The slideshow from the '09 OHLA Conference at Kalahari

1. Social Networking for the OHLA Presented by: Holly Zoba - The Scout Report

2. This is Scout

3. “Social Media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. No one knows how. When it is finally done there is surprise that it’s not better.” Avinash Kaushik, Analytics Evangalist, Google

4. Agenda

5. A Little History

6. What is social media really? Activities, practices, and behaviors among communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge, and opinions using conversation media. Conversation media are web-based applications that make it possible to create and easily transmit content in the forms of words, pictures, videos and audio.

7. Social Media Ecosystem

8. Top 5 reasons to engage 5. 3 out of 4 Americans use social technology (Forrester, 2008) 4. 2/3rds of the Global Internet population visit social networks (Nielson, 2009) 3. Visiting social sites is now the 4th most popular online activity – ahead of personal email (Nielson, 2009) 2. Time spent on social networking is growing at 3 X the overall internet rate, accounting for greater than 10% of all internet time. (Nielson, 2009)

9. #1 Reason to Engage

10. Some fun facts Data source: brandinfiltration.com

11. But is anyone making any money from it???

12. #1 social media mistake Treating it like just another marketing channel when it should be so much more. Customer Service Public Relations Thought Leadership Loyalty Building Customer Acquisition

13. The Approach - 3 Fundamentals

14. With whom do we have relationships? How can we use social media to start conversations with all of our relationships?

15. The Four Pillars of Engagement

17. Create shopping packages tweets

19. Travel Planning Funnel Communicate? Pre-market – need trigger Search Plan Pre-validate Book Post validate Prep Educate? Collaborate? Entertain? Experience Share Source: Dale A Brill – VISIT FLORIDA

20. Employee Life Cycle Communicate Entertain Collaborate Educate

21. Make a strategic plan(Engaging guests, employees and owners/brands) Identify objectives – where do you need help? Guest retention? Employee retention? PR? New customers? A little owner understanding?

22. Make a strategic plan Identify objectives – where do you need help? Talk (and listen) to the parties involved: Guest surveys Guest focus groups Department meetings Employee speak outs

23. Guest surveys/focus groups What are you trying to discover? Guest interests How involved are they with social media? Where, when, why? What do they like about your hotel? What services do they use? What do they do outside of your hotel? Where do they eat, where else do they travel Guest irritations – with your hotel, with travel, with packing Guest wish list – what do they want from you?

24. Make a strategic plan Identify objectives – where do you need help? Talk to the parties involved Create your team – with Pillar leaders Communicator Collaborator Educator Entertainer

25. Make a strategic plan Identify objectives – where do you need help? Talk to the parties involved Create your team – with Pillar leaders Assign Social Media “tools” to your leaders Make them responsible for becoming experts at their tools

26. Typical Tools by Pillar

27. Life Cycles in Social Media

28. Make a strategic plan Identify objectives – where do you need help? Talk to the parties involved Create your team – with Pillar leaders Assign Social Media “tools” to your leaders Hold a problem solving/brainstorming session Identify which “tools” may solve which problems/objectives and how Do you need outside help – neighbors, competitors, owners?

29. Make a strategic plan Identify objectives – where do you need help? Talk to the parties involved Create your team – with Pillar leaders Assign Social Media “tools” to your leaders Hold a problem solving/brainstorming session Create an action plan Prioritize problems Apply brainstorming solutions Assign due dates and control process

30. Make a strategic plan Identify objectives – where do you need help? Talk to the parties involved Create your team – with Pillar leaders Assign Social Media “tools” to your leaders Hold a problem solving/brainstorming session Create an action plan Execute, evaluate progress, measure results, begin again

31. So that’s the strategy but how about the execution? First let’s review our options in the social media ecosystem --- aka There is MORE to social media than Twitter and Facebook!

32. Social Networking

33. Social Networking Facebook & LinkedIn – must do Bebo – diminishing but AOL purchased in 2008 Orkut – 71% of Orkut users are from Brazil and India Plaxo – Similar to LinkedIn Fast Pitch – small business focus – to help your business grow Ning – Build your own social network!!! KickApps – add social networking apps to your own site Gather – social networking targeted to the over 30 crowd

34. How can social networking help?

35. A Few Other Tips

36. Publish

37. How can publishing help? WordPress and Blogger both offer free creation of blogs. WordPress = more professional Constant Contact – email service - $15/500 Slideshare – share PowerPoint presentations Wikia – Great to produce internal best practices – employee collaboration Wikipedia – go to your city/neighborhood and add in your property

38. Micro blogging

39. Micro blogging Twitter basics: Several tweets a day – of interest Food is always an interest Find a voice and be consistent When you retweet, give a positive intro Thank those who retweet you Try Tweet Ups and contests (twtvite.com) Treat Twitter like a petrie dish –see what grows (twittersheep.com to see what interests your followers)

40. Advanced Twitter Consider HootSuite Manage multiple accounts Track trends and individual tweets Monitor your brand URL shortener Scheduled tweets Manage groups Image sharing/file uploading For more reporting - TwitterAnalyzer

41. Audio

43. Calendar of Events for the holiday seasonUpload them to Rhapsody and iTunes

44. Photo Sharing

45. Video

46. Photo/Video Tag your videos Give guests flip video cameras to use – make them a vacation movie get permission to post Make funny staff videos Make how to videos (how to use COTA, cooking, bed making, napkin folding) People LOVE to share videos Tag your photos Give guests digital cameras to use – have scavenger hunts, post results Before and after guest photos Photos help increase members People LOVE to share photos

47. Flip Video – under a minute, cute, funny, touching or surprising

48. Productivity Apps

49. How Productivity Apps Help Acteva – perfect for small meeting planners, brides Google alerts – monitor your brand/your competitors Google docs – great for collaboration Survey Monkey – Zoomerang – Easy to produce surveys Tiddlywiki – create user manuals, tutorial, best practices ReadNotify – email tracking service – when opened, if forwarded

50. Interpersonal

51. How Interpersonal Tools Help GoToMeeting, Acrobat Connect, WebEx – offer online how to tutorials – to new meeting planners? New brides? Skype/iChat – let your international customers call you for free, face to face OR let them call their families from your business center Jott – you never need to think again.

52. Summary

53. Thank you!Email – Holly@ScoutReportOnline.com