Social media marketing for the tourism industry

Social Media Marketing

for the Tourism Industry

1. A bit about me, e-CBD and this workshop

2. The marketing landscape: where we‟re at

3. Introduction to the main social networks and case studies

i. Facebook

i. Facebook Business Pages

ii. Facebook Advertising

ii. Twitter

iii. YouTube

iv. Blogging

4. Social media monitoring

5. Creating a social media strategy for your business

6. Getting the most out of your website

7. Summary

8. Question Time

Agenda

• Studied communications

• Worked in public relations and journalism

• Created e-CBD with Marilyn Strauss in 2001, been in Southport since

• e-CBD has always focussed on online marketing

• Became interested in social media three years ago

• Started specialist social media and PR agency in Brisbane called memery

• Created the Dialogix social media monitoring tool

• Now used by many of the biggest corporations in Australia

• Marketing Magazine‟s „Digital Guru‟, write regular features for them

• Lecture in social media for ADMA and at various conferences

About Me

• Thank you for coming – it really is great to have 100 people here

• Save your questions until the end

• At the end we‟ll take questions and see what ideas we can come up with for

your business

• We‟ll email everyone a copy so you‟ve got it to refer back to whenever you

like

About this Presentation

• Social media is a collective term for a range of websites that let people

contribute to them. YouTube for example, is a social media channel. Blogs are a

social media channel.

• Social networks are specific types of social media which link people

together. Facebook is a social network. MySpace is a social network (that no one

uses anymore).

Definitions

How Much do We Know?

• Who here isn‟t on on Facebook?

• Who here has started using Facebook for business?

• Who has uploaded a video to YouTube?

• Who has a Twitter account?






• Who has a Twitter account and has only used it a couple of times and the

only thing they‟ve said is „figuring out how to use Twitter‟?








• Who has done some sort of social media monitoring before using Google

Alerts or another tool?








• Who has done some sort of social media monitoring before using Google

Alerts or another tool?

• Who has a social media marketing strategy?


The Marketing Landscape in 2011

• “Word of Mouth” was the first form of

marketing.

• Word of mouth has ALWAYS been the

most effective way of getting new

business.

• People have always trusted their friends

opinions.


Hey Maximus, Poncius in

front of me reckons I need a

new anti-perspirant, you

always smell nice, what do

you use?

Centurio Dry, it

never lets me

down!

Word of mouth never stopped being

important, but when mass media became

popular last century, brands could rely on

advertising to broadcast their message

at the world and word of mouth didn‟t

seem as important to some marketers

anymore.


TV got people’s attention

(AND TRUST)

You could tell people whatever you wanted,

because you knew they were paying attention…Image © Aaron Escobar @ Flickr

No matter how blatant or irrelevant your message was,

people used to listen because advertising was interesting.

The Yellow Pages

used to work

People used

to read

their

local paper

Don‟t get me

wrong, advertising

is still an important

way to tell people

about your brand.

Advertising isn‟t

dead.

But the landscape has changed…

Ads are everywhere. In fact, people see

and hear between 1,000 and 3,000

advertising messages every day…

87,600,000 throughout their lives…

We have reached a point where:

90% of people trust recommendations

from their friends.

70% of people trust consumer opinions

posted online.

(Source: Neilsen Global Trust In Advertising Survey, 2009)

McKinsey and Co. estimate that 2/3 of the economy is now influenced by personal recommendations…

http://www.mckinsey.com/

People still watch TV, but they flick

through the ads. They read the

news online instead of on paper.

Recommendations and opinions

for every product and service

are now available on the

Internet.

We don‟t rely on ads for

information.

People obviously still talk to each other

face to face, but the INTERNET has

allowed conversations to spread at

light speed around the globe and be

heard by millions within minutes.

And the Internet is now the largest

mass-communication medium, by far…

Facebook has 12 million Australian users.

Half of those check Facebook at least

once EVERY day

13 hours of video are uploaded

to YouTube every minute

There are more

than 133 million

blogs in the

world (Source: Technorati)

Every single second of

every single day,

Twitter‟s 190 million

users mention brands

they LOVE and

HATE.

AND Twitter is growing at

a rate of around1382%

per year

When I gave a similar

presentation in 2009

Twitter had 5 million

users.

(Source: Twitter Search, Forrester Research)

People love forums

On The Lonely Planet Thorntree forums there are usually 1,000 users on

at any one time and so far there have been 23,000 conversations about

Australia

Tripadvisor

45,000,000 traveller reviews and opinions. 199 Gold Coast hotels and

apartments. 69 things to do, 689 restaurants.

People are talking about

your brand right now.

Some people will love you

Some people won’t like you

But they are talking about you.

These days most big tourism brands now have a Twitter

page and a Facebook account of course…

But will Facebook really get you more business?

What the hell do you actually say on Twitter?

And what’s the best way to start listening?

Let‟s find out

Facebook Business Pages

• World‟s biggest social network

• 12 million Australian users

• Average user has around 130 friends

• Everything people do on Facebook (uploading photos, or attending an event) is

shared with all their friends. That‟s why marketers love it. It‟s „VIRAL‟

• Half of Facebook‟s users log in at least once every day

• It has replaced email between friends

• Used to be an intensely private place, but businesses are increasingly becoming

involved and people are expecting to see businesses on Facebook

• Not having a Facebook business page these days is like not having a website

• Facebook makes it very easy to create a business page

• It has a fantastic, cheap, targeted advertising program

Facebook

Facebook Demographics

• Hell yes

• It‟s free

• It‟s easy

• You will have interesting information to share with people

• Treat it like a newsletter

• It‟s a place to show people you care about your customers

• Anyone with a Facebook account can setup a business page

Should your business have a Facebook page?

Account vs. Page vs. Group vs. Community

• A Facebook account is a personal profile attached to your own name.

Accounts are intended for personal use.

• Like most things intended for personal use, if you only use them for personal

reasons, you won‟t get into trouble.

• Personal accounts allow you to build a personal profile listing your interests,

upload personal photos, connect with your friends and send messages to your

friends.

• You need a personal account to create a business page


• A Facebook page is an official Facebook profile of something. You can make an

official Facebook profile of a business, a celebrity (even if they‟re a very minor

celebrity), a charity, or any other organisation.

• Facebook pages are intended to be setup and run by official representatives of

a brand.

• When people visit your page for the first time they‟ll see a button which says

„Like‟. People interact with your brand online by „liking‟ you and by clicking the

„like‟ button, it‟s their way of saying they‟re a fan of what you do.

• When people are fans of your brand, they can get notified when you have

news or update your page.

• Pages can be linked to ads and they‟re the best way of using Facebook for a

business.


• A Facebook community is what you need to setup if you‟d like to create a

community of people who are interested in something. Like „stepping on

crunchy leaves‟ or „Katy Perry‟.

• Community pages are not affiliated with, or endorsed by, anyone associated

with the topic, but Facebook users can „like‟ them in the same way they like

official pages.

• A community page might be a good idea as a complimentary marketing

strategy for your business page.

– For example, if you were a winery you might create a „Shiraz Lovers‟ community

and sponsor it.

Goals to aim for

• Get people to „like‟ your Facebook page

• Get people to interact with you on your page

• Create an community of people interested in what you do (either your

business or your industry)

• Get people to tag themselves in your photos

• But more importantly, get their email address (Facebook may not be popular

for ever)

• Get people talking about you to their friends

• Get your events appearing on people‟s walls

OK, fair enough, what are some goals to aim for then?

How to Get Facebook Fans

There are two ways to get fans on Facebook.

1. Be famous or awesome and people will just naturally seek you out. Justin

Bieber, for example, is famous but not awesome and he has 15,000,000

Facebook fans. „Not being on fire‟, for example, is awesome but not famous.

More than 8,000 people like not being on fire. Family Guy (the TV show) is

both famous and awesome. Family Guy has 17,000,000 Facebook fans.

How to Get Facebook Fans

There are two ways to get fans on Facebook.

2. Give people some sort of incentive to like you. It‟s marketing 101 here. Bribes

work. Unless you‟re famous, or awesome, don‟t think that people will

gravitate to you because you‟re nice/pretty. They need an incentive. Facebook

isn‟t that different to an email newsletter really. The same methods that get

people to sign up for email newsletters work for Facebook pages, here are

some things to try:

How to get people to like your business on Facebook

• Give people exclusive discounts for being Facebook fan. Real ones. Good ones.

Actual exclusive ones.

• Provide people with the latest news about your organisation.

• Give them something to do when they like you. The Barbie page is a great

example. Once you like the Barbie page you get to play fun games.

• Create and foster a community (eg. http://www.facebook.com/pollyboutique)

• Have events

• Invite your friends and link to your Facebook from your website (eg.

http://www.charlottereeves.com.au/home.html)

• Tell people about the „suggest a friend‟ button (example)

• Cross-promote. Find other similar Facebook pages and offer to tell people

about them if they do the same for you.

• ADVERTISE, especially to fans of your competitors

http://www.facebook.com/pollyboutique

http://www.charlottereeves.com.au/home.html

• Give them rich content with a customised tab (like Hilton‟s)

• Give people a reason to tag themselves in your photos (like Big Cat Reality)

• Be interesting so people want to follow you (like Bushells)

• Ask questions which prompt a response (like Bubble O‟ Bill)

• Tell people at events that the photos will be on Facebook

• Offer incentives for people to talk about you

• Create a „place‟ for your business and encourage/incentivise people to „check

in‟ and upload photos. All their friends will then see where they are.

How to get people to interact with you on Facebook

Facebook Usernames

• Your Facebook username is the URL (web address) people type in their

browser when they want to load your page. If you don‟t get one, you end up

with a string of letters which looks something like this:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/yourpagename/91749616734

• It‟s easy enough to get something a bit sexier though. All you need to do is get

at least 25 people to „like‟ your business page and then go to

http://www.facebook.com/username/. You‟ll then be prompted to choose a

page you want to create a username for. You can pick pretty whatever you

want, as long as it‟s available and not generic. You can‟t change the name of the

page later though, so be careful. Get it right the first time.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/yourpagename/91749616734

http://www.facebook.com/username/

Your Brand’s Personality on Facebook: What to Say

• You need to be prepared to engage people in conversation. They‟ll want to talk

to you.

• Know what your brand sounds like. Choose a personality.

• Create a social media comms schedule with key dates and events (eg. footy

finals, school holidays) and plan around them.

• Tell fans who they‟re talking to and when (eg. Bob 9am-5pm).

• Start conversations. Ask questions!

• Ask advice from your fans.

• People love a poll.

• Who are your brand‟s friends? Do you have a CSR program? Link to charities

you support.

Be ready for Criticism

• Creating a Facebook page and then not engaging is rude.

• Be aware that people might use your Facebook page to criticise you. But don‟t

be scared.

• Ensure you have a company social media policy with guidelines on what to say.

• Anticipate potential negative comments and have a course of action to follow.

How to Move People away from Facebook

• At the end of the day, getting someone to like you on Facebook is cool for a

bit, but sooner or later, you‟re going to want them to buy something. You need

to get them off Facebook to do that.

• Link off to your website with specials.

• Make sure you don‟t use Facebook as your only marketing strategy.

• Someday, something else will be the next big thing.

• The most important thing you can do with a Facebook fan is get

their email address.

• The best way to do this is with a custom landing page.

Tabs and Landing Pages

• One of the reasons MySpace failed is because it looks like an absolute pile of

dog breakfast. As soon as it launched, kids figured out how to (badly) pimp

their profiles and suddenly the web looked like it was 1995 again. Facebook

doesn‟t let you format your profile the same way, but it does let you create

customised tabs on business pages which you have a lot more design control

over.


• You would be stark-raving mad to not create a tab for your business and use it

as a landing page.

• Put all the stuff you‟d usually put on a Google AdWords landing page on a

Facebook tab.

• Get people‟s email addresses.

• Create a call to action. Sell. Create intrigue.

• Offer something more. It‟s basically a mini-website on Facebook so go nuts.

• You need to know a bit of html code to make things happen, but any web

designer worth their salt these days should be able to help.

Facebook Advertising


• At the moment Facebook advertising is probably one of the best, most cost-

effective ways of promoting your business online.

• If you know what you‟re doing, you can literally show your ad to 1 million

people for less than a thousand dollars.

• You can pay by the click, or you can pay per thousand impressions.

• It‟s scaleable, cheap and effective.

• You make an ad and then show it to people based on their age, sex and

interests. It‟s a no brainer.


Here are some handy tips for your Facebook ads:


• Have a goal for the ad – is it to get more fans? Is it to sell something?

• Incentive. Incentive. Incentive.

• Discounts sell. The bigger, the better.

• Advertise to fans of your competitors. Bingo.

• Keep your ads fresh. Change the pics regularly (iStockPhoto, CompFight etc.)

• Don‟t just send people from an ad to your wall or website homepage.

• Link your ads to a unique landing page (eg. www.racq.com.au/facebook) and

use a funnel to track conversions from there.

• Sex sells. You need to get people‟s attention with that little photo. Don‟t be

distasteful or inappropriate or your ad will get banned, but yes, sex does

indeed sell.

• Cheesy stock photos don‟t sell. People see hundreds of ads a day. If it looks

like every other ad they saw that day, they won‟t pay any attention.

http://www.racq.com.au/facebook


• Your logo is boring. Unless you‟re famous.

• Tracking ads is tricky. Facebook doesn‟t seem to talk properly to Google

Analytics, expect discrepancies.

• Pay per click, not for impressions (you‟ll get heaps of impressions anyway

• Think outside the square when you‟re targeting interests. People who need a

wedding photographer aren‟t the ones listing „photography‟ as in interest.

They‟re the ones who are „engaged‟

• Bid the maximum amount to ensure you get the best placement

• Can you put your phone number in the ad (so you don‟t pay for the click)?

• More fans is often a good idea, but might not mean more money. If you‟re a

restaurant in Main Beach you might just want to offer a discount for

mentioning the ad (for example).

• Have a call to action. Give them a reason to click.

• Created a landing page tab with a call to action

• Offered an incentive for people to like the brand

• Created ads targeting fans of competitors and fashion

• Backed it up with a campaign on Sea FM to help spread the word

• Result: 500 new people to the fashion mailing list in a week

Facebook Advertising Case Study: Pacific Fair

Twitter

• Micro blog

• Lets people say what they‟re thinking and share information in 140 characters

or less

• Is, most of the time, a complete pile of crap

• But it‟s an amazing listening post

• And it‟s easily searchable. You can find people based on their geographic

location.

• You can get a feed of people talking about your brand (or city, or whatever)

• Great way for businesses to update people with news and offers

What is Twitter?

How to Use Twitter

• http://search.twitter.com/advanced

• Treat it as a company newsletter

• Keep an eye on competitors

• Monitor the local area for people asking for referrals

• Follow people who are interested in what you do

• Engage key influencers

http://search.twitter.com/advanced

• Problem: New cafe, needs business (sales)

• Key Influencers: Coffee Lovers, Vocal Early Tech Adopters, Business Leaders,

Local Press

Twitter Case Study: Star Gardentown Cafe

YouTube

• World‟s biggest and most popular video sharing website

• Virtually any „how to‟ search in Google returns a YouTube video in the top 5

results

• People with personality have become famous on YouTube

• Most videos get less than 1,000 views

• Weigh up the ROI before investing in a video

• But if you‟ve got a camera, why not give it a crack?

• Best way to explain complicated things on your website

• Great for virtual tours

YouTube

Market Research

Wine Library

Son of Russian

Immigrants starts

reading blogs and

forums to find out

what wines people

want to know about.

Answers common

questions, tells people

to check out his site.

Turns small New York

bottle shop into the

world‟s biggest online

wine store with a $48

million a year

turnover.

• Don‟t start a blog

Blogs

• Don‟t start a blog unless you have at least two hours a week to update it with

interesting information and/or news about your business.

• Pretty much everything has been said and no-one has time to read.

• You‟re better off reading other people‟s blogs and commenting on them.

• Use Twitter instead. It‟s much easier and quicker.

• Or if you‟ve got lots of great content, use Tumblr, or consider Facebook (eg.

Princess Polly and TBG)

Blogs

http://www.facebook.com/pollyboutique

http://www.thebeautifulgirls.com/index.php

Social Media Monitoring

• Until you know what is being said about your brand, your competitors and

your industry, social media is a waste of time

• Until you can track the success of what you‟re doing, social media is a waste of

time


The Basics

• Start with a Google alert

• Then set up a Twitter search

• Check out socialmention.com

• Facebook will tell you when someone updates your page


Paid Tools

• There are lots of paid social media monitoring tools out there ranging from a

few hundred to a few thousand dollars a month.

• Check out Radian6 and Buzz Numbers

• BUT they‟re expensive and they don‟t weed out irrelevant information for you

• Dialogix is a tool we‟ve developed especially for the tourism industry which

only shows you relevant data

• It rates the sentiment of what is being said

• Shows you what people are saying about competitors

• And it gives you feeds from TripAdvisor

• FREE trial

• www.dialogix.com.au


Creating a Social Media Strategy

Key Considerations

• What‟s your staff policy on social media? (126 examples at

http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php)

• What are your KPIs?

• How will you measure response? Have you got the right social media

monitoring in place?

• What is your brand‟s personality? What does your voice sound like?

• What does your brand want to say?

• Who will do the talking?

• How will you handle negative responses?

Creating a social media strategy for your business

http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php

Getting the Most out of Your Website

• It‟s the process of refining a website so it has the best chance of achieving its

goal (for example a booking, a sale or an email newsletter signup)

• There‟s no point in doing any marketing unless your website has been properly

optimised to convert people to sales

• CRO can increase conversions by 50 - 600% in some cases

• Unoptimised sites conversion can be as low as 0.1% - 3.1%

• CRO is often looked at last when it should be first.

• What are your site goals? - Sales, leads, download something, read your article,

sign up for your newsletter, click on your ads etc.

• CRO, Content Strategy and SEO are interlinked. SEO brings the traffic, CRO

Converts the Traffics and both involve utilising a content strategy.

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

1. Make credible pages that look trustworthy and legitimate.

– Great logo

– No spelling mistakes

– Clear and modern design

– Legitimacy cues e.g. Social Media, Security logos, Awards, Testimonials etc.

2. Make navigating through your site easy and clear. Use sensible navigation

titles.

3. Use "benefit oriented" language and headings giving strong value

propositions. “Feel the ocean breeze” – “Closer to the beach”.

4. Layout – Ensure the most important offers, booking forms and selling points

are in prime locations (top left, left side and center)

5. Ensure there‟s a clear call to action (CTA) for your website (or Facebook

page)

CRO –Ten Actionable Tips

6. Use images correctly:

– Hero Shots of products or services

– Happy people using products, multiple angles, before and after etc.

– Avoid stock images where possible

– Make images clickable and include descriptions where appropriate

7. Add a video. Studies show a video can increase conversions by 80%. Make sure it isn't set to auto-play.

8. Use interactive content:

– Flash applications e.g. interactive maps, interactive product information, 360 views etc.

– Calculators attached to lead form e.g. savings calculator, cost calculator, get a quote etc.

– Comments and feedback forms

– Search functionality, chat functionality (where appropriate)

9. Incorporate user testing into your design process for your website. Do a six foot test on your landing page/homepage. Also use free user testing services such as "5 Second Test" or "Click Test".

10. Cull unnecessary content and learn to "get to the point".

CRO –Ten Actionable Tips

Web Design Tips

• Make the site worth spending time on. The more time they spend on your site,

the more likely they are to make a booking. Add features which keep them

around.

• Answer any Frequently Asked Questions people would usually ask. Don‟t give

them a reason to go away thinking „this isn‟t for me‟ because you haven‟t

explained the benefit properly.

• Can you include gift certificates?

• Video

• Have you got a brilliant map showing where you are in the best possible light?

• Is your unique selling proposition obvious?

• Know exactly what your competition is doing online.

• You‟re competing with WotIf and other booking sites – show that you have

personal service AND the right price

Eight ideas for getting the most out of your website

Summary

Our Top Ten Social Media Tips

1. People will be talking about you. Make sure you‟re monitoring.

2. Not having a Facebook page is like not having a website. People now expect it.

3. Use Facebook to show people how much you love your customers.

4. Create a Facebook place for your business and get people „checking in‟.

5. Facebook advertising is cheap and it works.

6. Use Twitter as a newsletter, but don‟t too much from it. It‟s not that popular.

7. YouTube is a great way to demonstrate unique things about your business.

8. Create a social media strategy and know your KPIs.

9. Be prepared for public negative comments and know how to deal with them.

10. Marketing is useless if your website hasn‟t been optimised for conversion.

Summary

Want a quote on a Facebook tab?

Need a social media strategy?

Want a FREE conversion rate review?

Want a FREE one-week dialogix trial?

1300 733 088

www.e-cbd.com

[email protected]

Questions

Social media marketing for the tourism industry

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