Social Media and Costa Rican Tourism

If you are reading this blog you probably have some sort of idea what Social Media is and how it is affecting the business world in the last few years. Running a small business I have fallen into the trend of wanting to have my company branded on social media sites. To be honest ever since Ive started social media I really have not seen sales change. I started social media thinking I could advertise my business and become a large company, make lots of money, sit on a raft all day, and enjoy the beauties of Costa Rica. After I did a quick evaluation of my life I noticed I have a small company, I dont make a lot of money and I still find myself sitting on a raft all day, and ejoying the beauties of Costa Rica. So having already accomplished the last latter two I feel content with my business.

So why do I continue to use social media if it is not bringing sales? With our company we are in direct contact with our clients for one week and then maybe never again. The model of our company is personalized attention from start to finish. Social Media allows me to develop relationships with our groups before and after the trip. It allows us to see their comments on the trip and for us to comment back. It truly develops a relationship with the guides of the company and everyone who took part in their trip. I feel that has benefited our business more than getting 100 more trips for Social Media. Although Social Media is huge business we are happy with being small and allowing social media to help us stay connected with our previous clients in a way that would never be possible before.

One interesting part is that I have not seen the statistics but I can bet Costa Rica has more people using Social Media than other Central American countries. This is due to the very educated tech-savvy people of Costa Rica. For this same reason larger companies such as Intel and Hewlett Packard have some of their largest plants here.