The Archives
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Internet, social media
Social Media and the path to conversion
06.16.10 | Permalink | View CommentsTweetI was watching a keynote from Gary Vaynerchuk the other day and in his special style he basically said that people shouldn’t jump to fast to conversion in social media but work on building relationships first and business will follow.
My conclusion:
- Social Media is about relationships
- Relationships build trust
- Trust generates business
Building trust is about integrity, telling the truth, being transparent, helpful, reliable, unselfish and fair. Whether you’re a big brand or a small operator, if you and your staff behave in the ways above, you’ll be one step closer to social media happiness.
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Internet, Marketing, tourism bc
Tourism BC 2010 Olympics online activities: #4 – drive to web strategy
02.16.10 | Permalink | View CommentsTweetBillions of people watch the games on TV. And the games are the biggest commerical a destination can wish for. Because besides the stories about sports and athletes, the destination plays a lead part.
TV viewing has changed. People watch TV together even if they’re not in the same location using laptops and phones. Research conducted almost 3 years ago during the NBC finals shows that people multitask while watching sports.
It’s one thing to read research about people texting, IM-ing, tweeting and posting on Facebook. But when I came home one night and I saw my wife Sheri watching Americ’s next top model, while texting her friend and chatting with her sister on Facebook it became real to me.
People also watch TV online. During the Beijing games, 52 million people in the US watched a video stream on NBCOlympics.com. In Europe and China even more people streamed the games online.
The point us that it’s easy for somebody to research something that catches their attention on TV. When somebody is intrigued by the destination story, a laptop or other mobile device is close by. That means a big opportunity for us to follow through on the initial awareness created through the games and encourage consumers to start the trip planning process.
Our strategy to drive people to our consumer websites during the games involves using refering links from high traffic Olympic related websites, Search Engine Otimization and Marketing, advertising and social media. I’ll highlight each one in the next few days.
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Internet, Marketing, Travel & Tourism, Uncategorized, tourism bc
Tourism BC 2010 Olympics online activities: #1 Strategy
02.12.10 | Permalink | View CommentsTweetThe 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are starting today! It’s been a crazy few years and I’ve learned a lot. It’s been a good ride and a good time to share some of our activities and learning. Let’s start at the beginning.
Our marketing objective to leverage is to turn games interest into destination interest and action. Our online strategies are:
- Maximize exposure
- Drive to our consumer websites
- Use the website to put BC on the ‘must visit’ list
- Capture consumer data for future database marketing and increase fans and followers
Over the next two weeks, I’ll share how we’ve executed against these strategies. Stay tuned.
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Internet, Marketing, Travel & Tourism
Advergaming: an interview with VisitOslo’s Katrine Mosfjeld
01.13.10 | Permalink | View CommentsTweet
Katrine Mosfjeld from VisitOSLO
Katrine Mosfjeld has been the Manager of the Tourist Information Division at VisitOSLO for 8 years. She manages online and offline information delivery to consumers ranging from Tourism Information Centres, to digital strategies, visitOSLO’s Twitter account and a booking system. She works closely with industry in Oslo and even delivers an eLearning program.
I met Katrine in Amsterdam at the ENTER conference last year where I was really impressed with the tremendous success of their Advergaming strategy. When I started to play the game I immediately understood the success. It’s super addictive! She just released a second version and I thought I’d catch up with her.
You’ve been executing an advergaming strategy with the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. What gave your team the idea to use an advergaming strategy?
I wish I could say it was my idea, but it wasn’t. The supplier, an Oslo based little firm called Agens, got the idea and first contacted our colleagues at VisitNorway to see if they were interested. They were, and the Manager, Hans Petter Aalmo, invited us at VisitOSLO to discuss the idea and potential. This was back in the summer of 2006. As you can imagine, this was pretty new 3,5 years ago and the project group was not sure if it was going to work. But we liked the idea and we had a good feeling about it. So we decided to try something brand new… The stakes were high, but then the gain is good as well if you succeed right?
When did it first launch and what were the objectives?
We launched it December 21, 2006. You can still play it online. We decided to measure our success in numbers of games played (profiling the ski jump, Oslo and Norway each time) and visitors to the sponsor websites. But we never even dreamt about the results we got. Or all the other stuff that happened…
What were the results and what was all the other stuff that happened?
The numbers we got were incredible! And they are still growing every single day. At the moment, 138,800,000 games have been played, which means 277,600,000 jumps because every game has 2 jumps
. It has also generated more than 3,000,000 visits to our websites. How great is this??! Neither VisitOSLO or VisitNorway has ever done anything more efficient when it comes to marketing and results. And the other things that happened, but never thought of while planning…- lots of media attention for the game, I’ve counted more than 20 articles
- we won a prize for the best game on a Norwegian gaming site 123spill.no
- 2 different Facebook groups created by fans
- some 40-50 people have been recording themselves and uploaded their videos on YouTube, like this one. Make sure to check out the related videos
- There have been blogs written about the game as a phenomena, and the Norwegian Ski Jumping team has blogged that this is what they do when they don’t work out or compete in the real stuff
- lots of tweets on Twitter
- the widget has been installed on many websites and blogs
- we’re even included in the ETC eMarketing book
You just launched a new version. What’s new and how are things going so far?
It’s a pretty tough act to follow because the first game was so successful! But we’re building a new skijump in Oslo, the new fantastic Holmenkollen Ski Jump, designed by JDS Arcitechts and wanted the game to reflect the new ski jump and brand. We launched it December 16th 2009 and you can play it here. It has been played 9,6 million times on the website already, with great viral effects in Facebook-posts, tweets, etc!We also launched a Facebook app where you can play against your Facebook friends to see who’s the better jumper
. It has been played approximately 1 million times on Facebook since we launched December 21st. An advanced version of an iPhone app has been sold over 2000 times since December 24th.The game has been tweeted a gazillion times, received TV coverage on the news, sports, papers, blogs, Facebook and YouTube… It has generated 66,500 visitors to the sponsor websites.
The results look very good so far, especially considering it was launched only a few weeks ago. We expect it to deliver results for many years; the old game is more than 3 years old, and still delivers. Yesterday there were 342,000 games played in the OLD game
Pretty efficient, eh?What advise would you give to destination marketers who’re thinking about advergaming?
We’ve experienced that it is extremely efficient – but it has to be a good idea, and done professionally. We also think that our success partly comes because it is fairly addictive
. It is a bit difficult to play, but not too difficult. You quickly understand some of the things that makes you better, so you want to try again. And it doesn’t feel to commercial – even if its marketing, you feel that it’s a game, and it is a game. Only it has some messages attached, and provides some links when the interest is created Thank you very much for sharing your insights Katrine and congratulations with the success of the game.
You can follow Katrine on Twitter. Curious about the game? You can watch the video below but you really should play it.
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Internet, Marketing
Online & tech trends I’m watching in 2010
01.04.10 | Permalink | View CommentsTweetIn travel technology, I’m keeping an eye on these trends. These trends are at the front of massive change in the way we conduct our business.
Social
66% of the global internet population is using social networks. For many around the globe, Facebook is the primary way of staying in touch. It has over 350 million users. Tripadvisor reported over 25 million visitors in November and WAYN has built a network over 15 million members. Building your network of friends or followers, leveraging your brand advocates, encouraging word-of-mouth recommendations and listening and interacting with your customers through social media channels is going to be a must. Instead of marketing to encourage people to visit your channel, bringing your content and services to where the people already are is going to be more effective.And social networks can add value to your own channels as well. OpenID, Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, Sign in with Twitter are all tools that allow third parties to use a user profile as part of their website or application. This makes it easier for users to sign-up and provides opportunities for website operators to leverage a user’s profile and social graph while integrating content and services into social networks.
Mobile
In 2010 mobile will explode. Apple will release it’s tablet, Google’s Android is gaining momentum and others like Nokia and RIM are still strong contenders. Competition drives innovation and therefore devices and operating systems will get better and better. Travel is already the third most popular mobile app category but we’re really only scratching the surface.And connected to the first trend, more and more people use their mobile to access social networks, Facebook already reports 15 million active mobile users.Location Based
Somebody at home, in transit, or in a travel destination has different needs and this is where the real opportunity is. Mobile devices know your location, and even what direction you face. This allows for targeted information and services. Augmented reality might be novelty today, but it demonstrates the potential. Enhancing the tourism experience, providing customers service, upselling and cross-selling based on location and time will soon become expectations rather than novelty.Real Time
If you combine the previous 3 trends, you end up with real time information and services. Twitter is the new news ticker. Somebody will break news seconds after it happens on Twitter and the network distributes faster than any traditional news media can. This will enhance the tourism experience as well. How long are lineups for an attraction? Where is a cool band playing? Where are my friends doing or recommending right now?
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Management, Marketing, Travel & Tourism
Should the ‘M’ in DMO stand for Management instead of Marketing
12.08.09 | Permalink | View CommentsTweetTraditionally, DMO stands for Destination Marketing Organization. But would consumers and industry be better served if the ‘M’ stood for Management instead?
Consider my destination brand definition from a few posts back.
- The sum of experiences of a traveler during a trip (but not all experiences are equal)
- The sum of all stories somebody has hears about a destination (but not all sources are equally credible)
It’s clear that the visitor experience is the best form of destination branding. It will generate great memories people will relive, lead to repeat visitation and word of mouth referrals.
And when you read Ana Pollock’s Reputation, Reputation, Reputation post you will understand how actions by others can dramatically effect a destination brand.
Some will argue that all of the above is part of marketing. But semantics aside, changing the ‘M’ in DMO to Management would broaden the traditional focus and increase the scope into things that also matter.
I’m not talking about a visitor centre or a training program. I’m talking about generating a vision for the destination, looking at all aspects of the destination experience and working with extended groups of stakeholders to truly manage and deliver an end-to-end world class experience.
And when you satisfy your visitors, wouldn’t a destination be a better place to live for its residents as well?
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Management, leadership
Must see lectures #1: Bran Ferren – Leadership
11.28.09 | Permalink | View CommentsTweetBran Ferren is the CEO of Applied Minds and the former president of Walt Disney Imagineering, Disney’s R&D division. This lecture is almost 2 hours long and it is very good. While watching this lecture, I put together another piece of the puzzle that reveals the process and methodology we use with Tourism BC’s online team and Rob Munro’s team at technology partner T4G.
My interpretation of Bran’s argument is that there are two types of people; the requirement thinkers and the big idea thinkers. Requirement thinkers are driven by process, documentation and figuring it all out before you start. Big idea thinkers are visionaries, innovators and driven to make things better. To achieve excellence, you need diverse talent and constructive tension to generate a vision, and an aligned team who’re great at implementing using a requirement process but are comfortable with continued evolution. Sounds a lot like our team.
I also like his statement that “consensus based management is the most evil process for destroying innovation I can think off“. I don’t disagree. Although desirable, it often leads to mediocrity or an insane waste of time.
The part I’m referring to runs from minute 24:30 til minute 46:00. There’s more great stuff, you have to watch it.
In another article I found Bran said: “Big-idea companies are run by passionate maniacs who make everybody’s life miserable until they get what they want.”
Guilty as charged. Sort-off.
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Internet, Marketing, Travel & Tourism
The Role of DMO and CVB Websites – Start with your website user
09.07.09 | Permalink | View CommentsTweetThe role of our website is a favourite topic among senior management at Tourism BC and has been for a long time. PhoCusWright’s Destination Marketing: Understanding the Role and Inpact on Destination Marketers flared up another round last summer. I’ll spare you those details but here are some of my thoughts.
PhoCusWright rightfully notes that almost every DMO is different they way they’re structured, funded and organized but that key issues and challenges are very similar. I’ve been talking to my peers around the world for 10 years now and that’s definely true.
And it’s becoming more challenging all the time. Online innovation continues are a rapid pace while a DMO website is now at the heart of all marketing activities. My perspective a user centered one. If you don’t meet your website user’s goals, there’s no hope you’ll ever meet any of your organizational or stakeholder objectives, because your visitors won’t stick around.
One place to start is to figure out where a person’s place is in the planning (or purchase) cycle. Find out if somebody:- knows about the destination but is not considering a trip yet
- is considering a trip but doesn’t have concrete plans yet
- has decided to visit but hasn’t booked yet
- has booked and it filling in the details
- is in the middle of the trip, continuing planning
The answer to the question posed above could radically change the approach you should take. If most people are in the first group, they’re looking for a reason to visit. They need to be inspired. Big imagery, videos that connect on an emotional level and experiential stories work really well in this phase. Most DMO websites serve consumers in this phase very well.
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But if somebody is in the third group, the role of the website is not to lose the sale. They’re already inspired and motivated. Most DMO websites don’t do very well here. When somebody visits a DMO website in this phase, it probably means there’s just a few nagging questions and they need answers. Details. How long does it take to drive there? How expensive is everything? Is the museum open on Mondays? Is there enough to do for the whole family? Forget the emotional video and big images. The website can look like Craigslist. They just want detailed information (they could also be looking for a deal by the way, but that’s another poll to run).
PhoCusWright has polled consumers and their report includes valuable information about where consumers say they visit DMO websites in the process. We’ve polled our website visitors about this for a while now and our numbers are a bit different from PhoCusWright’s. This leads me to believe that it might vary based on the destination.
It’s super easy to find out where your visitors are in the process. Poll them. Find out. And use it internally as you discuss the role of your website. And get the PhoCusWight report, it’s worth the money. -
Internet, Marketing, Travel & Tourism, social media, tourism bc
Tourism BC and Field Reporter videos as an example of industry collaboration
09.03.09 | Permalink | View CommentsTweetLast 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!
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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, Travel & Tourism
More about Tourism BC’s Online Video Strategy: Field Reporters
10.26.08 | Permalink | View CommentsTweetA few weeks ago I posted about our call for video field reporters. I also promised more details. Here we go.
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Our video strategy is multi-faceted based on the opportunities that are currently available. Some are traditional and some are new. But they’ll all work together in a framework.
Let’s first examine the types of tourism related videos out there.
First, there’s the destination video. Emotional music, breathtaking scenery, friendly people, incredible experiences. The intent is to create a strong emotional connection with somebody. The content include all the core brand attributes and the target audience enjoying them. These videos are often used at consumer and/or tradeshows and most destinations have put these videos on their websites and video networks such as YouTube.
Destination Marketing Organization’s TV commercials are often a mini version of the destination video. Sometimes, they include a touch of humour or clever creative, like this video from Utah. But they always include all the core brand tributes again. Watch the Utah commercial and you know what they market and who they market to. Often there’s a call to action to visit a website, a fulfillment piece (guide) or a price point (often through a trade partner).
Then there are the travel host videos, as you will find on travel shows on TV. A host visits a destination and documents some of his or her experience in an informal documentary style. Usually all the “must sees” are covered. Sometimes, if it’s a special interest show, a specific experience is covered.
New on the scene are DMO created documentaries. These highlight a specific iconic experience of a destination. Often, there’s also a host involved and it’s informative and specific to an iconic experience.
And there are the user generated videos of course. Nothing is more credible than real experiences from real people. The amazing video above was the winner of the best user generated video at the eTourism awards last year.
Each type of video has a specific purpose. From creating awareness through creating an emotional connection, to real and authentic experiences that makes somebody think “I can be part of this story”. We’re currently in the process of creating a new destination video, TV commercials and documentaries. We’re also encouraging consumers to share their videos with us on our blog section.
But what’s interesting is that we believe there’s room for an additional category, a variation of the travel host, with a user generated content feel. We call these “field reporter” videos. Last year we experimented with this concept.
The video above is one of our ski host video. The intent of the video was to create an authentic video but still hit on the core brand message. The result was positive. Chris did a great job and consumers responded positvice, but our key learning was that we created something that felt a bit off. It didn’t feel authentic, and it wasn’t a slick documentary either.
Together for our agency (Cossette Communication Group) we re-defined the video host concept and renamed it to “field reporters”. The idea was to hire 6 people who with good personalities who can handle a video camera. We would send them out into all corners of BC and document their experiences. In order to make it authentic, they have to find somebody and ask for a recommendation. After the recommendation, they need to follow through and document their experience. Nothing planned, nothing staged. They had to be host, camera person and editor. We did add our logo at the beginning of each video to be transparent that we asked these people to create these videos.
And that’s what we’ve done over the last month. We found 7 very talented individuals and send each one to each of our 6 tourism regions, and one on a circle tour on his motorbike. We did give each a list of “iconic” tourism products so they had an idea what was going on in the area. They all made 5-7 videos each. We will use these videos on HelloBC to complement our existing content.
Below is a sample.
Here’s Chris climbing the Squamish Chief.
Ivan visited Bella Coola, and found a first nation person to take him to old Petroglyphs.
Kelli visited the Thompson Okanagan and hiked the Kettle Valley trail.
Mike visited the Kootenay Rockies and was told to visit Fort Steele and the Bull River Guest Ranch near Cranbrook.
Ami was told to take a train ride from Prince Rupert to Prince George through Northern British Columbia.
And Gary rode the Coast Cariboo Circle Tour his motor bike.
We’re also encouraging our staff, communities and industry to create their own videos. It’s easy enough to do. All you need is a video camera and some video editing software.
Some have already taken us up on the challenge. Clint from our Norther BC region create the video above.
And here’s our online team member Mikala’s visit to a farmers market
By posting these videos on our blog, hopefully we’ll even inspire some BC residents and our travelers to give our their tips and insider information. The intent is to get many video’s capturing the diverse range of tourism experiences throughout the province. We will still use the destination video and professionally produced documentaries to get people excited, and the videos created by field reporters, industry, communities, staff and user will capture the details.
To watch all field reporter videos, keep an eye on Tourism BC’s YouTube channel and our Field Reporter playlist. Our field reporters are still editing some of their videos, so more will be added soon.
