Social Media Strategy Review: Cleartrip

This review is a part of our ‘Social Media Strategy Review’ series where we do a 360 degree analysis of a brand’s entire social media activity. You can read the reviews of more brands here.

Introduction

Known for its simplicity (thanks to its clutter-free design) and reliability, Cleartrip is one of India's most favorite travel portals.

Overall Strategy

As usual, the brand has presence on the 3 major social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Apart from this, it also has a regularly updated blog.

But when I went through all of them, I was a little disappointed. I tried to find homogeneity and consistency but couldn't find one. The content on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are totally different from each other.

Yes, I agree that the people on Facebook & Twitter use the platform differently but that doesn't mean the content they consume should be different too.

Facebook

As soon as you land on their Facebook page, their one line bio – Making travel simple - catches your attention (after the cover photo of course). Very much in sync with their simplistic and to-the-point outlook.

The page boasts of a sizeable 640k strong community but I am highly disappointed with their content strategy.There are only two content angles to their Facebook updates: Country of The Week & Things To Do in India.

The page is updated twice a day and it is only these two updates that go out every day with a sprinkle of self-promotional updates here and there in a week.

To be frank, I find this content strategy to be very lazy and unimaginative for a brand like Cleartrip. Yes the images are brilliant, I agree. Kudos to the one hunting for the images but there is no denying the fact that it is monotonous.

All these updates do manage to get likes but where is the conversation? Where are the interactive updates? And the page doesn't allow the users to post on its wall as well. It's time brands looked beyond getting likes to their updates and start generating conversation on their pages.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

As you can see from the graph, the updates only gather likes (shown in green) and a miniscule number of comments (see the brown line on top of the green block? Yes, that!)

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

As for custom tabs, none of them are engaging. Sigh.

Twitter

The same one line bio greets you on Twitter as well. And that's where the similarity ends. The content is entirely different from Facebook. While the Facebook Page talks about about travel, the Twitter account talks of tech & business!

I am not sure why a brand associated with travel would talk of Nexus tablets and startups. Total mismatch from their identity on Facebook as I hardly came across any travel-related tweets from their handle.

There are many travel enthusiasts on Twitter but Cleartrip seems to be tweeting to please the tech crowd instead. I checked if these tweets are getting any worthwhile response but I found only a couple of RTs on an average and almost no replies. No idea why they're still persisting with this content strategy.

Content strategy aside, they are doing a kickass job with their customer service. Prompt response mixed with a warm and friendly attitude have ensured that the queries are resolved asap and the conversation ends on a satisfactory note. Win!

YouTube

Irregularly managed, the YouTube channel is filled with TVCs and business reports about Cleartrip. I feel videos can be a great boost for brands in the travel sector and should be a must explore for Cleartrip. If not now, then in future it has to start creating engaging video content like webisodes and video campaigns with influencers in the travel niche.

Blog

Well managed. I like the layout that matches with their website's and the writing is equally good.

The content revolves around the brand and primarily covers product launches/updates, so you won't see a blog post everyday. But it is natural for a corporate blog to be less frequent. What matters is how it communicates and the blog does a great job at it.

Comparison with Competitor

Compared to Cleartrip, MakeMyTrip is doing a good great job at engaging with its community. The Facebook updates are getting traction not only in terms of likes but comments as well.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

The content is similar to Cleartrip's – sharing images of travel destinations – but thanks to the interactive nature of the accompanying text, they are getting a better traction. Also, the page allows users to post on their wall.

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

However, on Twitter, MakeMyTrip is going all out promoting Sunrisers Hyderbabad, being their travel partner. There are contests on almost daily basis which might get a little annoying if you're not a fan of Sunrisers.

I like MakeMyTrip's YouTube channel though. Like the way how they have mixed videos about travel destinations with their branding. I can only hope it gets better from here.

Comments on Strategy

To be honest, I am a fan of Cleartrip. Always loved their clean design and user interface and I would continue to love them. But I wish their social media strategy was equally awesome.

There needs to be some consistency in their social media communication across platforms. They can't be poles apart.

Feedback on Strategy

Source: Simplify360 – A Social Media Analytics Tool

With an overwhelming positive reaction from the online community, Cleartrip is a winner. People like the brand and its services. Cleartrip needs to capitalize on this love and come up with a better social media strategy.

Expert View

Cleartrip’s social media strategy suggests that they have gone the standardization route when it comes to content. It seems they followed the process – Create content -> Figure out what gets likes -> Put a process of recreating same content -> Repeat.

What this does is makes the social presence monotonous. A lot of times social media managers don't like changing the status quo under the garb of why change what’s working. Clearly the ROI for social has changed from Likes to comments and shares.

A brand has to keep aiming higher and while it means a lot of experimentation the same needs to be done in the larger agenda of keeping one’s social presence interactive. I feel Cleartrip is a great brand one needs to leverage all the great customer word of mouth through all their channels especially video.

Clearly no better way that video to show how the world travels. I think their twitter customer services is a great benchmark and they need to up the bar across other platforms just like that.

Expert View by Rajiv Dingra Founder & CEO of WATConsult – An Award Winning Social Media Agency.

Analytics support courtesy: Simplify360