Presentation given on 13th May 2009 at the Victorian Tourism Conference. It details the online social environment in Australia, cool travel social media campaigns and sites and the rules of engagement for social media.
2. 75% of online Australians
interact with social media
7.1 million people read blogs
2.3 million have created a blog
1.6 million are still updating their blog
84% of Australian internet users share videos, photos and links
83% consume user generated content
78% download audio and video
39% upload pictures, video, music
Source: Buzznumbers.com.au
3. 6.5 million of Australians
belong to a social network
Source: Nielsen-online.com
4.
5. The best job in the world?
A big idea that happens to use social media
Great to launch a social campaign
But you need to sustain the campaign
Engage fans and critics in a conversation
Like media relations but with ordinary people
The rules are different
6.
7. NZ Tourism Youtube diaries
International visitors interviewed in a mobile recording studio
Established “Have your say” channel on Youtube
91 Videos
139,199 channel views
Multilingual videos
200 UK visitor videos including the Twitchhiker
Technology cheap ($150 video cameras; phone cameras)
8.
9. NZ Tourism Youtube diaries
“Social media is used by people from all walks of life to
connect with people back home while they are travelling.
Add to this that word-of-mouth is one of the most
effective marketing tools to promote a destination, and
the 100,000 views milestone shows that the [effort] has
really proven its worth.”
George Hickton
Tourism New Zealand Chief Executive
10.
11. Take great photos?
Tripwolf.com and Dido photographic competition. Categories include
best picture before leaving home, best travel photo, best adventure
photo.
Lastminute.com Photo scavenger hunt competition for the most quirky
photos
Underwater.com.au underwater photography competition
STA Travel snapaway competition
12.
13.
14. Twitter travellers
The Twitchiker
Scotland to NZ with no money
Worldwide media coverage
San Francisco via twitter
Paris via twitter
Winemaker twitter tastings
15.
16. Social networks
Dopplr. Share trips and make connections
Tripwolf. Find travel gurus
Tripsay. Big on social voting
Triphub. For groups travelling
Driftr. Like Facebook but for travel
World66. Articles and guides
17.
18.
19. Older travel networks
Virtual tourist. The largest
Bootsnall. Message boards and forums
Lonely Planet Thorn Tree. Forums
Trip Adviser. Voting and guides but not social
Source: http://www.budgetglobetrotting.com/2008/top-10-travel-social-networks-and-communities/
20.
21. Australian travel sites?
Wotif. Booking
Expedia. Booking and reviewing
Hyperlocals: Fitzroyalty
Flickr?
What about Internet coverage in the regions?
Static iPhone apps
eBooks to download
Books on demand (Lulu, Bebo)
Source: http://www.budgetglobetrotting.com/2008/top-10-travel-social-networks-and-communities/
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27. What social type are you?
Creator
Critic
Collector
Joiner
Spectator
Inactive
Source: Forrester Research/Groundswell
28. Creators
Publish a blog
Write content and post
Publish their own web pages
Upload video content and pictures
Upload audio
Source: Forrester Research/Groundswell
29.
30. Critics
Post ratings and reviews
Comments on blogs and social sites
Contribute to forums
Contribute to wikis
Source: Forrester Research/Groundswell
31.
32. Collectors
Use RSS Feeds
Tag pages, photos or videos
Vote for websites online
Use Delicious, Reddit
Stumble upon
Evernote
Source: Forrester Research/Groundswell
33.
34.
35.
36. Joiners
maintain profiles on several social sites
Visit social sites
Source: Forrester Research/Groundswell
37.
38. Spectators
Read blogs
Watch video
Look at pictures
Listen to podcasts
Read forums
Read ratings and reviews
Read comments
Source: Forrester Research/Groundswell
43. Each person is a different
Source: Forrester Research/Groundswell
44. Each person is a different
Source: Forrester Research/Groundswell
45. Each person is a different
Source: Forrester Research/Groundswell
46. How to start
Find your target market
Identify key sites
Read, watch and listen
Focus on a couple of key social media, for example
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube
Become part of the community
Understand feeds and distributed content
47. This means a feed
With Feedburner you can monitor and turn it into emails
51. Monitoring tools
Feedreaders – Google Reader, Netvibes
Google and Yahoo! Alerts
Tweetdeck
Scout Labs
NeilsenBlogpulse
TNS Cymfony, NeilsenBuzzmetrics
52.
53. Play by the rules
Do not take what is not yours
Ask permission
Do not hard sell
Make it personal and conversational
Don’t use corporate speak
Share and give
Credit sources, reply to comments and link back
54. Do not take what is not yours
The rules on words and pictures are different to Youtube
It is better to ask permission for words and pictures
You don’t need to ask for Youtube
You can republish feeds but be careful how you do it
If you do it in the correct way, people may give you content for free
There needs to be a reward– kudos, traffic
55. Ask permission
Unsolicited emails are tiresome
“If you would prefer not to receive any more emails from us,
please let me know. Alternatively, if you visit this web form
and let us know what kind of material you are interested in.”
56. How to comment
Keep it to the conversation in question
A link back to your page is okay
Don’t try and sell
Subscribe to comment feeds to follow
Don’t be nasty
Remember it is somebody else’s space
57. Critics?
There are plenty of critics being mean
Take a deep breath first
Be polite but not patronising
Be constructive
Your rude email will go viral
58. Starting your campaign
Be committed. Don’t join the social media graveyard
Be flexible and look out for what is next
(Did you see twitter coming?)
Profiles: tell us who you are
It has to be you. Not the PR person.
Use a conversational voice; not pre-approved statements
It may take time to establish credibility
59. Tag everything
Because you want to be found
Use online tools to optimise
Words
Pictures
Video
60. Distribute
Make content available for download
Make content available through RSS feeds
Pictures, video, facts
Use the web’s free (or cheap) distribution
Tubemogul – a single point to publish and monitor across
Youtube, Metacafe, Vimeo, Myspace and more.
61. Monitor
The conversation
Feed subscribers
Google analytics
Twitter numbers
But do not be a slave to statistics
62. Where to start looking
A Google search with “blog”
technorati.com/lifestyle.travel/
Travolution.blogspot.com
63. The problem
Mobile coverage in the country is awful
Only Telstra 3G reliable
Lack of internet cafes
My iPhone won’t work
64.
65. The solution
Free wireless internet
Tailored downloadable ebooks
Static iPhone applications
(Deck of secrets)
66.
67.
68.
69. A list of top travel blogs
wayn.com traveletiquette.com
hotelchatter.com crankyflier.com
aluxurytravelblog.com seat61.com
gridskipper.com thecoolhunter.co.uk/travel
londonist.com tripadvisor.com
newyorkology.com lonelyplanet.com/blogs/travel_blog
moleskinecity.com gadling.com
bootsnall.com, roadgladiator.com
globaltravelblog.com inflightHQ.com
getjealous.com familytravellogue.com
Tripr.tv youtube.com
travelblog.org travelistic.com
travelpod.com perrinpost.com
metblogs.com escapeblog.comoffexploring.com
travel-rants.com
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/3391028/The-worlds-best-travel-blogs.html
Hinweis der Redaktion
My name is Ed Charles. I’m a journalist who writes about business and food and drink.Four years ago I started a blog which in now among the top ten in the country.It was my introduction to social media and learning the rules and pitfalls.It has brought me work and recognition and now businesses in food and drink and PR and marketing are asking me to help them find their way through.Also I’m a big fan of twitter. And with a few well chosen 140 character messages I’ve twittered myself to a regular spot on the hot new News Ltd site based on the Huffington Post known as The Punch.What I’m going to show you are a few of the interesting campaigns and sites out there, some of the different ways people behave and how to get started without falling foul of the unwritten rules.It is not about your website but your web presence across the social web.Some sites I’ve included just there because they have cool interfaces.Other ideas are here simply because they are so big
Pictures are a great way to promote somewhere of beauty. Each picture does speak more than 1,000 words.This pictorial interface is interesting as a member driven aggregator of content. Because pictures are a great way to drive traffic you really notice the effect on a food blog and for that reason, and because it is not trying to take too much of a user’s content it works.
The photo competition is one of the old favourites for promotion and is alive and kicking in social media
This is a great graphic presentation of what people recommend, new discoveries and what is hot by location.For a certain type of user especially the Gen Ys they aren’t going to get stuck into long sentences. But they will look at pretty pictures and snappy captions.
Made in Melbourne. This uses anaggregator listening to what blogs, twitter, MySpace,Facebook and forums to work out what is hot.Click on the picture and you can hear the track.RSS or Really Simple Syndication makes this possible.
Twitter is a wonderful gimmick right now. And there are plenty of good stories of people travelling the world via twitter. It probably is worth looking out for an an opportunity to get some exposure.But also real businesses such as wineries are finding it a good way to make connections with distributors and retailers abroad simply by joining the conversation and posting to the #wine group.
11,565 people were following him.It may sound small to the 500,000 readers of a newspaper.But these are people who chose to follow him and are interested in travel.It is a focused niche market.
There are many many network all with a different angle.
All sorts of different competitions and presentations.
And of course there are plenty of critics out there on all these networks. They are pretty confronting and put a lot of people off even using social media.They are a fact of life. They will never go away. Most most people they are a minority. But you have to take it on the chin and know how to handle them.Feedback is also a great form of market research.
Where are the good Australian social sites?There are some but they are not that big.Destined for Australians to join overseas sites.However, there are some things on a hyperlocal level. My own blog is an example with a sharp focus on Melbourne apart from my travels abroad.
The fact is that media is fragmenting at the expense of old fashioned mass media.This is manifest at the moment by the shrinking numbers of pages in newspapers, especially the features sections which include travel.It affects me as a freelance journalist who would sell a couple of hundred stories a year.It also affects anyone who is trying to get press coverage in these papers.This isn’t about technology it is about like-minded people connecting.However, you need to be aware technology has changed with free or very low cost tools that help you create these social sites.One recent development is blog platforms such as Buddypress or the paid for Movable type where people who leave comments create profiles and groups which they can join.
Fitzroyalty creates hyperlocal content and aggregates content relevant to Fitzroy.
Could a flickr group be part of your plan?
Or You tube?
Or Twitter?
Or because internet access is crap for tourists in your region do you need a static offline app or an ebook?
Everybody is different and each person falls is a little bit of all these typescharacterised by Forrester Research in the brilliant book Groundswell.
They don’t even look at cute animals on the internet.
Everybody is different. Male vs female. Young versus old.
Out of All Australian females.
Younger women are far more likely to be creators and critics than older.You can find this tool on the Forrester Research website.
But a lot of people are online8 out of the top 20 sites in Australia are social.Twitter experiencing 1,000% growth according to some figures.There are now over 700,000 users locally.The appeal is the simplicity.
25% creators in 25-34 year old compared to 18% for 34-44 year olds.
You need to understand who are are trying to attract and what their behaviour isOn social networks.
Campaign monitor emails
I’m not going to finish with a cute animal I’m afraid
But somebody’s recent list of top travelblogs.Thank you.
And that brings me to The Best Job in the world.It is an old fashioned big ad agency idea that used social aspects of the web. But the real story played out in traditional media gaining worldwide media covereage.And now it will be interesting to see the impact of the year of blogging from an islandSome of you may have big ideas. But what y
Some of you may have big ideas. But what you have to do is do something that is manageable and sustainable.You can harness the crowd out there – their comments, pictures, videos and words.The secret is knowing how to do it with it back firing as Virgin found when it used pictures found on Creative Commons license in an ad campaign.The rules are different and while what you do may be legally correct and comply to spam laws and so on. But if you break social media etiquette is can backfire.The rules are different.
Tourism NZ created a mobile studio recording to create the Youtube diaries.“Have your say channel on you tube.The technology for video has come down in cost considerably esepcially if the footage is only going to be watched on a computer screen on Youtube.For example, there is this new generation of sub $150 video cameras which are designed to plug into the computer and just for Youtube.
The idea of video booth sis an old one. But in a city or town or at a popular tourism attraction is a great and cheap idea done the correct way.
And this is just here to remind you that everybody on the web loves cute animals
48 hoursin Denmark invited people to upload a video saying why they should get the all expenses 48 hours. In exchange, they'll be expected to blog, Twitter, lifestream, use Flickr and generally put to work whatever technologies they choose to document their travels.More specifically, they'll be required to take pictures and video clips as well as download Google Toolbar to document how they research the trip ahead of time; then, to blog, Twitter and otherwise document the details of the trip once they're there.Afterwards, they'll be asked to blog and review the trip for a little bit longer once they're home.