Social networking and tourism

Information Broadcasting Tools:

Facebook, youtube, Blogs
Dr Dirisa Mulindwa
 Social Networks
Studies have found that social networking "is one of the
most powerful forces driving travel planning today".
Social media used by travellers is growing far faster than
the travel industry itself.

Unique monthly visitors to social travel sites jumped 34%

between the first half of 2008 and the last half of 2009.
Travellers referred to a hotel or tourism booking site by 
Facebook are also more likely to book travel than those
who are referred via search engines like Google
(PhocusWright travel research 2010).

 The same is true for TripAdvisor which has become the

#1 most popular travel website; with 35,382,000 unique
monthly visitors it surpasses Expedia by over 2 million
visits (ComScore tourism research 2010).
Social Media is taking control away from the advertisers, and
giving it to the consumers
…and not all consumers are alike!. (Patricia Brusha hospitality.net)

there are 5 distinct types of social users:

 the Butterfly,
 the Selective,
 the Connected,
 the Starter and
 the New Norm.

This is a good start to understanding social behaviour and creating

your online social media travel marketing strategy.
Social media applications are not for everyone.
But the technology used is become a standard across all platforms.
 Interaction is the norm on the Internet. 
Variables Butterfly Selective Connected Starter NewNorm

age 15-25 30-45 all professionals over 45 5-9

Favorite Media mySpace, tripadvisor, Linkedin, Plaxo late to start they  Webkinz,
Facebook, travelpod, FastPitch,wiwih will have a wide Disney,
Youtube tripit, Wiki Twitter interest but Nickelodeon
explore slowly and Barbie!
Motivation Sharing use tools & processional  intrigued but not learning, get
experiences. web2Resources associations quite sure what points, rewards,
video and elite community to do, how or games,
 
photos where

Marketing Go where they niche website, loyalty/rewards easy to use they are part of
Strategy are themes programs, instruction in the buying
Requirements marketing, RSS feeds or photos and text decision. Have a
use web2 alerts Create a non kids area on
sharing not interested intimidating your website
online place to ask
newsleters questions
 Building a Social Media Travel &
Tourism Strategy
 social networking media Vs Traditional websites

 Its not a case of which one to use, if you want to excel use
them all. 
You need Social Marketing in conjunction with all your Web
presence.
 The Social Media is a new market, with a new approach, but
it overlaps with the traditional.
More importantly it feeds into and supports your web
marketing, 
It enhances your SEO and web exposure in a dramatic way. 
Together with experts decide what parts you can and want
to do.
Get the training you need and work with a your tourism
partners to market your travel business and brand in
conjunction with your entire sales, marketing, distribution,
promotion and reservation processing. 

Everything that you do magnifies all of the parts - Do it

all right and your travel and tourism brand and
marketing will be a success.
5 Keys to success with Social Media for
tourism
1. SEO, SEO, SEO - all these site are authorities, listing on
them helps your Search ranking 
2. New marketing channels -more potential clients and
bookings/reservations.
3. Effective communications medium - broadcasting
message - and one-to-one dialogue 
4. New way to engage - By consent marketing - as
powerful as word of mouth 
5. Fun and Easy to use technology - photo albums,
videos, newswire - events - discussions - groups 
Each Social network and channel has its own following
and focus.

 You can do a lot of it yourself –

 But as a Hotel Manager or tourism operator - don't make
this a full time job.

 Most likely you don't have the knowledge, time or the

tools (applications) to make it sing!. 

Your best option is to work with a travel marketing

company, such as AXSES.
 Social Media Travel Marketing - channels

Media Tips
FaceBook /Myspace Use it to get listed on the Search engines.
Communications Sharing SEO.
interests - personal news - A very popular site with good Search Engine
event - photos announcements coverage - if u there changes are they will find you.

Setups arcResBookings on your Facebook page - 

Add rooms,rates,bookings to Facebook | Facebook
Bookings Demo | 
How to Use Facebook for tourism

Add a Facebook button to your websiteGet

yourfacebook link here
Twitter Building followers is not easy. There are marketing service
that can help, such as http://twitproquo.com (not focused).
Micro Blog The best option is to search Twitter for a travel market or
Publish headlines linking to your news travel focus group, like golf.
website/blog /company to followers. Its Click "Follow" on all the results. Most will follow you in
got to be newsworthy, helpful, return. 
interesting or fun or you will get
turned off. Example: We wanted to announce arcRes travel marketing
and travel bookings application for Facebook. We
searched for Hotels and followed many - over 100 followed
us and we sent out a 140 character announcement: First
Facebook travel app! makes facebook a booking channel!
easy with http://arcResBookings.com see
http://tr.im/FaceBookDemo. example: http
://tr.im/faceBookings
Add a twitter button to your website

See TwitterButtons.com 
YouTube Setup a YouTube account and
post the video. Setup your own
Video is one of the  webpage and use the YoyTube
most popular forms of imbedded code to display the
information sharing. video on your page:  note the
video see
BarbadosBoardwalk.com enviro
nment-
talkis imbedded from
YoyTube.A successful creative -
see will it blend
BookingsStLucia travel channel
on YouTube: 
http://youtube.com/BookingsStL
ucia
 & imbedded on 
BookingsStlucia.com
Flickr It is used to share personal
Photo sharing, photography related photographs, and is also widely
networking, worldwide used by bloggers and journalist as a
photo repository. It allows photos to
be tagged and organized so that
others can find what they are
looking for. Putting hotel, activities
and destination photos on line is
easy and is good travel marketing
exposure. Flickr gets top rating on
Search engines, use it to list your 
travel keywords and get links to yo
ur site(YouTube).
Blogs  If you care to write about your destination, travel
experiences, holiday experiences or guest experiences
Online Articles - etc., then a blog is great travel Marketing tool
Self publishing
Example: my blog on There are many blog solutions to choose from.
Hotel marketing and trav Wordpress and Googles Blogger are amongst the best
el suppler tools know.
Blogger also allows you to integrated your distribution
with twitter, digg and facebook etc.
The Blog can be very strategic; if you find your Search
Engine ranking is low for certain keywords write a
blog for each keyword and structure them to get
ranked.
Neil Maclean (thetravelprblog.com-travel marketer)
used this technique with great success - he advises
"write conversational, but targeted and regularly
updated content" with links that are "structured web
address/category/post".
Delicious Good for storing, organising, sharing, and
discovering web bookmarks. Sharing links can
Social bookmarking be helpful in travel marketing.
You add your own links and share them with
others.
By adding the Delicious button   
Bookmark this on Delicious to your web
pages, travellers will be able to add your pages
to their bookmarks.
Digg  You can add any travel news including your
own but it cant be a duplicate.
News website made to discover The travel news or travel marketing piece
and share content from the you submit gets voted by other users who
DIGG it (click the digg button) - If it gets
Internet. News Bookmarking  enough votes it moves to the top and more
people see it.
Its hard to create a travel article or a a travel
marketing slot that will be popular.
Example of a popular piece is 
http://digg.com/d1r7dv
But the real advantage for a Travel Website
is that a DIGG increases your chances of
getting good Search Engines rank (SEO). 
YouTube: Digg & Tourism SEO!
How to add a DIGG button to your page: 
Go to Digg
LinkedIn It has appeal to professions who want to
create a network of like minded people. 
A business-oriented social
networking site for If you have a Linkedin account you can
professionals build a network and send network friends
updates and messages of specials and events
that might interest.
Stressed executives need a holiday! As with
all Social sites a good listing on 
LinkedIn can get your Tourism Website on
Search results - SEO (YouTube)
Google Friends This has the potential to be very
Connect (GFC) powerful.
It is Googles answer to sites like
Googles new Social Media Facebook.
Coupled with * Google Profile * Gmail *
Google Reader * Google Reader Shared
Items * Google Blogs * Googles Search
and more to come - It will be the largest
integrated social network platform in the
world.
Google is also rumoured to be building
connections to all other major network
(like YouTube: Travel Friends Connect)
Now it just needs friends.
Start a GFC now and learn about it - it
will be big. 
GoogleWave New technology that does not fit any
category, but many are saying its going to
* powerful replace email.
communications Its best described as combination of wikis,
and collaboration email, IM, VCS, blogs, collaboration & doc
platform managers in a single interface.
Its going to change everything.
For latest links see our 
blog on wave and the future.
This technology has great promise but its
slower than expect to catch on.
Looks like it may be lead by application
developers - some travel companies are
already using it as the platform for their
collaborative social systems
Google Buzz  Off to shaky start with gmail
integration with that included
mailing that might be considered
Google answer to violation of privacy.
twitter etc. Mails list are recommended now
rather than automatic.
Like twitter you can send out
news buzzes.
You can also 
add a buzz button to your blog
 and website pages (see comment),
so that others can buzz your news
for you!
RSS RSS is a way to publish your holiday
news, travel specials, packages and
* Really Simple destination events. For the tourist
Syndication (ie: easy looking for deals and other news - it
publishing - a social offers them a way to get news delivered
service) to them by email or to a site like their
Google page.
You need to subscribe to a RSS like
arcRes RSS that will distribute your
information to hundreds of these sites 
Video RSS in 2 easy steps
Example: Barbados.org Holiday
Specials -  RSS
SmartPhones Not a traditional social media
The next wave of officially - this is a very social
Computing. platform that is on in your pocked
most of the time.
Travellers are using this medium
more and more not only to find
holiday activities on location but to
look for travel deals and book hotels
online. see the info about the new
surge in smartphone
travel applications and why you nee
d a smart
website at
http://arcres.com/tourism-marketing-platform.cfm
INtroduction
Information broadcasting applications are used to distribute
information to team members and others.
However, recently they have become powerful marketing tools
They can act as electronic word of mouth
The types of applications that we include in this category are as
follows:
 Blogs (short for weblogs) are online journals that let you combine
text, images, and hyperlinks.
 Podcasts (audio) and vodcasts (audio-video) let team members
retrieve information on demand, unlike presentations and webinars
that are typically scheduled. With very little equipment, you can
create a podcast for distribution.
 Webinars are covered in the “Web-based Meeting Programs”
Blogs

Blogs let people share information personally and

casually, typically in a journal format.
 Bloggers (those who write a blog) might write about a
specific subject, personal information, or a
combination of these.
Most blogs allow the author to categorize the entries,
which lets visitors see only those posts related to a
specific topic.
Some blogging software lets multiple bloggers post, either
to the same blog or to multiple blogs that are linked
together (called a blog farm).
Blogging is a communication tool, a marketing technique,
a listening device, and a way to interact directly with
customers one-to-one on a global scale.
A business can learn a lot by reading blogs to determine
what customers and non-customers alike are saying about
the business.
 Your business can benefit by using blogs to spread the
word about what your company has to offer its customers
and to gain immediate feedback from customers.
Blogs can be hosted on the blogging software’s server or
installed onto a company server.
If the URL refers to the blogging software’s site, the blogger is
using that server (for example, see Brenda’s blog at
http://vagabond.blogsome.com), which is called “hosted
services.”
If the URL refers to the blogger’s home page or domain, the
blogger has installed the software on his or her personal server
(for example, see Char’s blog at http://helpstuff.com/blog), and is
called “self-hosted.”
 The difference between hosted services and self-hosted blogs is
maintenance: Hosted services manage all maintenance (including
installation and updates).
You can customize your blog by modifying templates
and style sheets, or by selecting a different theme.
Customers can stay up to date with the latest blog entries
by using an aggregator, which lets you specify the sites
that you want to track. (The sites must have RSS or
Atom feeds enabled
blogs, are allowing companies to Base the business
decisions on customer feedback and market intelligence.
 Therefore starting a blog is probably the smartest
business move a company could ever make.
Blogs have the potential not only to change the way you
communicate with customers, raise your visibility, and
get you direct customer feedback,
 but they can also transform the way your company does
business internally.
Using blogs can help you reduce e-mail overload,
facilitate the brainstorming process to generate new
ideas more quickly,
and simplify a variety of project management tasks.
 Blogs are so powerful that to say they will
revolutionize any business is an understatement
 blogs have the power to create businesses, change the
course of political history, and transform the way the
mainstream media looks at itself.
Blogging grew from the ground up as a grassroots effort.
What started as a few people conversing about common
interests via real-time Internet postings has become a
continuous conversation among millions of bloggers and
readers.
The most powerful thing about blogging isn’t the
technology; it’s this massive community driving the
blogosphere.
 With millions of bloggers expressing their thoughts,
experiences, and information they’ve learned in their fields
of interest, this medium has become a worldwide forum
The reality is that blogging is a medium.
 Blogging is also a content style.
 Because the earliest blogs were built on the principles of an
authentic voice, honesty, and authority, most blogs are expected
to have those qualities
—this holds true even more so for the corporate blog.
Blog readers (even brand new ones) are so conditioned to reading
a personal voice on blogs that they expect it from companies, too.
This presents unique challenges for business leaders who want to
understand blogging, as the concepts of transparency and
authenticity are not often associated with corporate
communications practices.
Because they’re publicly available on the Internet,
blogs are wide open, ready to interact with all of your
customers.
Blogs let customers hear what is on your mind,
 they create a space for customers to tell you exactly
what they are thinking about.
Blogs are the next best thing to going door-to-door to
each of your customers’ homes or offices;
they give you and your company a way to create and
sustain real relationships with real people.
Past marketing efforts were always transmissions from
companies
— one-way communications aimed at as wide an audience as
possible, such as advertisements, popup windows on the
Internet, and the like.
 With blogs, however, you’re engaging with your customers, as
every reader is reading your blog by choice,
 every reader is choosing to interact with your business,
and every reader wants to hear more from you.
This powerful new way of communicating creates and
empowers customer evangelists in ways that were practically
impossible before blogs existed.
Blogging is really about three things:
 Information: Telling your customers what you’re doing
and finding out what they are thinking.
 Relationships: Building a solid base of positive
experiences with your customers that changes them from
plain-old consumers to evangelists for your company and
products.
 Knowledge management: Having the vast stores of
knowledge within your company available to the right
people at the right time.
Blog: A website comprising blog posts, or content written by the blogger, which are
typically organized into categories and sorted in reverse chronological order. Most
blogs allow readers to comment on individual blog posts.
Blog posts Individual items posted to the blog (using blogware) by the blogger.
 Blogger The individual who maintains the blog and/or writes blog posts using the
blogware.
Blogosphere The community of blogs, bloggers, and blog posts.
 Blogware Software used to create blog posts and manage blogs.
The conversation What happens when bloggers, especially millions of them, blog.
 Permalinks Permanent links attached to a particular blog post that remain
unchanged.
Trackbacks URLs that other bloggers use to cite posts or parts of posts; for
example, when you, Blogger A, write about something Blogger B posted on in her
blog, it’s best to let Blogger B know she has been mentioned in your blog.
Trackbacks send Blogger B an e-mail with a notation that her blog has been cited