Marketing Safari

How do you get likes on your Facebook page?

"How do I get likes on my Facebook page?" is a question I get a lot. Like if Facebook was a target group. It's not. It's a medium. It's a platform. It's a tool to reach your target group but not a target group in it self. 

That means it depends on your target group how you get likes on Facebook. The methods to do it can vary greatly, based on your target group. So just like you try to realize what your target group is interested in before your engage in other marketing activity, you need to do exactly the same for Facebook. Try to realize what pictures your target group likes to see, what topics they like to discuss, what videos they like to watch, what info they like to share. That is what you need to know before you start engaging Facebook. So find something your target group will love to share on Facebook.

It's not about how many likes you get. It's all about who likes you.

Hjörtur

ps. speaking of which, would you like to like my Facebook page?

 

"Technology Can't Replace God" - But Social Media Can

Pope Benedict addressed the crowd on Palm Sunday saying that man will pay the price for his pride if he believes technology can give him the powers of god. I think he is right that any man believing he is god is bound to have a high fall when reality kicks in. 

However, with atheism on the rise the social constraints that the fear of the ever watching God has had on society and especially anti-social behaviour, social media can provide a splendid replacement. It's not in the way that social media can become something people worship as a divine force nor as a means to gain godly powers. Social media is the perfect replacement where the fear of God is lost, as the uncontrollable force that is always watching. What happens in Vegas is not just something you need to confront your god with when you go across, but something you need to confront your friends and family with as it is not only seen by god, but also by anyone with access to YouTube, FourSquare, Twitter, Facebook and Google. There's no postponing the consequences of that till the after life!

Hjörtur

Image by Reuters/Stefano Rellandini

On Social Media and the Icelandic nation brand

Last Wednesday I was on a show called Alkemistinn on the Icelandic television network ÍNN. This is a 30 minute program focusing on marketing from different angles. This time they got me over to talk about the use of social media and the Icelandic nation brand. It is unfortunately only in Icelandic and there's no English transcript. Sorry.

But if you understand Icelandic, here you go:

 

The host is film maker and marketing maven Vidar Gardarsson. 

Hjörtur Smárason

ps. you can always follow Marketing Safari on Facebook and myself on twitter.

 

The Illusion and Reality of the Freedom of the Internet

 

"Information has never been so free," declared Hillary Clinton in her speech on Internet freedom in January this year. "Even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable." And she continued saying how Obama had during his visit to China in November "defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows the stronger societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens to hold their governments accountable, generates new ideas, and encourages creativity." (quotes via Guardian)

During the protests in Teheran in June 2009 Twitter turned out to be a vital tool for the opposition in Iran when journalists had been kicked out and the Internet "shut down". Still the opposition managed to get the message out to the world via twitter and mobile phones and networks like CNN used tweets as their prime source for news from Teheran. This was revolutionary and the foreign department even asked Twitter to reschedule their maintenance so that it wouldn't be at a bad moment for the opposition in Iran. 

But now things are different. When the information being leaked out is classified diplomatic information from US embassies the Internet is, all of a sudden, not as free as it used to be. Twitter trends are being censored with Wikileaks not appearing on the trends list despite being the most trending phrase. Companies like Amazon is pressured to throw Wikileaks out of their servers, PayPal is pressured to shut down the Wikileaks account so they can not receive donations. Wikileaks bank accounts in Switzerland are frozen and MasterCard announces Wikileaks can not be supported with a payment via MasterCard. 

Is this the freedom of the Internet? The freedom to reveal inconvenient secrets about "the axis of evil" but not about the US. Is the strengthening of societies at the cost of governments only good when it happens in other societies than the US? Are we being censored on Twitter, Facebook and Google? Are we OK with the US government shutting down domains of websites reveling inconvenient information? 

Politicians need to wake up to reality. The reality of the connected world. The reality of journalism in the times of the Internet. It doesn't make any difference if Julian Assange is jailed or Wikileaks shut down. People will tell. Information will be shared. Secrets will leak at a pace never seen before. 

I don't approve with everything Julian Assange does. But I think the freedom of the Internet is something we need to stand up for. It's something politicians not only in China and Iran need to wake up to but in Washington DC as well. The power is shifting to the people. That's the power of the Internet. 

In Iceland we have had it with deceiving politicians and manipulating authority. As the world saw during the Cod Wars Icelanders are really bad at bending to authority. And again when it came to the Icesave agreement. The people of Iceland just chose 25 people from the general public to rewrite the constitution redistributing power so that politicians can not repeat the corruption that lead to the collapse of the Icelandic economy two years ago. And Icelanders support the transparency Wikileaks brings to diplomacy. It's time to stop playing those silly games and getting our act together. 

Wikileaks is still hosted on servers in Iceland, along with hundreds of mirror sites around the world, and you can still donate to Wikileaks through Datacell, an Icelandic payment company - even though you have a Mastercard. Those companies are being pressured and are being attacked but have decided to protect the freedom of speech and not bend over to the manipulating power of governments. 

Though I'm not a diplomat, I do have a masters degree in diplomacy and know that secrecy is sometimes essential in diplomatic relations. And that it is essential to protect sources and allow people to speak out and share information about the abuse of force and power without risking their lives. That's why the documents leaked are censored to protect those sources.

So is the freedom of the Internet just an illusion? No, it's not. But I advice you never to be dependent on only one company, server or website, whether that is Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon cloud servers or other. We need to make sure no company becomes too dominant on the Internet and that we never become dependent on one company. Host on mirror servers overseas. Take a back up of all your connections. Don't rely only on groups, pages or twitter accounts for communications, keep building up your email lists. Keep sharing information on different platforms. Only that way can we protect the freedom of the Internet and make sure we, the users, still run the show and not them.

Hjörtur Smárason

 

Let's connect on Twitter or Facebook. 

Keynote Speaker on Social Media and Marketing for the Travel Industry

Talks and courses on social media and marketing are becoming a bigger and bigger part of my schedule. I am now booking 2011 and it looks like it's going to be an exciting year. This year and the last I've been running courses, live-blogging and giving talks at conferences in as different places as New York, Faroe Islands, Berlin and Latvia. My main focus has been on the travel industry though that is not always the case. Most popular are my two day courses on social media and Internet marketing for the travel industry.

I'm now booking 2011 and it looks like I'll be in Latvia, Belgium, Greenland, Denmark and Norway, as well as Iceland of course. Some other exciting events are being explored as well. Exact dates and location can be found on my "Keynote Speaker Schedule"

If you're interested in getting a talk at your event or a practical and effective course in your home town on how to use social media and the Internet, send me a line. 

Hjörtur Smárason
Keynote speaker on social media and marketing 
hjortur (at) scope.is 

How Tourist Boards Could Get More Value for the Money

Darren Cronian of Travel-Rants asks a valid question on his blog today: Do tourist boards offer value for money?

In his article Darren points out that in the UK too much is focused on London when promoting England, and that it seems like too much is focused on buying expensive ad space. Is there a way to offer more value for the money?

The best job a tourist board has ever done
Tourist boards are usually scarcely funded but have in many cases been able to pull off amazing things. I know that the Icelandic tourist board has been able to create a lot of attention in foreign media which has brought hundreds of thousands of tourists back to the country. The best value for money any tourist board has ever created is probably when Queensland Tourist Board in Australia created "The Best Job in the World" campaign, getting media coverage all around the world. Not only that, but they managed to get millions of people looking at pictures and information about the great barrier reef in Australia and put it on their list of top ten places they must visit before they die. Something that is probably going to bring them more tourists for the next two decades or so. That is good value for something that may have sounded like a ridiculous way of spending money when the idea was introduced in the beginning. 

You see, the greatest value is not measured in ad space. It is measured in people talking about your destination, in people dreaming about going to your destination and finally in people actually coming to your destination. And fact is, ads seldom get people talking. Events do. Stories do. And that's what tourist boards should be focusing on. How they can get people talking and not only that, how they can help people spread the word about their destination. 

The Destination Brand
Like with all branding you need to start realizing what your "purple cow" is. What is it in your story, culture, cuisine, architecture or surroundings that interests people, that makes you stand out from the crowd, that gets people talking? The role of the tourist board is to realize what those stories are and who is actually interested in them. Find journalists, bloggers and trend sitters within your target niches and invite them over, get them to participate in some activities and get them to spread the word to those who are really interested.

Events
Successful events are driven by passionate people. I don't think you can ever fabricate a successful event without having passionate people creating the content of that event. Storytellers of any kind, whether they are musicians, painters, farmers, cooks or others who share the same passion, a passion that people in your destination identify themselves with, are the people who give your event credibility, content and stories worth spreading. In my mind it is the role of the tourist board to help organize such events by connecting people, provide infrastructure and invite "big mouths", to spread the word to their readers and listeners. The Icelandic airwaves music festival is sold out every year and gets more publicity then the annual budget of the national tourist board could ever pay for. It started all with a small event with good content and invited journalists. 

Social Media
Social Media Marketing is built on these principles. For tourist boards social media is the perfect channel to spread stories. Not marketing material they fabricated, but actual stories from visitors and "peer tourists" who are already spreading their first hand experience through pictures on flickr, videos on YouTube, blog posts, tweets and facebook updates. Sometimes the price of on ad would cover the pay for your social media person for two months, a person who's role is to listen to the stories in social media about your destination and make sure they get heard.

How do you think tourist boards can get more value for the money?

Hjörtur 

Ryanair is back on Twitter - and told me to get fucked!

Oh well. I noticed earlier today that Ryanair started following one of my travel accounts on twitter. Remembering how flammable Ryanair was on twitter the few days the lasted last time I was curious to see if it were really them. So I tweeted this: 

When looking at their account, I noticed that they were retweeting what seemed to be just about anything mentioning Ryanair, like this tweet from @ihateryanair:

So, I started wondering if they were retweeting all the bad stuff being said about them just to stir the pot. After all, that's what seems to have been their strategy, creating scandals to get people talking. So I tweeted this:

Which of course got retweeted by them - and I guess I was right, cause this is the reply that followed:

 

Yep. They told me to get fucked! Maybe they read my post on their social media strategy last time though I don't think they would have needed much to be triggered.

That's got to be a fake account you might say. Well, this is the way they spoke last time they entered social media, both on blogs and twitter, so if it's fake it's at least someone who talk just like you would expect from Ryanair. They did how ever make the statement that:

"It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again.

"Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel".

Ryanair later confirmed to Kevin May of Travolution that this was officially them. Later they denied though to have been on twitter. 

So what do you think? Has Ryanair joined twitter again to stir the pot or is this just another fake account?

Hjörtur

How Accurate is Facebook's Statistics?

Facebook has been repeatedly in the news for it's phenomenal growth, reaching over 500 million users world wide and getting people wondering if Facebook can just grow forever. Icelanders have been the biggest Facebook users with over 60% of the population on Facebook or 192.720 in total (the total population in Iceland is only about 300.000). As I was updating my slides for my next course on Internet marketing I decided to compare the number of Icelanders in Iceland to the number of Icelanders on Facebook. To my surprise, I found that in the age group 20-29 yrs old 111,8% of the total population in Iceland is on Facebook, or 52.320 out of 46.793 Icelanders in that age group. That's pretty impressive! Facebook really can grow beyond any limits !!!

If we take the whole age group of 15-35 yrs old we have 109.360 Icelanders in that age group out of a total population of 97.215. That's again an impressive 112,5 % of the population in that age group. But can this be? That everyone and even more in that age group is on Facebook? I've heard of this one guy who isn't 35 until next July who isn't on Facebook - yet! (and seriously, he's the only guy in that age group I've heard of), so this can't be correct - can it?

What explains this discrepancy? First of all, this is the age group where many Icelanders move abroad for higher education. That might explain some part of it. But the most likely explanation is pre-teens who sign up lying about their age and duplicate profiles. Hey, even some pets are on Facebook (I would link to my dogs profile on Facebook if I wouldn't be certain Facebook would delete it as soon as they read this post). Companies signing up as people is another explanation and many companies, specially smaller companies have been entering Facebook that way instead of creating a Facebook page. This is against Facebook rules but a common practice non the less. 

This may not be a serious crime but this is something advertisers need to be aware of when buying Facebook ads. The number in the target group is never accurate, no more than in traditional media, and you should always expect a part of it to be duplicates and inactive. Facebook could increase the accuracy by only counting "active" accounts, being those where the owners have signed in, in the last 4 or 12 weeks.

Hjörtur

ps. I was going to show you screenshots, when all of a sudden Facebook couldn't be found. - Do you think it's possible they see what I'm writing here ... ? Even before I press publish!

Radisson Blu Starts a Clever Social Media Campaign

When using social media for marketing it is not about broadcasting - it's about engaging. The most successful campaign is the one that engages and activates the most people to become the brand's ambassador.

The Radisson Blu hotel brand with hotels in over 200 locations world-wide has started such a campaign. It seems to have started mid-May but is reaching it's tipping point these days and is spreading fast.

It's actually a very simple competition. They are giving away "the greatest holiday in the world", probably inspired by the best job in the word. And the greatest holiday on Earth is 365 free nights at any Radisson Blu hotel in the world that the winner can use over the next five years. All you have to do to participate is signing up and telling the world why you should win.

It's then up to the users to get as many people as possible to vote for them but each person can vote once every day. The one with the most votes at the end of the competition on July 24th will be the winner of the 365 free night at any Radisson Blu. Simple and effective. Last Sunday night about 1500 people had signed up and now, on Wednesday, there are about 3000 people competing. And those 3.000 people are now all actively promoting their spot in the competition and the hotel brand at the same time. Not bad! 

To encourage people further Radisson has enabled sharing options for twitter, facebook and a number of other social networks and lists ideas on how people can promote themselves offline. One important thing is lacking though, which is a badge to put on a blog that automatically updates the ranking and encourages people to vote.

My wife signed up for the competition and is trying to win us and our 5 kids a few (ok, not a few, a bunch) of nights at the Radisson Blu hotels to use for the next five years. You see, since the kids are five, we actually need 3 rooms for each night! That has made impossible for us to travel the whole family together in Europe - or beyond, unless we rent a house or an apartment and stay there. So this is our opportunity to get more mobile and show our kids more of the world.

I'll be pulling a few tricks from my hat in the days ahead to help my wife win this competition and the first thing I'm going to do, is sharing. I'm going to share some of those nights with other people and for a start, I've decided to pick one person who encourages his/her followers to vote for us and if we win, reward him/her with two nights at the Radisson Blu in London during the 140conf in October. Make sure you include the link: http://bit.ly/a2AbeP and the hashtag #5elves so that people can vote and I can track your tweet :) It can be something like: 

If they win, they're going to give away a hotel room for the #140conf in London, so start voting http://bit.ly/a2AbeP #5elves

or whatever else you can think of and find fitting :)

I will then list up all those who tweeted and if we win, one lucky one will get to join us for two nights (you get a separate room for two - so you can bring a friend) at the Radisson Blu in London during 140conf on October 26th! (depending on availability)

Let the games begin!
Hjörtur

Who Should Be the Face of Your Company in Social Media?

One of the big worries companies have regarding social media is who should be the face of the company. Should it be the CEO? Should the marketing department run it? Or the PR department?

GM's Fastlane blog decided to use the managers of different departments in the company. Not just from marketing or pr, but also from the production team, the design team, all of the departments. A company is always the sum of its employees so a company does have many faces, even though they try to maintain a single, wrinkle free, cut-out-in-ivory face.

You should look at the face of the company as a mosaic. A face of many faces. Don't try to shut up your employees online. They're all on Facebook, Twitter and thousands of other communities and whether you like it or not, they're all spokespeople for your company.

So this is your job:

1. Make sure ALL your employees know what the face of the company should be. If you can't convince your own employees of what you want the company to represent in the minds of the public, how are you supposed to be able to convince your customers? Or let's rephrase that, how do you expect them to convince your customers of that?

2. Evangelize. Realize that a happy employee spreads good rumors and a good image about your company. Let's say you run a company with 25 employees. Those 25 employees are all but one on Facebook and have on average 250 friends. Their direct reach is therefore over 6000 people. Maybe 3.500 if we take into consideration that many of them know the same people. If you've got 250 employees we might be talking about 35.000 people they reach directly. That's a pretty powerful tribe you've got there. Don't shut it down, evangelize it.

3. Activate your employees by allowing them to be more active in the decision making. They're the people on the ground. Listen to them and integrate them in the company's decision making. That way, they will care for the company in a whole new way, because they feel they and their opinions really matter.

Have a happy employee meeting

Hjörtur

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