BLUE SAIL MARKETING TOOLKT EAST NORFOLK JANUARY 2011 4 SOCIAL MEDIA WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA? Social media is about connecting with people over the internet. It provides the tools for individuals and businesses to interact with an online community to build relationships and exchange information. All users have an equal voice. Anyone can comment on, vote for, discuss and criticise anything they wish. There are numerous forms of social media, often called ‘channels’. Most are free to use and relatively easy to set up. Beware! Just because it is free and easy to set up doesn’t mean you should do it. You need to be sure a particular channel will benefit your business and that you are prepared to put in the time and effort to make it work for you. Social media activity does not occur in isolation. Every post, topic and picture published on social media sites adds to the online information about that subject. Major search engines can now collect and index this information in real-time making it available to everyone (not just social media users) instantly. WHY USE IT? – WHAT DOES IT OFFER When it comes to visiting a place, people generally trust what others say about an experience. When a visitor has a great experience they share it with family and friends; they do the same for poor experiences. Increasingly, people use social media to share these experiences – and so they influence many more people than a few family and friends. Hundreds of millions of people use social media every day and therefore it is potentially a very powerful tool for your business. Social media is about conversations between your business and consumers and between consumers about your business. So it is not a place to blatantly advertise, people quickly see through that and dismiss what you have to say. Social media is a platform for you to share ideas, directly interact with like minded people and collect valuable information about what people are saying about you, your business and your destination. If you use it effectively, social media can place your business ahead of the game by allowing you to speak directly to your existing and potential customers instantly. It will help you to quickly and easily deliver a consistent message that builds trust and encourages loyalty. It also allows you to quickly ‘nip in the bud’ any negative and inaccurate publicity that may come your way, limiting possible damage to your business. 1 BLUE SAIL MARKETING TOOLKT EAST NORFOLK JANUARY 2011 WHAT’S OUT THERE? There is a huge number of social media sites; it is impossible to actively participate across them all. We have divided these sites into four main categories: Here is a list of the most relevant social media sites for tourism businesses; the ones that you can quickly and easily utilise to help build relationships with your customers and create a clear distinction from competitors. Content sharing sites Sites used to plan visits Social networks Blogging Sites used to plan visits TripAdvisor www.tripadvisor.com Relevant markets: Mini-Explorer Families, Budding Explorer Families, Experienced Explorers, Relaxing Greys Time commitment: Medium – initial set up and then check reviews every week Next steps Check the site – your business may already be listed with reviews TripAdvisor is the leading travel review website used by more than 32 million people every month. It provides information on destinations, hotels, restaurants and attractions supplemented with contributions from users. There is no charge for a listing. Claim your listing and improve the content Although the site includes listings for a variety of tourism services, it is most commonly used by people looking for holiday accommodation. If you don’t offer accommodation there may be limited value in registering with the site (although it is free). If you are not listed, then register – especially if you offer accommodation Content is indexed by search engines regularly. That means user reviews offer appear high-up on search engine results. That gives your business a better chance of attracting users. TripAdvisor also licenses content to partner websites such as Google Maps and includes direct links with Facebook. The success of TripAdvisor comes largely from the reviews made by real travellers. Once listed, a tourism business can respond to these reviews. It is important to reply to all reviews – good and bad – because it helps your entry more interesting and engaging for TripAdvisor users. Tailor content to audiences you are targeting Measure yourself against your direct competitors Always respond to reviews Order customer review cards from TripAdvisor 2 BLUE SAIL MARKETING TOOLKT EAST NORFOLK Google http://maps.google.com Relevant markets: Mini-Explorer Families, Budding Explorer Families, Experienced Explorers, Relaxing Greys Time commitment: Low – initial set up and then add content and check reviews every few weeks Visitors are using Google Maps to plan a trip because it is easy to use and contains lots of relevant information. The site is not only used to provide directions but also offers suggestions on local attractions and includes photos, video and reviews of the place. Google also prominently displays names, addresses, phone numbers and any user reviews of businesses in the area. Google Maps content is integrated with TripAdvisor as well as the Google Local Business Center (sic) – another tool that allows you to publish further information about your business and push users to your own website. JANUARY 2011 Next steps Try a Google Maps search for your area and see what’s displayed Register your business on Google Places – include photos and video Encourage loyal customers to write a review Review impressions and action taken by users when viewing your listing Explore other business tools offered by Google Content sharing sites YouTube www.youtube.com Relevant markets: Mini-Explorer Families, Budding Explorer Families Time commitment: Medium – significant setup to develop video then check comments every month YouTube is a video sharing site with nearly to 100 million users. It is free to use and is potentially an excellent social media tool for tourism businesses. Video featuring different elements of the visitor experience such as accommodation, attractions and events can be created and uploaded, making it instantly available to millions of users. The YouTube search function provides users with a list of recommended videos related to the search subject. You Next steps Look at videos relating to your area and your service offer Decide who are you aiming your video at - can you produce multiple videos targeting different audiences? Video quality is important, make sure you have the equipment and expertise Produce trial videos and test them on existing customers 3 BLUE SAIL MARKETING TOOLKT EAST NORFOLK JANUARY 2011 need to understand the words your target markets will use when searching for videos. Funny and interesting videos are more popular and often have the potential to go ‘viral’ generating millions of views in a very short time. Flickr and Picasa www.flickr.com & http://picasa.google.com Relevant markets: Mini-Explorer Families, Budding Explorer Families, Experienced Explorers Time commitment: Medium – significant setup to develop galleries then minor updates every month Flickr and Picasa are web-based photo sharing sites that allow individuals and businesses to share pictures across the internet. As a tourism business having the opportunity to provide a visual representation of products and services will help to grow interest and build trust with potential visitors. You can embed the images onto your own website or blog. The major search engines index images from these services meaning they appear in search results in Google Maps. Next steps Group your photographs into galleries aligned to your target audiences Upload your photographs to Flickr or Picasa (free account) Give each photograph a clear description Link your galleries to other social media and your website Social Networks Twitter www.twitter.com Relevant markets: Mini-Explorer Families, Budding Explorer Families, Experienced Explorers Time commitment: High – easy set up but requires daily attention Twitter is a social media tool that allows users to publish short 140 character messages (tweets) to the web where they are read by other users on computers or mobile phones. People use Twitter to deliver opinions, news and ideas to other users who have opted to follow them. Twitter is basically opt-in marketing where users elect to receive updates on things they consider important. The power of Twitter can be realised by tracking and directing the attention of the users. For a tourism business this means engaging with your followers to provide immediate information. An instant update may spark interest and result in a spontaneous purchase or a visit to your website. An example tweet for Next steps Use the twitter search to look what competitors are saying Set up a personal account and follow regional and national tourism organisations Plan how you are going to recruit ‘followers’ – links through your website, customer comment cards, email footers etc Your tweets need be informative, interesting, regular and appropriate to the audience you are targeting 4 BLUE SAIL MARKETING TOOLKT EAST NORFOLK JANUARY 2011 a local restaurant in North Norfolk might be ‘Just collected amazing fresh Cromer Crabs for evening service’ – to strengthen the impact of the message it can be accompanied by an image of the crabs and a link to the restaurant’s website. It is important to remember that Twitter is a social networking tool that requires two-way audience engagement. Tweets tend to be more conversational (not business like) and require the business to take an active role in building its followers. It is potentially very time consuming; you need to tweet every day. You also need to invest time when you first start working out how to use it effectively and build up followers. Facebook www.facebook.com Relevant markets: Mini-Explorer Families, Budding Explorer Families Time commitment: Medium – easy setup to develop then regular updates every week/ two weeks Facebook is a social networking site with around 120 million users worldwide. The site allows businesses to create pages and share information about their products and services. These pages can be promoted with Facebook ads or a link from your website to attract ‘fans’. A fan is a Facebook user who elects to include the business page within their Facebook social network. Tourism businesses can build online profiles and create groups that other Facebook users can join. Facebook groups allow users with the same interest to share information such as special offers and events. Having a Facebook page for your business helps to build trust online and as it is linked with other social media channels helps with your online profile. Next steps Register as an individual and browse the different business sites Collect sufficient levels of information and content that will be relevant to the markets you are targeting before publishing When you have your page set up a facebook link from your website 5 BLUE SAIL MARKETING TOOLKT EAST NORFOLK JANUARY 2011 Blogging www.wordpress.com www.blogger.com www.tumblr.com www.posterous.com Next steps Relevant markets: Mini-Explorer Families, Budding Explorer Families, Experienced Explorers Time commitment: Medium – easy setup but requires detailed articles very two weeks at a minimum Blogs are online journals that give individuals and businesses an opportunity to publish articles and encourage feedback. It is an extremely popular form of social media and more and more businesses are using blogs as a way to communicate their values to customers and share current information. There are numerous sites that offer free online software to start your own blog – we have provided a selection of the most popular. The key to successful blogging is effective content and regular updates. If you make good use of it, blogging is a helpful tool to: Establish credibility in a specific subject area Subscribe to blogs you find informative and useful for your business Decide the theme for your blog and define the audience you are targeting Write 2 or 3 articles in advance of launching your blog and test them with friends and colleagues Post your articles and include keywords in the title that will recruit the right audience Tweet a link to your blog and integrate it with your website and other online content Build loyalty among a target community of users Improve search results as content is refreshed regularly Create a web presence – in some cases replacing the need for a corporate website WHAT’S RIGHT FOR ME? Instead of establishing a presence on every social network you will achieve better results by involving yourself on a small number of channels that suit you, your business and your customers. The following 9 step process will help you make the right choices for social media and maximise your results. 6 BLUE SAIL MARKETING TOOLKT EAST NORFOLK JANUARY 2011 9 STEP PROCESS TO MAKING IT HAPPEN 1. Decide what you want to achieve Set clear, business-led goals for your social media activity. Types of goals might be raising awareness of your brand among specific market groups; or establishing a position of authority in a specific tourism subject area such as Norfolk history; or linking your business and brand to a specific location; or simply to encourage more people to visit your website. All are good reasons for undertaking social media activity and all require a different approach and use different tools. 2. Define who you want to speak with Who are the people you are going to engage using social media? What channels are they likely to use? What interests them and how can you meet that interest? These are important questions that you need to answer before embarking on social media activity. A clear understanding of your audience will allow you to focus your activity to deliver greatest impact for your efforts. 3. Audit your online content Trawl the internet to identify what is already out there about your business. You are likely to have listings on aggregator sites such as yell.com, regional tourism websites, Google Maps and possibly TripAdvisor (even if you haven’t listed yourself). Make sure all content about you is accurate and consistent. Make best use of these free listings – include full descriptions, photos and web links where you can; this will help build your online profile and support your social media activity. 4. Explore and listen to what people are saying Take a good look around the different social media sites and see what other businesses are doing – especially your direct competitors. Make use of the search facilities to see what people are saying about specific subjects and the content they are posting. Read the comments people are making about your area and across UK tourism more generally. Set up a personal twitter account and follow the national and regional tourism organisations, they are an excellent source of industry information. 7 BLUE SAIL MARKETING TOOLKT EAST NORFOLK 5. Set up analysis tools If your goal is to use social media to drive people to your website it is important you have the tools to measure results. Google Analytics is a free service that provides detailed analysis of visitor traffic to your website. This allows you to concentrate on the social media activity that’s working and ignore the things that aren’t. Also use ‘Google Alerts’ to deliver you email alerts on new web content that will help your social media activity. 6. Allocate responsibilities Social media is a time consuming activity and in some cases needs daily attention. It is important to allocate responsibility to an individual in your business to manage social media and give them the time necessary to do it effectively. You will be surprised at how time consuming it can be - be realistic about what you can do. 7. Start with free, easy social media Don’t be fooled, social media is about quality and not quantity. You want to establish strong, interactive relationships with individuals that will deliver value to your business. Start with JANUARY 2011 TripAdvisor and Google Maps and then monitor and respond to the feedback you are receiving. Once established then start to investigate blogging, content sharing and social networking sites. 8. Integrate your social media channels Once you have established your social media activity make sure you link them, so they work together to improve your online profile. All social media sites have easy to use tools to link with other channels, e.g. if you are blogging make sure you tweet a link to it. 9. Evaluate results and refine activity Measure the impact of your social media activity against your business goals. Google Analytics will tell you how many people are visiting your website, blogs usually provide counts on how many people visit and sites such as www.klout.com can measure your influence with other twitter uses. Use this analysis to understand what channels and messages are most effective. Then refine your approach to maximise effectiveness. 8 BLUE SAIL MARKETING TOOLKT EAST NORFOLK JANUARY 2011 WORKBOOK – YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ACTION PLAN Goals Your answers... In 12 months time what do you want social media activity to have achieved for your business? What does success look like from your social media activity? Markets Your answers... Which of the four market groups for East Norfolk are you going to target using social media? How do you want to be perceived by each of your target audiences? What types of messages will achieve this target perception? Commitment Your answers... Who is responsible for delivering social media activity? How much time have they been allocated to deliver social media? Do they have the necessary skills? Tools Your answers... What social media tools are you going to use? What tools are your competitors using? Will these tools reach the audiences you want to target? How are you staging the implementation of social media activity? Can you integrate these tools to maximise your message? Do you have the necessary tools in place to analyse the results / impact of your activity? 9 BLUE SAIL MARKETING TOOLKT EAST NORFOLK JANUARY 2011 10