From Social to Viral: Digital 3.0 Strategies for Attracting Today’s Traveler Presented by: SocialRadius The online travel industry has always been at the forefront of the digital age, leading e-commerce, email, search and digital loyalty programs. But nearly a decade into the social media era, its track record has been somewhat hit and miss. Learn about what really works in the integration of promotion, loyalty, social media and virality. Discover how the added layer of location-based platforms like Foursquare have increased engagement at some travel properties more than 1000 percent – with little investment from the brand owner. Delve into the 10 Biggest Mistakes leading brands make on Twitter and Facebook – as well as the Top 10 Opportunities. See why blogger outreach can still create the largest ROI in your marketing portfolio. And visit the secrets of viral video success from the team that promoted some of the industry’s top efforts. Michael Terpin, Founder and CEO, SocialRadius, and Founder, Marketwire

1. From Social to Viral
Digital 3.0 Strategies for
Attracting Today’s Traveler
Michael Terpin, CEO
SocialRadius
PhocusWright Conference
Hollywood, Florida, November 16, 2011

2. Digital 3.0:
 Broadband and mobile converge.
 Top social networks become platforms.
 Social and interest graphs converge.
 Social, traditional and viral media interact and
expand in real time, blur.
 Mobile apps + location-based tracking + social
sharing + “interest graph” + real-time Web =
Information Osmosis

3. Broadband and mobile convergence.
 More, better devices untether the average user,
adding far more time per day online.
 Fast, mobile access means anyone generate
content quickly.
New class of overlay social networks (Foursquare,
Instagram) emerges based on location data,
photos/videos and social sharing.
Digital 3.0

4. Social networks become platforms.
 Facebook’s 800 million members become lion’s
share of any third-party user base.
 Google has unique ability to entice new social
network users through search and email.
 API integration of real-time data lights a new fire
into once-static websites.
 Connect on the way in… share on the way out.
Digital 3.0

5. Social and interest graphs converge.
 Existing interest-graph networks (e.g., Yelp,
TripAdvisor) have added Facebook integration (or
more) to connect social and interest graphs.
 Every added verification factor will increase
bookings.
 Social connection (accountability) plus domain
expertise (credibility) combined make for powerful
trust in a recommendation.
Digital 3.0

6. Social, traditional and viral media
interact, expand in real time, blur.
Digital 3.0

7. Information Osmosis

8. = SOCIAL graph
= SOCIAL graph + INTEREST graph
= SOCIAL graph + INTEREST graph
+ location-based mobile data
Digital 3.0

9. Social Reference
Control and manage your own social media profiles and presence.
Thought Leadership
Create and distribute your unique message.
Blogger Outreach
Engage and influence thought leaders, journalists & enthusiasts.
Social Network Activation
Build, engage and leverage current and prospective constituents.
Virality
Tap into crowd dynamics to build rapidly outside your own networks.
Five Pillars of Social Media Marketing

10.  Own as much of your top 10 in Google as possible:
 Travel industry are easily hijacked by black-hat
SEO. Owned media is first way to fight back.
 Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn profiles
 Your own blog (or blogs)
 Guest blog posts, profiles in company websites.
 News, reviews, press releases.
 Observe and manage your presence on Wikipedia.
 Use, but don’t abuse, social news & bookmarking.
The First Pillar: Social Reference

11.  Create and distribute unique messages designed
to impact your audience.
 Build a following in sync with your destination,
property, brand.
 Create alliances with other thought leaders.
 Influence SEO with “off page” tactics. This is less
expensive, more effective than retail SEM.
 Move negative posts off front page of Google.
 Reverse direct marketing: best prospects find you.
The Second Pillar: Thought Leadership

12.  Engage and influence thought leaders & enthusiasts.
 Create “earned media” from bottom up strategy, tactics.
 Show other thought leaders your innovations, findings
first.
 Coax enthusiasts to link to your offers with contests.
 Create relationships across all categories of bloggers.
 Done well, blogger outreach will be your best SEO, as
well as serve as a bridge between PR and promotion.
The Third Pillar: Blogger Outreach

13. Editorial Blogs
Thought Leaders & Enthusiasts
Personal Diaries
Blogosphere Influencer Pyramid ™

14. T E
 Though leaders provide credibility…
…Enthusiasts provide access and energy .
 Mommy bloggers
 Fashion bloggers
 Beauty bloggers
 Travel bloggers come in many categories.
Thought leaders seek access to information and
understanding. Enthusiasts want cool stuff to
share with their readers.
Blogger Outreach Though Leaders vs. Enthusiasts

15. William Quigley: Establishing Global Conversation QUICKLY
through a Thought Leadership BOMB…
Clearstone Venture Partners managing director William
Quigley was well respected among his fellow VCs, but was
relatively invisible on the global stage. SocialRadius built a
blog and Twitter presence for Quigley, then released a
carefully edited Power Point to showcase his vision of the
future of venture capital.
SocialRadius leveraged posts in VentureBeat and TechCrunch
into a rapid cascade of media coverage in the Wall Street Journal,
New York Times, BusinessWeek, Reuters and a profile in Barrons. In less
than two months, the PowerPoint was downloaded 300,000 times.
Case Study Thought Leadership

16. Case Study: Bombay Sapphire – Blogger Brand Excitement
“Spirit of Exploration” adventure blog was created
to coincide with integrated marketing
campaign, including extensive print ads and
contests.
Invited bloggers to participate in contest, defining
their personal “Spirit of Exploration” and to cover
and compete for an exotic trip to Skybar in
Thailand.
Within one month of launch, more than 100
bloggers participated, more than 40,000 entered
the contest - and the competition blog had over 1
million unique visits.
Case Study Blogger Outreach: Enthusiasts

17. EcoMom – Turning Endorsement into E-Commerce
EcoMom is an e-commerce site for
healthy, sustainable products for babies and
young children.
Targeting mommy blogs for product
reviews, giveaways and contests led to
massive exposure, traffic and direct sales.
Concurrently, more than 70 percent of
EcoMom’s sales come directly from links on
blogs.
Case Study Blogger Outreach + Thought Leadership

18.  Every social network is different. They all have different
rules – and different paths to influence and monetization.
 Each nation has its own “hot” network (and they
continue to change frequently).
 Facebook owns B2C, Twitter owns microblogging; both
will be challenged by Google+.
 LinkedIn remains the king of B2B in US, Xing in EU.
 All social networks can be tracked with off-network
metrics, including short URLs (bit.ly, tinyurl).
 The rules of the community rule: it’s their sandbox.
The Fourth Pillar: Social Networks

19. Social networks are not just idle chatter.
 Social network activity is highly trackable,
including links and conversions to e-commerce
 Landing pages, offers and messaging can be
tested just as rigorously in social media as direct
mail, email TV and radio (or even more…).
 Recommendations for travel from friends
outperform search – 38% of international tourists
rely on recommendations v. 22% relied on Web
(including search). *
The Fourth Pillar: Social Networks
* Source: TRAVELSAT Global Benchmarking Survey, 2011

20.  Largest global social network (as large as entire
Internet user base in 2004).
 Highly engaged users (more traffic than Google)
 Facebook has little impact on search engines.
 Fan pages have no limit on friends, profiles do.
 Events, Causes, Groups can be powerful
marketing tools.
 Get into the newsfeed. It’s the new email.
 Most companies do not need an “app.”
 Pay attention to the rapid changes.
Facebook: Key Facts for the Online Marketer

21.  Twitter just passed 100 million ACTIVE users.
 Sponsored tweets will mainly impact big brands.
 Travel industry continues to embrace Twitter, yet
engagement varies wildly.
 Far more predictable growth than Facebook or
YouTube, yet even viral tweets don’t build followings
1:1.
 Relevant following is key. What does your
following actually do once they follow you?
Twitter: Rapid Growth, Constant Change

22.  Establish authority first with information, engagement.
 Don’t just sell – earn market share by giving
(content, discounts).
 Drive users to many places, not just the same order
page.
 Track everything obsessively:
 Follower to follow ratio
 Tweet to retweet ratio
 Speed of follower growth
 Test offers by time, etc.
Twitter: Best Practices for Online Marketers

23.  Presence for presence sake (all hat, no cattle).
 Spammy behavior (repeated offers, mass following).
 Inappropriate use of DM on Twitter (DM).
 Aggressive, inappropriate use of hashtags.
 Not tracking or testing e-commerce links.
 Stale information: stay current, relevant.
 Not tailoring conversations toward influencers.
 Oversharing, particularly of irrelevant information.
 Reposting the same message in multiple networks.
 Improper mix of content and engagement.
Twitter and Facebook: Top 10 Mistakes

24.  Relevant engagement by interest, keyword.
 Event marketing.
 Driving Twitter followers to Facebook.
 Build new followings in niche networks.
 Time-based offers.
 Integrating loyalty efforts with social.
 Create new location-based opportunities.
 Channeling online influence to offline opportunities.
 Utilizing social networks for co-op marketing.
 Fine-tune listening into proactive marketing.
Twitter and Facebook: Top 10 Opportunities

25.  Not everything deserves to go viral.
 Content & context are most important assets in virality.
 Online video is the best, but not only, viral content.
Slideshare can take Power Points viral.
 Blogger outreach remains the best launching pad
 Viral marketing happened before social marketing.
 Email was original viral app (Dancing Baby, Hotmail).
 Viral can be planned, but at the phenomenon level still
requires “the perfect storm” (just like a PR campaign or
marketing stunt).
The Fifth Pillar: Virality

26. Case Study: ‘Yes We Can’ Create a Viral Sensation
•Recorded January 30-31, 2008
•Released February 1-2
•3 million views in 72 hours
•47 million views within three weeks
•Tiered outreach to bloggers and
NO traditional media outreach
created a media frenzy
(500 mm impressions)
•Six articles in New York Times
•CNN/Larry King
•CNBC, Inside Edition, E, ET, Today Show
•This Week with George Stephanopoulos
•Campaign won Emmy, Global Media Award, Cannes Golden Lion and Webby awards.
Case Study Viral Video

27. Social
Blogger Reference
Outreach
Thought
Leadership
Virality
Social
Networks
The Five Pillars in Motion

28. Our clients…

29. Michael Terpin, Founder and CEO
Direct: 310-862-6312
michael@socialradius.com
Twitter: @michaelterpin, Google+: +michaelterpin
www.socialradius.com
Los Angeles: 1237A Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, CA 90401
SF Bay Area: 100 Pine St., 10th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111
New York City: 419 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016
Las Vegas: 3277 E. Warm Springs Road, #200, Las Vegas, NV 89120