With another resident, I’m an admin for an online community for the new Woodwards apartment building where I live. The community is valuable because we can communicate with everyone and share information very quickly. We’re still trying to get the property manager and developer to come to the table.
I recently started a non-profit organization with Laurel Eastman entirely on a Facebook page. It works because its targeted to an existing community of kiteboarders who are passionate about the cause. It lets us communicate much faster than email.
If I was in the business of marketing cruise ships, I’d start a community for every single cruise that went out. Cruises aren’t for me – I’m not that type of traveler – but my mum loves them. She meets amazing people and they share many days together at sea. People seem to bond when they’re stuck on a boat together. Often they lose touch when the party is over. Why not facilitate a community that allows passengers to connect and stay in touch when the trip is over. People might share photos for all of their friends and family to see and those images may provide inspiration for others to try a cruise themselves. Friends who met on a cruise could plan more cruises together. As a group they could cause each other to book the next cruise. Your product champions could market your cruises to each other, for you. You could go even further and involve past passengers in the brand and ask them what they would like in future cruises.
Hotels and airlines have a tougher time in social marketing because they tend (and I’m generalizing here) not to be as unique or memorable as the travel experiences themselves. Accommodation and flights are often treated as a means-to-an-end rather than an experience in themselves. Generally, a plane flies you from A to B and a hotel provides you a bed. How many hotels have you stayed at where you felt like you were part of a community? How many amazing experiences have airlines provided to you? When you only have a few hours on a flight or at a hotel, the experiences have to be quite remarkable to be memorable. There are always exceptions, where the service is the experience; Jet Blue and Virgin do a great job of this. There are a number of hotels that are the destination themselves; the Banff Springs Fairmont, the Ice Hotel
Why would someone want to join your online community?