bad side first.
The essence of social media is improving interaction.
We can interact with each other on social media, regardless of location. And if we did this correctly, this could help build human CONNECTION.
You are free to join any outdoor groups. The members within the groups have the same interest as you.
So, if you like kayaking, let’s join a kayaking group. Or join a hiking group if you love hiking……
Social media makes interaction with like-minded people interact and meet easily. This is a privilege you can’t enjoy without social media.
5.1 How social media improves connection
You can raise any questions. Well, you might refrain from asking as you think those questions could be silly or stupid. But, the other users usually won’t feel this way.
Share your experience within the group. Who knows your experience or advice could help others?
Or, why not organize or join any outdoor trip with the group members? It’s time to meet each other in real life and make friends.
To be honest, this is the fun part of joining online groups to share the same interest with like-minded people. And you guys motivate each other through interaction.
6. Sharing
I still have photo albums under my bed. Those photo albums are precious collections of my exquisite moments.
Besides, I used to write diaries every night to express my feelings and experience of the day.
I’m not gonna lie. These are the most INTIMATE moments that I keep to myself.
But, what if I want to share these moments with my friends? Well, I can show them whenever they visit me. – But, that’s stupid and awkward.
The truth is, sharing via social media is so common nowadays. On some platforms, your profile is a virtual photo album.
You can upload the best photos to your profile. Again, the platform helps you share these to the users who are interested.
Or, you can start writing BLOG POSTS or creating VLOGS or VIDEOS to talk about your outdoor tips and experience. Share your content on social media.
6.1 What are the cool things about sharing on social media?
Get ready to see the increasing number of followers or subscribers. They are the ones who love your content.
Then, engage with them to build connections. Slowly, you start to gain AUTHORITY.
What’s more? You can MONETIZE your content and start earning PASSIVE INCOME. Can you imagine you can earn money by sharing your outdoor tips and experience?
IMO, the outdoor recreation industry is a good niche, in which you can cover a lot of stuff, from tips and experience, to product reviews, etc……
Who knows you can be a successful blogger or vlogger who literally achieves financial freedom just from earning passive income?
Final thought: social media benefits the outdoors
Despite having a bad name, we should give justice to social media.
When you go outdoors, let’s think of what brings you here. And look at the people around you. Let’s think about how you know each other.
If your answers include social media, that means, to some extent, social media benefits the outdoors.
And if you love the outdoors, you also hope others share the same as you, don’t you?
So, make use of social media benefits and share your passion for the outdoors to users on social media.
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