Philly BTA Education Day

WHAT TRAVEL PAYMENT IS ALL ABOUT.

Social Media in Business Travel:Why give a tweet?

April 29, 2011 / Philadelphia Business Travel Association Education Day

P. 1Philadelphia BTA / April 2011

By: Rana Walker / AirPlus International, Inc.

AIRPLUS. WHAT TRAVEL PAYMENT IS ALL ABOUT. P. 2Philadelphia BTA / April 2011

AIRPLUS. WHAT TRAVEL PAYMENT IS ALL ABOUT.

The Social Media phenomenom


iPhone apps reached

1 BILLION users in

about 9 months!


Social Media Prism

Content

ConversationExperience

Relationship

http://www.theconversationprism.com/


Social MEdia

Share your personality, NOT your

personal information!

Share your company’s philosophy,

NOT proprietary information!



The conversation is occurring whether you are listening…or not! Listen,

learn, anticipate needs, proactively solve problems and find efficiencies!

You have a voice! Strengthen relationships with partners /suppliers through

shared knowledge. This equals better communication & collaboration!

Participate in industry associations online as a supplement to the face-to-

face networking & join event pages too!

Raise your internal profile – know where to glean knowledge & how to

effectively share it!

Conduct real-time analysis & view trending industry topics!

Steer behavior, build policy compliance and gain empowerment through

positive reinforcement!

Enhance internal relationships through virtual communication!

Crisis Communications – can be key when the unexpected occurs!

Why should a Corporate Travel Manager care?



Social media connections allow you to

build your sphere of influence!

Trust is the most important factor for

buying decisions in the future!


Mapping the Social Internet– Harvard Business Review, July-Aug. 2010


http://hbr.org/2010/07/vision-statement-mapping-the-social-internet/ar/1


Social Media for use in the business travel industry

Facebook

LinkedIn

Twitter

YouTube

Blogs/Communities


If Facebook

were a country,

it would be the

3rd most

populated

in the

world!

Only China & India

are more populated –

the USA is 4th


End of 2010:

585 Million

A growth of +74%Beginning

2010:

337

Million

Facebook Profiles

Source: Facebook


Facebook stats


More than 585 million active users

50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day

More than 70 translations available on the site

About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States

Average user has 130 friends

There are more than 200 million active users who access Facebook through

their mobile devices

People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

Go where they already are ready to interact:

Source: Facebook


Why Facebook?


Utilize pictures of staff and events to show your company culture

Highlight CRS activities to show your company philosophy

Share research and knowledge – link to additional resources

Promote upcoming events to gain attention and attendance

Highlight partner activities to enhance relationships

Promote sales, services and opportunities to interact

Provide a place for employees to feel connected online. Inter-company

relations provide a global virtual forum for staff

Utilize settings on personal profiles to vary your communications to

specific groups

Project a more human face of your company :


Business Travel Suppliers on Facebook



Allow your staff to be your

online brand ambassadors!

Establish social media guidelines

& teach staff how to share your

company’s already published

public information!


Staff promotion through Facebook!


GBTA on Facebook



LinkedIn Stats


Management-level executives from all Fortune 500 companies have a

profile on LinkedIn

LinkedIn receives almost 12 million unique visitors per day

Over +3M new members per month = 1+ new member per second

LinkedIn is available in 6 native languages – English, German, French,

Italian, Portuguese and Spanish

LinkedIn hiring solutions were used by 69 of the Fortune 100 companies as

of December 31, 2010

80% of companies also use LinkedIn as a recruitment tool - Oracle’s

CFO, Jeff Epstein, was headhunted for the position via his LinkedIn profile

More than one million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages

Source: LinkedIn


Why LinkedIn?


Keep track of contacts throughout their career & job moves

Build trust and rapport – therefore, your influence & your company’s

Excellent for recruiting/qualifying a candidate

Share research, take polls and glean knowledge

Join Groups for collaboration with your industry’s like-minded individuals –

share your knowledge and ask for others’ input

Gain transparency through insights into connections, partners,

competitors, staff

Professional networking platform to supplement to the face-to-face events:


LinkedIn Pages


GBTA LinkedIn Group


Your Group: The Philadelphia BTA LinkedIn Group


Search “Corporate Travel Manager” yields: 177,661!


Search “Corporate Travel Manager” in Philly: 2,637!


Source: Twitter

95 MILLION.The number of tweets per day on Twitter.


Twitter Stats


175 million active users worldwide

Over 60% of Twitter use is outside the U.S.

Twitter has more than 300,000 new users join every day

There are currently over 110 million users of Twitter’s services

Twitter receives 180 million unique visits each month

There are more than 600 million searches on Twitter every day

There are more than 50,000 third-party apps for Twitter

More than a third of users access Twitter via their mobile phone

Source: Twitter


Why Twitter?


Straight to the point, 140 characters only means no room for fluff

Detect industry trends and take polls/surveys in real-time

Terrific for customer service – make contact with end-user (not often

possible in B2B environment)

Disseminate insightful information quickly and effectively

Share knowledge readily – while it’s still relevant

Excellent for Crisis Communication efforts

Promotion of partner activities for enhanced relationships

Fast, efficient, economical and viral:


Tweets about today…



Tweets on Twitter per minute-within an hour after the Japan earthquake


Twitter for crisis communication – customer service interactions

http://www.twitter.com/TravelGov


US Embassy encourages social media in wake of quake!


35

HOURS.The amount of video uploaded to

YouTube every minute!


YouTube stats


More video is uploaded in 60 days than the 3 major US networks created in

60 years

Today, YouTube alone uses the same amount of bandwidth as the entire

Internet used in year 2000

The equivalent of 150,000+ full-length movies in theaters each week

YouTube receives more than 2 billion viewers per day

YouTube is available in 25 countries and 43 languages

70% of traffic comes from outside the US

YouTube mobile gets over 100 million views a day

Half of YouTube’s users are 20 years old or younger - (the future generation)

Source: YouTube


Why YouTube?


Customer testimonials are quite effective in video

Video blogs from your executives on company activities/events, company

financial results and industry topics

User tips/guides to your products – showcase products and tips for best in

class use

Highlight events and philanthropic activities in an inspiring way

Marketing campaigns can go viral & obtain reach like never before

To be successful, videos should be authentic, clever, witty, touching and/or

motivational

They do not always need to be flashy, expensive or polished to go viral!

For the visual learners – seeing is believing:


One YouTube example: Virgin Atlantic



GBTA on YouTube


http://www.youtube.com/user/GBTATV


Remain open to “User-Generated”

Content - Rather than bringing

content to the audience – allow them

to bring it to you!


Blogs & Communities



Tweetdeck – track & update all sites in one place



Ignoring it won’t make it go away….

If we want to know what’s ahead (future) –

we must watch the generation behind us.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12391129


Many thanks & let’s connect!

Rana Walker

AirPlus International, Inc.

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/ranawalker


mailto:[email protected]

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ranawalker

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