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Day 3 of 3: Internet Marketing and Social Media Workshop held inCooktown, Queensland, Australia for tourism operators
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Workshop 3: Social MediaBusiness for the Bush (B4B)
Overview
• Google Analytics• Social Media and Tourism• Benefits of Embracing Social Media• Monitoring Tools• Customer Reviews & Travel Review
Sites• Responding to Feedback• Principles of Interaction
Overview
• Blogging• Twitter• Facebook• Streamlining Tools & Integration• Strategy Implementation• Cooktown Website• Workshop Evaluation
Q? Who is Using Social Media
Tourism & Social Media
• In an industry where experience means everything, user-generated content has opened up a whole new area of opportunities for the travel industry.
• Social media is global, real time and dynamic. ‐And every business has to face the fact that customers are talking online.
Tourism & Social Media
• Increasing numbers of people research and reserve travel online - providing consumers with countless tools to find, and design, not just the cheapest trip, but the perfect trip.
• More than 60% of leisure travellers use the Internet or an online service to obtain information and price
• Highlights the need for Tourism and Travel Web sites to make the best possible use of technology to enhance usability, provide useful tools and increase bookings.
Tourism & Social Media
Benefits of Embracing Social Media• Building Meaningful Relationships - Straight
to consumer• Increased traffic, subscribers and opt in list‐• Building Links• Increased Visibility – be seen as a leader• Business Opportunities• Mind-sharing and Insight• Market research• Issue & crisis management• Reduction in overall marketing expenses
Consumer Behaviour and Social Media• Problem recognition• Information search• Alternative evaluation• Decision• Post decision evaluation
Where does social media fit in?
Monitoring Tools
• Automated monitoring of traveller reviews is in its infancy
• Phenomenon of consumer reliance on user generated content is well established
• Credibility of reviews among consumers is highest in the tourism and hospitality sectors, a truth that indicates reviews directly impact revenue.
Monitoring Tools
• Your customers, supporters and detractors talk amongst themselves and declare their views on you to anyone interested
• Are you listening to the right opinions?• Are you responding?• Identifying trends, opportunities
Monitoring Freeware Disadvantages
• Time Consuming• Storage of clips• No analysis
– Sentiment– Geographic – Demographic– Key Sites and Users/Authors
• Raw data may seem overwhelming with no apparent direction in how to use this data
Freewarehttp://www.socialmention.com/
http://www.google.com/alerts
http://technorati.com/
http://www.blogpulse.com/
Automated Solutions
• Direct analysis towards key point of sale sites• Performance measured against competition• Enabling and supportive tools• Effective filtering – providing better results• Analysis – geographic, demographic,
sentiment analysis
Paid Software
www.brandseye.com
www.viralheat.com
Customer Review Sites
• Interpersonal influence and word of mouth (WOM) are ranked the most important information source when a consumer is making a purchase decision.
• 88% of those reading them say reviews contribute to their ultimate hotel selection
• Review users consider what they read to be almost twice as important as brand or reputation in their decision
Tripadvisor
• 32 million unique visitors per month, 10 million members and houses 20 million reviews
• Death of the travel brochure?• 25% of travellers used ‘stranger reviews’ to
book entire holiday
Tripadvisor
• 50% of travellers over 45 are using websites to recommend or warn fellow travellers by posting a review of their travel experiences online.
• According to Tripadvisor, 57% of consumers will not book a hotel unless they have read reviews
Practical: Best Practice Principles in Responding to Feedback
• Thank the customer for taking the time to write a review
• Apologize profusely if the customer is right on target with their negative review
• Provide a simple, short explanation of what really happened (if such an explanation is possible)
• Assure the reviewer and guests in general that every possible step has been taken to address the problem or service in question
Practical: Best Practice Principles in Responding to Feedback
• Offer a direct line of communication between management and the reviewer (via email, direct phone line, etc.) in order to rectify the situation
• To conclude the response, use any elements of the customer’s comments that are constructive (e.g. great hotel location, comfortable rooms, etc) to put a positive spin on a negative review.
Reviews as a Marketing Tool
• Utilise all positive feedback in marketing materials– Testimonials– Home page– Attached with photos/videos on web site or thrid
party applications– Blogging sites– E-mail marketing
• Actively promote to guests if they had a “great stay” to place feedback on a 3rd party site
Social Media Sites
• Ever-growing number of sites• DONT NEED TO ENGAGE IN ALL• Identify key sites based on
characteristics of your target market, features of the sites conducive to selling your product
• PUT DEMOGRAPHIC GRAPH SOCIAL MEDIA SITES HERE
Social Media Sites
For this application:• Blogging• Facebook• Twitter
Principles of Participation
• It is about people – do not overly market to audiences or targets, engage in conversations with people
• Read• Know what the hell you're talking about• Participate• Contribute• Engage
Principles of Participation
• Be a resource, not a sales person• Become part of the community• Listen• Learn• Respect the communities you engage in
and they will respect you
ALL STRATEGIES RELATING TO THE WEBSITE/SEO SHOULD BE FOLLOWED
Social Media Strategy
• Listen to conversations• Establish share of voice• Set goal/benchmarks• Find bloggers and communities• Identify influencers• Develop content strategy• Pick tools• Create and deliver content• Engage and facilitate conversation• Measure results
Blogging
• Among users who seek information on the Internet, more than a 1/4 have visited a blog to review information about a destination or travel service supplier in the last 12 months.
• Emerging relevance of travel communities as an information source.
• Personal communication channel - visitors tend to see them as a more impartial source of information than corporate Web sites.
Blogging: Strategies
• Comment on blogs to start conversation add a link back to your blog/website
• Provide useful feedback• Review the comments – comment on comments• Subscribe to RRS feeds• Tweet the blog…drive traffic – twitter• Post on Facebook, add to your favourites• ENGAGEMENT
Blogging: Benefits
• Two way conservation• Gives your brand a personality• Avoid corporate rhetoric and jargon in your business
blog• Develop a sense of community around your blog• Post a new blog every week – keep short and
informational – must keep a fresh and constant presence on all networks
• In March 2009, a Nielsen.com blog ranked Twitter as the fastest-growing site in the Member Communities category for February 2009
• Twitter had a monthly growth of 1,382 percent• 6 million unique monthly visitors and• 55 million monthly visits
Twitter: Principles
• Keep with industry news and influential people by setting up searches and by following users
• Build industry contacts • Gain brand exposure in a casual, social, personable
environment • Monitor your online reputation and engage with your
fans and/or prospects • Share quirky facts about what happened on tour today –
real time tweeting (English guy stuck in elevator)• Drive traffic, drive traffic, drive traffic• Offer exclusive specials
• Visit www.twitter.com and create an account• Download and install Tweet Deck www.tweetdeck.com.
Tweet Deck is one of the many programs that will allow you to “tweet” (message) without having to log into the Twitter website itself. You can also install the Tweed Deck iPhone application.
• Set up a search with Tweet Deck for a topic of your choice. For instance, Cooktown, Cape York tourism, name of tourism operation, tourism marketing, social media tourism, tourism Australia, etc, etc
• When you feel confident, start to follow people whose tweets you are interested in and engage.
• While setting up and learning about Twitter, also give your past customers and fans your twitter address. A twitter address follows this format: @mytwitteraddress. Not only will they be able to read your tweets but once you have found your Twitter “voice” you will be able to inform them about your latest stories, events and 8 legged crocodile sightings.
• GROW ORGANICALLY
• More than 300 million active users• More than 120 million users log on to Facebook at least once
each day• More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and
older• More than 8 million users become fans of Pages each day
Facebook: Content
• Overview of company• Website and contact info• Press releases• Videos• Blog Feeds• Twitter updates• Company news and status - events• Customer interaction• Personalise the business and the brand• Same techniques as website optimisation
Facebook:
• Once you’ve logged in to Facebook, scroll to the bottom and click on Advertising. Then click Pages and Create a Page. Select the type of business you own and start filling in all the details. The more info you add, the better your page will be (and remember, Google thinks highly of Facebook in its search engine results)
• Make sure to include your company logo, any RSS blog feeds that are relevant, videos, images, links — the whole nine yards. Once satisfied with the Page, publish it, then get ready to dive into promotion.
Facebook:
• Identify contacts from your profile that are either business connections, people working in a field related to your business, or guests (past and present) - invite them to become a fan of the Page - send a short note explaining what you offer including a link to the Page
• Promote your Page through links (drive traffic) – encourage social media behaviour of customers
• Keep your content fresh — give people a reason to check in on your page regularly
• Find friends on Facebook using the search feature. Look for people and groups to join which share interests that you have or have something else in common with you.
• Look for people with hobbies you love or some type of shared interest so you can start a conversation with them. Show your involvement
Facebook:
• When someone accepts your friend request, you’ll receive a notification. Then you can go to their personal wall and post on it.
• Link building• Cooktown community should be repetitive
about brand and tag phrases – build awareness and SEO optimisation
Facebook:
• When a person agrees to allow you to connect to them as a friend, send a thank you message to that person. You should send a short message expressing your thanks and telling them you look forward to getting to know them in the future. They are very likely to view your profile and website if they haven’t already and probably become a free lead.
• When you add new photos/videos/contents your friends’ news feeds will notify them; it is a good idea to add new content regularly so your ‘friends’ are likely to come visit your Facebook page again
Fan/Group/User Page
Tools to Streamline Social Media Efforts• Tweetdeck• Ping• Applications (all social media)• Software (gain followers on
twitter/Facebook)
Website Promotion - Links
• Push traffic from website to social media applications
• Drive traffic through links and hyperlinks from social media applications to website – take care to ensure correct landing page
• Create a Cooktown and tourism business ‘spiderweb’ that search engines can’t ignore
Integration of Social Media with Traditional Mediums• Synergetic relationship• Consistency in efforts• Online drives offline behaviour• Offline drives online behaviour
Évaluation Social Media
• Traffic
• Followers/fans/
• Interaction
• Sales
• Leads
• Search marketing
• Brand metrics
• PR
• Customer engagement
• Retention
• Profits
• Analytics
Successful Social Media Strategies in Australia
UNDER COOKTOWN FAVOURITES ON MOZILLA
Where to From Here - Strategy
QuestionsSocial Eyes Consultancy
www.socialeyes.co.nz
