Social Media Talk At WTM

Posted by Debbie Hindle on 11 November 2011 | 0 Comments

Four bgb sponsored the social media session at World Travel Market this year. It was so packed that, while I was at an event later that day someone said to me: "I recognise your voice, did you just give that presentation on social media? I was at the back of the room and could hear but couldn't see you."

That illustrates quite how busy and popular the social media sessions were during WTM 2011. I was delighted and hope it will be equally busy next year.

For anyone who couldn't get into the room to hear the session please accept my apologies and I hope you find the following summary of what I said useful. Please let me or my colleages at Four Digital know if you've got any questions

Welcome to the social media session at World Travel Market.

Over the past few years I've been at many conferences when speakers have said  - "now is the time of social media - every travel organisation is no longer asking why should I get involved but how can I get better?"

But -  back in the real world I don't think it's that clear.

So -  before I start to talk about social media  - could I just do a reality check.

First - please put your hand up if you're heavily involved in social media? (About a quarter of the room actually put up their hands)

OK group 2- now put up your hand if you feel you're just starting to get stuck into social media and are learning the ropes? (Again about a  quarter of the room put their hands up

Great now finally - group 3 - you're the really sceptical ones and haven't started to invest in social media yet. Please put up your hands (Just a small handful of brave souls put up their hands)

Great. Thank you - I think that shows there isn't universal consensus about social media. But in my short presentation today I hope I can give some information and ideas to each of the three groups who've just put up their hands and to the fourth group who didn't put up their hand - you know who you are - but you're not sure where you stand.

I think social media is important to you for four reasons

-         Firstly it's the best customer research tool you've ever had

-         Secondly its the best customer retention and advocacy tool to stimulate word-of-mouth endorsements you've ever had. Research has shown that two thirds of US consumers say they are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after becoming a fan on Facebook.

-         Third it's hugely valuable for natural search and generating website traffic. Half of US consumers also say they've clicked through to a company's website as a result of a social media post.

-         Finally  it's the best customer reward and potential new sales channel you should be considering. WTM's own research of industry leaders published this week said that 22% were using social media as a revenue stream

So that's all very well I hear you say - particularly to my favourites in group three who put their hands up earlier - but how do we do this?

I'm a practical girl and I think the best way to demonstrate social media is with examples of what other people are doing in this space. So I'm going to talk about what three organisations are doing in social media

So  - my first case study is Visit Britain.

At a recent Travolution Summit, Visit Britain was held up as the best example of social emdia in the UK with more than 1000 responses from fans to every Facebook post- that level of interaction shows a very high level of engagement from their fans. A Facebook page with millions of fans where nobody ever bothers to respond is a bit like an empty room.

Visit Britan's Facebook page is a party by comparison.

So how have they done it?

LoveUK  is a really well managed community which listens, engages and rewards fans in the  social space. I particularly like this 3D canvas idea. VisitBritain engaged artists to create three dimensional images of Britain in cities all over the world. You could stand on a piece of street art in Paris and take a picture of yourself looking as if you were walking along Abbey Road like the Beatles. Then you uploaded that picture to the page and share the fun..

That's the sort of activity that has helped Visit Britain to get more than half a million Facebook fans.

You can see on the day I grabbed an image there had been more than 500 likes and more than 100 comments within a few hours of posting this picture.

But social media is not just about Facebook. Visit Britain is also integrating its social media with other platforms.

This is the VisitBritain Superblog - a great slice of regular fresh independent comment from influential opinion formers giving great content and equally great search engine optimisation benefits to Visit Britain

And there may be 30 million British users on Facebook but there's also 20 million British users on YouTube, nearly 5 million on Twitter and 3.2 million in Flickr and 2.6 million on LinkedIn.

For example have a look at VisitBritain TV  - the VisitBritain video channel. So wherever anyone is searching in the social space they will find sociable, engaging and inspirational content to encourage them to visit Britain.

SO that's my first example

And I can already hear the sceptics in the room thinking so what? It's just chatter. When one person says they like my country or brand in social media what does it possibly matter?

So let me give you some more examples that drill down a little further

My next example is my client Viator - the world's largest retailer of tours and attractions around the world from helicopter flights over New York to segway tours of Paris. It features 800 destinations, 9000 products and is the b-to-b distributor for 3000 brands.

Up until this year Viator was focused on SEO and PPC but took a decision to focus on social media and PR

In July this year Viator began developing destination-specific social media platforms. So if you've booked your flight and hotel to Rome and google 'things to do in Rome' you're likely to find a Viator blog, Facebook page and Twitter account.

That's an interesting approach - but what I find really impressive is that since Viator is creating 83 destination-specific platforms a set of blogs twitter and facebook pages for 83 key destinations they sell. So you can follow Viator things to do Rome, Viator things to do Paris, Viator things to do Caribbean..

They are also developing these in English, French German, Spanish and Japanese.

They started this process in July and 60 destination platforms are now live. They've generated 20,000 visits and 345,000 page views already

I can still hear my sceptics saying that's a lot of effort but I still don't understand why they are bothering?.

Viator knows this helps it's natural search performance but its also making sure that its social activity has a commercial return.  There's been a lot of scepticism about social commerce. People don't want to buy in the social media environment.

I think that's the wrong argument.

Yes people don't want an ecommerce experience in a social environment. They don't want a formal website or to be heavily sold to.

Just as companies struggled to replace brochures with websites ten years ago, companies now need to think differently about social commerce. A Facebook fan is interested in having a relationship with your brand - ask that person what they think about new products and services, reward them for their interest in your company and that extra value will help conversion.

Viator puts this more succinctly- 'content drives engagement and value drives conversion'

So how do you know this works? Simple tracking tools can tell an organisation if someone coming from social media makes a purchase.

Viator tracks and monitors this and has identified that so far- each Facebook fan is worth more than three dollars to it - a Twitter follower is worth 38cents.

So  - that's an exceptional level of commitment to the social media space. What about businesses that have just one platform?

My company Four Communications works for the adventure travel specialist Exodus Travels.

When our digital team started working with them they had fewer than 700 fans on Facebook.

Exodus has passionate customers who find the adventure trips can be lifechanging experiences. So we asked them to share those experiences.

We encouraged fans to post images of their experiences. We posted to Flikr and integrated that with a PR campaign creating online gallery guides with media such as aol.com.

Once we reached 1600 fans we launched a major campaign called Seven Continents which ran over 7 months. This wasn't a promotion to drive up fan volumes. We wanted to encourage even more engagement.

And it worked.

We also put tracking links on our Facebook posts. Exodus confirmed that more than 300 people who entered the 7 Continents competition went onto to book a trip and 71% of these were first time customers.

So I hope that's given you some useful food for thought

For the experienced social media practitioners amongst you some useful ideas about things other organisations are doing

For the new entrants some useful ideas you can adopt yourselves

For the sceptics- enough to convince you to put some time and effort into it and see what it delivers for you.

For World Travel Market my company has produced a trends report including some top trends to watch out for in 2012.

So please let me know if you'd like a copy or request it through our website at Four Communications

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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