SEO vs Social Media in Location Based Entertainment

SEO vs Social Media in Location Based Entertainment

This has been a discussion that I have seen come up a lot recently, the amount of times I have seen “what do you guys recommend for your x business, google or facebook” or something along those lines. The x in that quote is some sort of location based entertainment, whether escape rooms, arcades, golf simulators, or bowling, I have seen them in all the forums. 

The answer is…. both. In location based entertainment you need to be doing both, no questions asked. You need to have a presence on both platforms, what the question people should be asking is what one you should be investing more ad spend into. For that, the answer is it depends.

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It depends on a variety of factors but most importantly your location, the city that you are based out of. In short, if your city is high in tourism then Google Ads should be the majority of your paid ad spend. If you are somewhere where there is no tourism, then you need to focus on social media. The reasoning is, if your city is somewhere that has a lot of tourism then those are the type of people who are actively looking for things to do. One of my favourite things to do for clients in tourist based businesses is do Google search ads for keywords like “things to do in *city*”, so you pop up front and center when those tourists are looking for things to do.

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Now when it comes to using social media in non-tourist based businesses there’s one big reason. Community. Building a community of loyal fans and followers that reside in your city is huge when you can’t bank on tourism. The people that live in your city aren’t going to be googling for things to do in their own city, they already know what there is to do. So you need to build your social media to basically be a constant reminder that you’re there waiting for them to come have fun. This is a great way to spread digital word of mouth as well, people will see your posts and share them, then their friends will see them too, and there’s a good chance that their friends are also from your city and the snowball effect leads to you getting more and more followers/fans. This is as long as you’re actually engaging and using your social media right, I wrote another blog about that, check it out here: How to Build a Brand People Actually Want to Follow

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A key thing that I mentioned at the beginning of this is that you should be using both platforms regardless. The listed above information is showcasing what percentage of your ad spend you should split between the different options but there is still benefit in both. If you’re in a non-touristy city then yeah people won’t be searching for things to do, but they may be searching for where to have their kids birthday party, their next team building event, or sports team gathering, those are the keywords you need to focus on for google search ads. Vice versa when it comes to being in a touristy town, yeah tourist focused search ads will get you a lot of results, but not all the residents of your city are tourists, there is still a community to be built there.

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