My presentation to the Georgia Business Travel Association about social media in the travel industry.

1. under the radar:
how trying to ignore social media
can undermine your business

2. [objectives]
 explain what social media
is and why you should care
 give you some ideas for how
to use it
 describe new trends
 answer your questions

3. what’s
your
favorite
childhood
meal?
social media

4. “…people have been endlessly
fascinated by one another for a
very long time. social networking
is not new; we just have new ways
to do it.”
-joe kraus, google

5. there are a lot of tools.

6. [what is social media]
“social media is not about facebook or flickr
or twitter or blogs or youtube. It’s about
having a strategy for making your company
or organization more like a person and less
like a machine.”
- jason baer, www.convinceandconvert.com

7. social media is: social media isn’t:
 a conversation  a sales pitch
 a good way to raise your  a guaranteed book deal or
internet profile appearance on Oprah
 a way for potential clients  a get-rich-quick scheme; a
to find and get to know panacea; or an excuse to
your business stop selling
 a marathon  a sprint
 a targeted community of  a giant audience of any
the right people people who’ll listen
it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

8. [why care?]
engagement: better word of mouth & deeper
relationships with customers. word of mouth is 5x as
effective as a personal sales pitch.
search: google confirmed in dec. 2010 that they are
now using social media as a “signal,” or portion of
the algorithm used to determine placement in
organic search.
cost: price per impression is nominal.
immediacy: real-time ability to target promotions.

9. [immediacy example]
1. Build a community on Facebook , Twitter, blog, etc.
2. Establish trust. Share and produce useful content,
not just sales pitches.
3. Give them offers when you need them.
Group cancels for next week
Option 1: Big Option 2: Great
sale on OTA; rate for fans;
sacrifice 15-20% keep all your
of profit. margin.

10. [community]
a group of people who are there voluntarily.
20M 600M 100M 25B
Facebook apps installed Facebook users New Twitter accounts in Number of tweets sent
daily 2010 in 2010
880 million people use the top 15 social
networking sites. surely some of them
want to join your community!

12. So, how can my
how to business actually
use social media?

13. [case study]
Liza’s Kitchen
Facebook Fan Page
April 14 0 fans
April 16 296 fans
May 25 463 fans
July 15 655 fans
Oct. 6 923 fans
Dec. 3 1,009 fans
Special Events via Facebook
Sept. Wine Tasting Strongest revenue performance ever
Nov. Cooking Demo Sold out event; sold highest amount of
retail product ever

14. [case study]
Boston Hotel
Campaign started in August Results as of November
increased ranking ten places in four months
using a rapid response program

15. [other ideas]
• create a LinkedIn group for your best clients and
share content that will make their jobs easier.
• use TripAdvisor scores to negotiate your rates
with hotels.
• listen to conversations on Twitter to understand
your competitors’ weaknesses.
• work with destination partners to create a blog
that will help you all appear higher in search.

16. [other ideas]
• answer questions on Quora or LinkedIn Q&A to
establish yourself as an expert.
• create offers on FourSquare or Groupon that
reward the consumer behaviors you want to
encourage.
• look up a potential client on Facebook or
LinkedIn to get insight into hobbies and
interests.

17. [how to measure roi]
one size does not fit all.
your success should be
determined by your objectives.
social media is infinitely
measurable, as long as you are
strategic and know what you
want to achieve.

18. If your social media objective is…. Then measure success by….
 Deepening your relationship  Counting the number of referrals
with existing customers…. you get from fans and followers.
 Spreading the word to as  Tracking your fan and follower
many people as possible…. counts.
 Improving your search  Benchmarking and tracking how
results…. you rank over time.
 Establishing authority in a  Counting how often you appear
particular field…. in queries.
 Driving revenue to a particular  Counting how much incremental
time period or product line…. revenue you make.
measure roi based on your objectives.

19. What are the
newest trends and
new stuff ideas in social
media?

20. niche sites

22. geolocation

24. travel

29. Recommended flights and hotels
Facebook connect to find
friends in San Francisco An estimated total of
$882 per person

34. would you stay at a self-proclaimed
“social media hotel?”

35. questions?
susan.barry@hive-marketing.com
thank you.