1. Mobile, Apps
and Social Media
Tracey Taylor, Nora Maki
and Andrew Daines
TMI Hot Topic
Coventry, May 2012

2. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Mobile, Apps and Social Media
• Is it really that important?
• VisitEngland’s agenda for Social Media
• Best practice considerations for mobile
• Shaping VisitEngland’s digital roadmap

3. Is it really that
important?
Andrew Daines

4. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Remember me?
Functional?
Sophisticated?

5. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Precious

6. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Every day…
1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
700
200 371
378
100
0
(thousands)
Babies born
iPhones sold
Android devices activated

7. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
In the UK
• Over half the mobile population own a
smartphone
(Source: ComScore, March 2012)
• 57% of mobile users access ‘mobile
media’
(Source: ComScore, March 2012)
• 9% of visitors to travel websites in
2011 access via mobile devices (up
from 2.8% in 2010)
(Source: EyeForTravel)
• 28% of UK travel-related queries came
from mobile devices by the end of
2011, tablets accounting for a third of
these
(Source: EyeForTravel)

8. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Social media and mobile
Mobile audience for selected social media channels, US
Total audience (000s)
Aug 2010 Aug 2011 % change
Facebook 38,240 57,332 50%
Twitter 7,639 13,375 75%
Source: ComScore, October 2011
Mobile check-ins via foursquare / Facebook, US
2011 2012
Adult population 4% 10%
Source: Tnooz, May 2012

9. VisitEngland’s
agenda for
Social Media
Nora Maki

10. VisitEngland’s Social Media Profile
• http://www.facebook.com/EnjoyEngland
• 156,797 likes
• Daily posts about events & news across England
• http://www.youtube.com/enjoyenglanduk
• 93,031 views
• Destination promo videos
• UGC (competition entries)
• 2nd most popular search engine after Google
• https://twitter.com/#!/VisitEngland
• 21,949 followers
• Daily posts about events & news across England
• #journorequest
• Answering queries/questions

11. Twitter – how to make it work
Best option is always to speak with local DMO
Key to Twitter success: know your audience
Aims & Objectives Who are you trying to reach?
Don’t sell anything on Twitter – Engage in conversation!
So, what do I tweet about?
Local events Awards #hashtags
Positive customer experiences
Good examples in tourism – destinations!

12. VisitEngland Social Media Activity

13. DON’T… DO…
 Be afraid of social media  Create personal account to get a feel for
 Direct all links to your website platform
 Use social media as a sales channel  Set a strategy – what is your aim with the
 Don’t be afraid of deleting, unfollow or account/s?
ban followers who spam you  Engage in conversation; RT, mentions, tag
 Use social media if you don’t have the etc.
resources to do so  Stay focused when choosing who to follow;
follow people relevant to you business
 Keep branding consistent on all platforms
 Create a tone that suits your brand
 Categorise and create lists – easier to digest

14. Best practice
considerations
for mobile
Andrew Daines

15. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Key considerations for delivering content via mobile devices
1. Use the device’s GPS
functionality and deliver
content accordingly

16. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Key considerations for delivering content via mobile devices
2. Integrate with mapping
functionality, to provide
directions

17. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Key considerations for delivering content via mobile devices
3. Integrate with installed social media apps, to enable and
encourage sharing

18. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Key considerations for delivering content via mobile devices
4. Ensure content is up to date

19. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Key considerations for delivering content via mobile devices
5. Allow offline access to content

20. Shaping
VisitEngland’s
digital roadmap
Tracey Taylor

21. VisitEngland’s role
is to ensure
England grows its
share of leisure
visits against key
competing
destinations

22. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
From VisitEngland’s marketing objectives…
• Instill pride in England as a destination and get our
audience to share their experiences
• Enable integration for England and its destinations
• Bring value to the whole industry and reduce duplication of
effort
• Focus on inspiration and conceptualisation of the decision
making process
• Focus on thematic campaigns
• Ensure advocacy is at the heart with sharable content and
strong social media integration

23. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Start with needs
• The design process must start with
identifying and thinking about real user
needs. We should design around those —
not around the way the ‘official process’ is
at the moment. We must understand
those needs thoroughly — interrogating
data, not just making assumptions — and
we should remember that what users ask
for is not always what they need.

24. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Do less
• We should only do what only we can do.
• If someone else is doing it — link to it.
• If we can provide resources (like APIs)
that will help other people build things —
do that.
• We should concentrate on the irreducible
core

25. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Do the hard work to make it simple
• Making something look simple is easy;
making something simple to use is much
harder — especially when the underlying
systems are complex — but that’s what
we should be doing.

26. Mobile, Apps and Social Media
Understand context
• We’re not designing for a screen, we’re
designing for people. We need to think
hard about the context in which they’re
using our services. Are they in a library?
Are they on a phone? Are they only really
familiar with Facebook? Have they never
used the web before?

27. Considerations
• How do we include content
across every location in
England?
• How can VisitEngland
facilitate mobile / app
development?