Marketing Safari

Social Media Marketing Tips for Travel Companies

[This is a guest post by Stacey Cavanagh. Stacey is from the UK and works in online marketing for Tecmark: SEO London]

Travel is one industry that absolutely epitomises the way that the Internet has changed how we sell to our customers and market to potential customers. Gone are the days of booking holidays in a travel agency in your nearest town. In fact, according to Nielsen/Netratings stats, 55% of holidays are now booked online and another 17% are researched online and then booked by phone. With such a high proportion of the market turning to the web, can any travel company afford not to market online?

Absolutely not.

Social media marketing is just one area of digital marketing but its unprecedented growth and a number of success stories have tempted more and more businesses into Twitter, Facebook and the world of blogging. As anyone who’s tried their hand at social media marketing will tell you, it’s not as simple as just signing up for an account. Here are a few handy hints to get you started however.

Attracting Twitter Followers

While it’s fair to say that some people will follow you on Twitter just because they know your brand name, there are unlikely to be enough of these (unless, perhaps, you’re Google), to build up the large following that you’d like. The main thing to consider when it comes to attracting followers who will stick around is what they get from following you. A fine example here is Virgin Trains, a huge company but one who offers personal customer service through Twitter! You can Tweet to @virgintrains to bring up comments, complaints or even random thoughts and you will get a response too! This is a huge benefit from people and saves customers from waiting in a telephone queue. It’s certainly a good reason for people to follow you. Another option is to make certain promotional codes and discounts available to Twitter followers, again offering a benefit to people following you.

Blogging

A blog is an excellent way to keep your site alive with new content frequently and an even better way to communicate with your customers or potential customers. However, when it comes to business blogging, too many companies fall into the trap of making the blog only about the company. Sorry to say it, but the fact that your secretary’s son’s next door neighbour’s Grandma’s best friend just had a birthday party really is scraping the barrel for blogworthy topics. So extend the blog beyond your company and staff. Certainly, if there’s a big change, new product or development or a promotion within the business, blog it. But open up to industry wide news too. For travel in particular this means you can blog on certain destinations, travel trends etc. Make it a great source of travel related information, therefore giving people a reason to come back and read more!

Networking within your Niche

Find bloggers who write on travel related topic and begin networking. Established blogs often have a regular readership of people interested in that niche, so who are in turn interested in what you do! Offer to share your expertise with these blogger in the form of content for their site. Share your knowledge and importantly, set yourself up as an authority within your area. If you know your stuff and you share your knowledge enough, over time you can establish yourself as the person to ask if someone needs to know something travel related. This is a priceless attribute for marketing.

 

The hints covered here really only just scratch the surface of the potential for online marketing through social media. The key thing to remember is that the biggest investment is in the form of time rather than money with social media and there’s huge importance placed on being personable. Don’t hide too much behind a logo and branding!

You can follow Stacey on Twitter.

Are You Being Censored?

Freedom of speech is a privilege that the public has fought for, and given their life for. But I think the public in the west might be taking this privilege too much for granted now.

Connecting with people from different parts of the world and hearing about their fight for freedom of speech is a good reminder of the tremendous importance of these rights and that it is not something we can take for granted. It is something we have to always be aware of and make sure is not taken from us.

When things get tough, when people get desperate, it doesn't take long to lose the rights we take for granted. Hitler was democratically chosen because he offered solutions to a grave economic situation. Within days after he took power, civil rights had been removed, protesters killed and the rest is history. We've seen how US citizens, as well as US visitors have lost much of their rights because of new regulations following 9/11. Driven by fear, people accepted what would have been an outrage only few months earlier.

In January last year a very moving editorial was published in a newspaper in Sri Lanka. A post mortem article from an editor who wrote about the chances of him being killed and why that was. He was killed before the article was published.

We are seeing how people are fighting against oppressing governments in China, Iran and elsewhere in the world, where journalists are jailed and sometimes disapear, where all mainstream media is edited and censored, where access to the internet is restricted and where the government is using all methods they can think of to control access to information. China even tried to control who Barack Obama would meet with and freedom fighters in Iran are filling the streets today in their green revolution. Social media is an extremely powerful tool to fight this oppression of the freedom of the speech. We are seeing how demonstrators and independent minds are trying to get the word out through blogging, through twitter and through other channels of social media.

When China closed access to Twitter on June 4th, they were censoring me. I have twitter friends in China which I talk to and share information with and now what I say can not reach them.  Well, until they found a way around it.

The China hacker attack on Gmail, the Iranian gmail censorship, the hacker attack on Norwegian online newspapers that published the drawings of Mohamed just last night are all examples of forces that are trying to suppress the freedom of speech and censor the information flow.

But these are dangers to the freedom of speech we are maybe more aware of. There are threats to freedom of speech much more closer to us than we like to think. Whether in Iceland, the US or Europe, there are forces which maybe don't try to censor information directly, but very strategically try to manipulate the information that gets through, and the way they are portraited. That's maybe something that will never be prevented as people try to get the story out in a form that best benefits them selves, but it's important that we are aware of those efforts and threats and do our own fact checking.

In the last war in Palestine we saw the propaganda war that was being fought in both the traditional media as well as in social media. That was expected. What I did not expect was when I started hearing from people who were posting pro Palestinian videos on YouTube and Facebook that were removed. You see, these websites are extremely important in modern day information sharing and the power of the managers of the site is disturbingly much.

This doesn't only apply to a conflict like the Israeli-Palestine conflict. This also applies to pictures of breastfeeding that were removed from Facebook, false reviews companies are paying people to write, etc. There's a rumor about "The 50 cent army" in China, an army as big as 300.000 people that get paid 50 cents for each comment or forum post that reinforces the views and "truth" of the government and by that distorting and manipulating a healthy critical discussion. That is a kind of manipulation that a political party in the west might easily think of doing.

So let's remember this:

There are two sides to every story. Before aggregating a story, do a fact check and listen to the other side.

Never take the freedom of speech for granted.

Fight for others freedom of speech. Like the German poet Niemöller said:

First they came for the Jews

            and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists

            and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

            and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me

            and there was no one left to speak out for me.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Hjörtur

ps. if you want to follow the events in Iran today and hear what you can do to help spread the word, follow Negar Chevre on twitter.

pps. The image is from a brilliant photographer on Flickr and an old friend of mine, Timbersmith.

Google Buzz: 5 Reasons You Should Flush the Buzz Out

Tried out Google Buzz this morning and my first reaction is 'not impressed'.

1. 'Open' sharing? The most obvious reason is that Google Buzz is for those with gmails and google profiles. As Graham Jones points out on his blog this morning Microsoft live has double the number of visits as gmail has and yahoo has five times the traffic.

2. Innovate - don't imitate. The Buzz brings nothing new to the market. It's pretty much like friendfeed or any other sharing platform out there. It will probably be used by some number of people, but it's very unlikely to attract any crowd. Not even the name is new. Yahoo already has a Buzz.

3. Over promise - under deliver. Google manages to create an enormous hype and attention around a new product that brings nothing new. The next wave? The result is widespread disappointment.

4. Need to know or nice to know? Google automatically picks out people for you to follow based on the ones you communicate the most with via gmail and gchat. It's not a suggestion, they follow them for you. Well, maybe Id like to keep my buzz for my friends only, or collagues only. Or there are people I exchange mny emails with because I have to, not because I want to and would absolutely not want in my buzz stream. That should be my decision but not Google's. Suggesting the people is smart, adding them automatically is not.

5. Privacy violation! Google doesn't only automatically add connections to your profile, but makes them public to the world by default. Google being reckless with our privacy information is a serious matter, considering how much information Google has about most of it's users. You can read more about that on Lifehacker.

And finally, one reason to follow the Buzz - It's got an integrated search engine driven by Google :)

Hjörtur

Please, help me find Karen in Denmark

Do you remember Karen from Denmark? The one who was looking for the father of her son, August, and then a new home for her fish? Well, she obviously wants to become a big YouTube star.

I'm running a social media marketing workshop in Denmark next week, one in Aarhus on Thursday and one in Copenhagen on Friday. In the workshop I'll be helping people and companies to find their way through the social media jungle, so I though I might help Karen out and invite her to the workshop. But I don't anything about her except that her name is NOT Karen. So if anyone out there knows Karen, please show her this video:

Karen can contact me by sending me an email to workshops@scope.is.

Hjörtur

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Social Media Workshops and Internet Marketing Courses

It looks like it's going to be a busy year in teaching and talking. The first course of the year will be a two day Internet Marketing course in Reykjavik, Thursday and Friday next week (January 21.-22.). The week after I will be in Denmark. I've got two social media workshops planned in Denmark, one in Århus on the 28th of January and another one in Copenhagen on the 29th. I will most likely be doing several more in other European cities in the coming months, so stay tuned for updates.

I've got two other courses planned in Reykjavik, a weekend course over two saturdays, the 13th and 20th of February and then another one on March 18th-19th.

If you want any further information on the courses or want to sign up, you can send me a message to hjortur (at) scope.is - or if you want me to set up a workshop in your hometown.

Cheers
Hjörtur

If this is your first time on my blog, you might want to consider subscribing to my feed or email updates (here on the left) or become a fan on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter.

The liberation!

There are two things changing the world today.

One is technology: the ability to record everything that happens where ever you are, the mobile device with a camera, GPS, videorecorder, transmitter and the ability to live broadcast globally from wherever you are.

The other is community: the ability to share what you record with people all over the world, and their ability to spread the word even further.

We call it: social media!

Many people, specially corporate people, are terrified of the devastating effect this has. The reason for this fear is that it's no longer possible to sweap problems and mistakes under the carpet. You can't keep the flawless image of a perfect, untouchable corporation that brings happiness and prosperity to it's clients every single time. You can't stay in your ivory tower any more with your expressionless stone cut marble face. People will tell. The cracks and the flaws, the dents and the spots will all become visible. But you know what that's called?

- REALITY!

Once you get over the fear you will experience a liberating feeling.  The liberation from perfection and lies, and the stress and anxiety that accompanies it. The liberation from loneliness thinking you're the only one struggling or with problems while all the others are perfect. The liberation from intolerance because to most peoples surprise, people are tolerant about mistakes, about imperfection, about struggle. And they're not only tolerant about those things, they can relate to it. And when people can relate to your company, you're on the right track. They're just not tolerant about dishonesty, lies and cover ups.

Go liberate your self and your company - with social media :)

Hjörtur

Do we retweet, reface or echo on Facebook?

Now that Facebook has enabled the linked mention of a Facebook friend in Facebook status updates, we are left with a crucial question. How do we repeat what others have said?

On twitter we are used to retweet our friends' best tweets. And when the space runs out, we rt. When we're on Facebook, we can hardly retweet, since the status updates are not tweets, they're status updates. So the options we are to reupdate, restate or reface. Reface does sound a bit brutal though.

What are your thoughts? How do we retweet on Facebook?

Hjörtur
@hjortur

Social Media's Role in Iranian Protests

News from Iran are constantly coming in, in all traditional media. A lot of the information is from twitter streams and Facebook profiles that are believed to be authentic Iranian accounts reporting live to the world.

While the Iranian government has tried to shut down communication the students have managed to find ways to get the message out. And everything that happens is well recorded and video taped and we have to make sure that all authentic message is heard by the world.

Here are the latest updates from today:

WARNING: Contains graphic and disturbing images.

A young girl died today when she got hit by a bullet. Her name was Neda:

When street protests were banned and people told to be quiet they went up to the roof tops and shouted Allah akbar - God is great.

According to Twitter streams, injured people are being arrested in hospitals, tanks are entering the streets and the violence seems to be escalating. There are misleading news though. Here's a list of twitter accounts that are considered fake. Some to follow are news reporters @anncurry from NBC and @andersoncooper from CNN, and people on the ground @change_for_iran, @persiankiwi and @randomhuman.

There isn't much we can do to help, other then show support and make sure their stories get heard. To show support, you can change into a green avartar and retweet the word from trusted sources.

Hjörtur

The Value of the Trivial Tweet

At the 140 character conference many speakers criticised the trivial tweets, saying they wanted value out of twitter, and that's what they would share too. Links and quality stuff. Other's love the personal revelation that the trivial tweets include.

In my opinion, those trivial tweets are very important for the personal experience and the personal relationship building twitter has to offer. When blogs came they offered a personal insights into the lifes of ordinary people, as well as in the life of corporations and corporate people. The trivial tweet does the same thing, except in real time, which makes it much more powerful. It makes your brand, whether personal, or your corporate, easier to relate to, feel empathy with and support. Those personal tweets are actually very important for your branding.

Knowing what people are having for breakfast has no direct value as such and if that's the only thing you tweet, people will most likely not be interested. But mixing up tweets of "traditional value" and "trivial value" is a powerful way of building that personal relationship. Knowing how you like your cereal, what your habits are when you wake up, what your pet peeves are, what makes you tick, makes me feel like I know you a lot better. It strengthens the relationship and it builds up trust, because the better I feel I know you, the better I'm going to trust you.

And that is true value. We don't trust big corporations and brands like we used to. We don't trust the filtered and edited news we are getting from the networks. We trust people we can relate to, who we feel share some of the same passions, same views and same pet peeves. And that trust has an exceptional value.

I tweet links to good articles, interviews and intelligence. But I also tweet about my personal life, what excites me, what pisses me off and what's occupying my mind at the time. But that's just me. If you want to keep a more "professional" touch to your twitter account, that's fine by me. But we will probably not connect on the same level as those who do trivial tweets to. If you stick to only trivial tweets, your friends and family may love following it, but it probably won't go much further than that. And there's nothing that says it has to.

Tweet on
Hjörtur

Highlights from the 140 Character Conference in New York

I am writing this as I'm flying back from the 140 character conference in New York where I've had two great days with Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver) and a fantastic cast of characters. This conference was different from many other conferences. Jeff managed to gather a great variety of people who had different uses for and experiences from twitter.

Starting with two legendary people in social media, Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly media (@timoreilly) and Jack Dorsey founder of Twitter (@jack), the conference continued peaking with an interview with Wyclef Jean (@wyclef) and a panel on twitter for news gathering for traditional media that included Ann Curry of NBC (@anncurry) and Rick Sanchez of CNN (@ricksanchezcnn). Ann Curry was absolutely fantastic on that panel. Both sessions can be watched at videos on the 140conf site.

Other favorites from the conference include Laura Fitton's (@pistachio) Love Story, Israel's use of Twitter for public diplomacy (@davidsaranga), the video blogging panel and the social media for social change panel with inspirational people like @drew (#blamedrewscancer), Liane Thomson (@missilecitykids), @amanda (Twestival) and @StaceyMonk (Epic Change). For more techy or geeky stuff, you might like Kevin Slavin's talk about things that tweet and for the talk with the most f-words, check out Chris Weingarten's (@1000timesyes) brilliant talk.

Interesting topics that weren't covered but might be covered on the next 140conf were twitter for travel and more on twitter for marketing. If I were to say in two or three sentences what the outtake of the conference was, I would say it was this:
* Many people shared their rules on what was accepted and what not on Twitter - and they contradict each other. That tells us Twitter is only a tool and every man has to make his own rules on how to use Twitter most effectively. I'll write another post tomorrow on my view on the different rules.
* Twitter is changing the world, 140 characters at the time. The fundamental change is that things are now happening in real time. We can follow events and opinions developing as they happen. And we can use twitter search and hashtags to follow those events. This is influencing business, news gathering, politics, celebrities and pretty much all levels of communications.

The events in Iran and the use of twitter to organize the demonstrations in Tehran was a very fresh issue. Two discussion that were taking place in the hallways and on twitter was if people should be changing their location to Tehran to show support and make it difficult for the Iranian government to track those on location who are using twitter, or if it was obscuring the news and which news were from authentic saurces and which not.

Another discussion was about the green avatars but people are turning their avatars green to show support for fair elections in Iran. That effort has been criticised for being useless but as @anamariecox puts it:

You can watch videos from the conference at http://140conf.com/watch. And here is my own talk on "How I Became a Twitter Character", as Jonny Goldstein (@jonnygoldstein) expressed it in his visual notes:

More of Jonny Goldstein's visual notes from the conference can be seen on his in his 140conf set on his Flickr account.

Jeff is planning two other 140 character conferences, one in London Nov. 10th.-11th. and one in Los Angeles in October. There's an open call for speakers if you'd like to see someone speak, or have a story to share.

Tweet you later
Hjörtur