How to put a social media plan together for your business with video highlights. Presentation given at Travel Technology Show, 9 Feb 2011 Presentation is tailored for travel companies but key messages for any size of business.

1. Developing your
social media plan
Kathryn Bullock, 9 February 2011

2. Thank you for visiting
Please listen to this seminar on how
to build your social media plan
and let us know how we can help.

3. 4 key questions
1. Where are we now?
2. Where do we want to be?
3. How do we get there?
4. How do we measure success?

4. 1. Where are we now?

5. 1. Are you ready for 2 way
conversations?
• It permeates “how” not “what” you do
• It has to fit with everything else
‐ not about building buzz or pushing product
• It’s how you support “word of mouth marketing”
with your key advocates as well as customers

6. 1. Listen first
• Google Alerts
• Social Monitoring Tools
• Customer Research
‐ Surveys & Polls
How are your customers
using social media?
What are they saying?
Photo credit: niclindh
via flickr

7. 1. People trust reviews more
Do you know what
customers say
about you on Trip Advisor,
Review Centre,
Holiday Truths,
Holidays Uncovered…?
You should
Source: The Economist
A special report on Social Networking Jan 28, 2010

8. 1. Social media is powerful
3. Social Media
Source: Colin Lewis

9. 2. Where do we want to be?

10. 2. Need for clear objectives
“Build awareness and
shared enthusiasm for events
“Improve guest intention at our properties”
to return by 5% overall
year on year”
“Support guest and “Improve quality of our reviews on
staff recognition 3rd party sites by 10%”
programmes”

11. 2. Integrating "Social"

12. 2. Integrating "Social"
• Integrate with each touch point
‐ Customer Services
‐ Other marketing activity eg TV or online
‐ Switchboard
‐ Build awareness with staff in resort

13. Integrated social and TV campaign

14. 2. Content planning is key
• Avoid “dead community” syndrome
• Plan at least 2 months ahead
• Ask fans what they want to read about
• Involve people
across your business
especially those at the
“customer coalface”
• First timer guides

15. 2. Real conversations matter
• You will learn a lot if you ask the right
questions – not just “which” but “why”.
Engagement, not numbers of fans

16. 3. How do we get there?

17. 3. You need them to “like” first
You need a
compelling
welcome page

18. 3. Clear call to action
• Build a YouTube channel to track your viewers
• Remember to tag all content inc. videos
• Appoint “Customer Champions”

19. 3. Use video for first timers

20. 3. Video can make life easier
There’s
plenty of
demand

21. 3. Use video for recruitment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXjNnWFcS4c

22. 3. Empower your fans
Invite them to:
‐ post photo/videos
‐ run discussion
groups
‐ get creative.

23. 3. Fans will engage
Fans like to
see what is
most popular
Make it easy for
them

24. 3. Building engagement
Nielsen did research
with Facebook
to demonstrate
impact on
‐ purchase intention
‐ brand awareness
Be ahead of the
learning curve

25. 3. Learn from other sectors
Facebook ecommerce site on Best Buy

26. 3. Who’s doing first travel search?

27. 3. Plan for the next wave

28. 3. Roadmap everything
• Who’s going to do posts and how frequently?
• What happens when its positive, bad?
• Who needs to know?
• How quickly are we going to respond versus
normal response times?
• When do we not respond?
• When do we escalate?
Source: Flickr chucknado

29. 3. Staff Guidelines
• Do • Don’t
• Project team • Rush in to answer every
• Experiment post
• Ask lots of questions • Use corporate speak
• Be as honest as you can • Treat it like a sales
• Appoint Community channel
Manager • Neglect your site
• Find Board Sponsor • Expect customer service
to answer posts without
training

30. 3. Leverage each channel
• Phase the roll out slowly and optimise
regularly
• Ensure links between Tweets, Linkedin,
Facebook and YouTube to optimise content
Key Question
“How can each of these channels best improve
our customer brand experience”

31. 3. Working with your influencers
If you are a
business
travel company
reach into the right
communities of
Self employed and
Startups

32. 3. Building engagement
• Using social media monitoring tools to spot
opportunities in Twitter and in online
communities
• Set up your keywords for your market and
include competitor terms
• Run reports to track level of sentiment about
your brand

33. 4. How do we measure
success?

34. 4. Developing your dashboard
Facebook Twitter
• % post engagement • Use tracking tools
• Track most engaging Tweetdeck, Hootsuite
content • No of retweets
• % active fans
• Profile of active fans YouTube
• Month on month • Subscribers
changes • Profile of viewers
• % Response rates • Comments

35. 4. Key Metrics
• Trip Advisor & other 3rd party site scores
• Create tiny links to track revenues per post
• Track all
‐ click throughs from email & to website
‐ impact on call centre volumes
• Include in “How did you hear about us?”

36. 5. Summary
• Listen first
• Clear measurable objectives
• Integrate “Social” into your business
• Real conversations matter
• Work with your influencers
• It’s all about engagement first
…………… revenues come next.

37. 5. Social Media is more than Facebook
Source: Gillian Pritchett

38. “Thank you for reading.
Questions?”
Kathryn Bullock, Director, Face Marketing

39. Let us help you to get started
Join Social Media Travel Group
on Linkedin to learn more
or follow our blogs and links from
www.face‐marketing.com