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social media
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Internet, social media
Must see presentations #3: Alexis Ohanian: How to make a splash in social media
In less than five minutes you will understand why social media works best when rallying a community behind a common cause, how trying to control the message is of the past, and accepting the wisdom of the crowd can help you achieve your goals, even if this wisdom might seem ridiculous.
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Internet, Marketing, social media
Must see presentations: #2 Clay Shirky: How social media can make history
12.05.09 | Permalink | 2 CommentsClay Shirky’s powerful presentation at TED earlier this year will combat any Social Media sceptic you might have to deal with in your organization. Do you have key business decission makers who don’t even have a Facebook account, or marketing teams who think Social Media is just another way to broadcast advertising or something viral? In that case, this presentation will explain in 17 minutes that the future of marketing isn’t broadcast but collaboration with your networks of consumers and stakeholders.
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Marketing, social media
Is a Twitter follower or Facebook fan better than an email address in a consumer database?
11.25.09 | Permalink | 2 CommentsInteresting to see a lot of campaigns specifically targetted at growing Twitter Followers or Facebook Fans.
- Las Vegas is giving away a 5 day trip over New Years. To apply, you need to follow @vegas and tweet your excuse to be there. So far, @vegas has 3600 followers.
- Sidney ran a contest where you had to become a Facebook fan and write something on the fanpage wall. The SeeSidney fanpage has 7700 fans.
- Air New Zealand first gave away 30 trips to New Zealand. To enter, you had to follow @kitweets and answer a trivia question. Result: 3500 followers.
- Air Zealand is now running a trivia contest on a Facebook app. So far, 3200 people have played.
Traditionally these campaigns would be used to grow a consumer database. Is a Twitter follower or a Facebook fan more valuable than an email address? Or is it Shiny Object Syndrome? Or isn’t about the aquisition but about the engagement; the process of entering into the contest. Asking somebody to give an excuse to visit Vegas will at least make somebody think about visiting.
I think a Facebook friend or Twitter follower can be much more valuable because there’s an opportunity for two-way conversation and interaction between community members. Something typically not part of database marketing. But if the objective is to broadcast on somebody’s wall or feed, it will probably lead to predictible failure.
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Internet, Marketing, social media, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism
The DMO site as a social platform; moving closer
The future of DMO websites needs real time and social content. Yesterday, our Torch Relay Field Reporter program is a good example of a step towards real time content. And I use social in a broad sense. It means collaboration with people who have a personal or commercial interest in assisting potential travelers to visit a destination.
In our case, our province is a collection of regions, cities and communities; most with their own DMO. Last year our regions took a bold step and decided to use their region on HelloBC as their website. Instead of both spending time and money on development, content, SEO, SEM, etc, we’re now collaborating and HelloBC is better for it.
Most DMO’s are also using Twitter now. Twitter is a great way to connect our website visitors with local experts and give them real time information about regions and communities. So we’re starting to add the local DMO twitter feeds to the relevant pages of HelloBC.
Parksville Twitter feed on HelloBC
Another step towards a more social and real time website.
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Marketing, social media, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism
Leveraging the 2010 Games with our Torch Relay Field Reporter
11.04.09 | Permalink | 4 CommentsChris Wheeler is our Torch Relay Field Reporter. He will travel with the torch throughout BC and Canada and document the relay, the celebrations while showing off the amazing places the torch passes.
One of our objectives for leveraging the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is maximizing exposure surrounding the games for all of British Columbia and Canada. And the Torch Relay is a perfect way to do so.
Big kudos to Chris, the Tourism BC team (Paul, Jose and Mike in particular) and our regional staff for doing an amazing job and bringing the vision to life.
Chris will product a video for every day the Torch is in British Columbia and key places throughout Canada.
Follow Chris on Twitter and around the country by subscribing to his YouTube channel.
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Internet, Marketing, social media, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism
Tourism BC and Field Reporter videos as an example of industry collaboration
Last year, I posted about our online video strategy. It’s been one exciting year. Ten field reporters have created more than 120 videos. With an average time of 3 minutes per video, it’s the equivalent of 4 feature films! Videos are posted on YouTube, our blogs, and they’re incorporated into the appropriate places of the website. In less than a year, our field reporters are approaching 200,000 views.
That alone is enough reason to call these videos a success. But I think the most interesting piece is the way we’re extending our Field Reporter program and leveraging the long tail. Tourism BC can never create videos for every place, event and activity in British Columbia.
Our Field Reporter videos are cost-effective. It’s a one person operation. The host also operates the camera and does the editing. Producing videos is no longer a big budget operation.
That means they’re affordable for smaller destinations and tourism businesses. So we’ve made our Field Reporters available for our industry. We’ve taken care of the process and format of the video. All the industry has to do is pay the Field Reporter and the videos can be used as any other on YouTube and HelloBC, but also on the DMO or operator website.
This concept is working well and a good example of using a collaberative approach to online marketing between a DMO and it’s industry.
The video above was created by Chris on behalf ot Tourism Nanaimo.
This video is created by Ivan on behalf of Canadian Mountain Holidays.
More about our Field Report program soon… -
Internet, Marketing, social media
Why businesses should use Twitter – by Japadog
Japadog is taking Vancouver by storm. The Japanese style hot dogs are weird but delicious. Japadog is also active on Twitter and here’s why:
Awesome. Couldn’t have said it better in less than 140 characters myself. -
Internet, Marketing, personal, social media, tourism bc, Travel & Tourism
My interview for Online Revealed Caribbean
10.14.08 | Permalink | 2 CommentsI was supposed to present with Richard Kunz from T4G, our technology solutions provider, at Online Revealed Caribbean. I couldn’t go unfortunately but Richard interviewed me and incorporated some of the footage in his presentation. I received some good feedback so I decided to put the whole interview online.
We discussed Web 2.0, user generated content, social networks and one-to-one marketing for Destination Marketing Organizations and the tourism industry. I shared some of the things we’re working with T4G on to provide more relevancy to individual consumers on a mass scale.
Richard and I will hopefully be at the next Online Revealed Canada in Niagara Falls on April 13-15.
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William Bakker's Destination Marketing blog
William Bakker is Chief Strategist at Destination Think!. These are my personal thoughts.
