Social Media Masterclass

Introduction

Who are we?What is social media?What’s the effect on the tourism industry?StatisticsWhat is;

• A blog• Twitter• Facebook• Flickr

This is a story about...

Content Audience behaviour Clever technology

What is social media?So…

How media is changing

Message Influencer

Audience

} Audience

Audience

Influencer

Influencer

Influencer

Message

Audience

Digital Media

Traditional Media(media)

What do we mean by social media?

What is social media?

It’s not about blogs or Twitter

It’s about communicating with your audience through the channels they’re already using

Where did it come from?

TECHNOLOGY

RESPECT

Who do you trust?

11% 39%

32% 59%

Source: Edelman

Why care?

Usage• Social platforms have the potential to reach vast audiences

and they continue to growConnections

• Social media connects people quickly and easilyEngagement

• Communities are engaging with organisations and you need to understand how to act

Speed• It’s evolving at a ridiculous speed, but don’t take our word for

it...

How does this effect the tourism industry?

Would you trust a friend or an advert?Would you trust what everyone is saying or an

advert?People know where to look

What are people doing?

In the UK, travel websites rely on search engines for 2/5 of their traffic

UK has the largest proportion of travel review sites

What is a blog?So…

Blogging

There are 175,000 new blogs created every day

A blog is an online publishing platform where entries are listed chronologically

People can subscribe to blogs and receive updates on posts

There are also; photoblogs, vlogs and aggregator blogs

Blogging

Great for searchCan be regularly updatedFresh contentPeople prefer blogsConvey personality

Go ape

Marriott hotels

What is twitter?So…

Twitter

Massive growth and increasing mainstream interest (over 750% growth in 2008)

Highly flexible in terms of use• Broadcast• Monitoring• Engagement

“Facebook = old friends; Twitter = new friends. That’s why Twitter reigns” • Charles Arthur, The Guardian

Conversation

Ease of Entry

OpenDirect

Everyone’s heard of it

Monitoring

Real Time

Guide to Twitter Followers: these are people who can see a user’s updates, usually the

more followers a person has, the more influential they are. @ or ‘atting’: this is when a user wants to speak to someone specifically.

If they have a view point on what someone has said, they can write a response preceded by @ and this will link to their name. For instance, @sarah Why do you feel ill?

Retweet: this is the action of repeating what someone has said because it is relevant or interesting. This is followed by the abbreviation RT so that everyone knows it has been retweeted. The symbol @ should also be included in the Retweet so everyone knows who originally said it. For instance, RT @sarah Go to Hyde Park today, there’s a fair!

DM or direct message: these are messages that can be sent privately, directly to the recipient.

Virgin Trains

Manchester Piccadilly

Tweet deck example

What is Facebook?So…

Facebook

Over 400 million users• 70% outside US

Leading social network or ‘social utility’

Principally a social environment

Finding people with a passion

Political parties, pressure groups very active

Go Ape

Yours and your fan updates, content and conversation

Customisable tabs for

specific info and content

People who signed up

What is YouTube?So…

YouTube

Very TransparentGold standard for video

sharingVideo carries emotional

appealVery shareableEliminate the risk of a

bad decision

Jet Blue

What is Flickr?So…

Flickr

27.5 million monthly visitors4 Billion images70% of users are university

educated60% earn more than 40k20% are under 2040% are between 25-4440% are over 45

Liverpool

What is LinkedIn?So…

LinkedIn