Pinterest For Destinations

Posted: November 26th, 2012

Many tourism destinations across the globe have tapped into the Pinterest phenomenon.  While DMOs like Visit Savannah adopted this platform in their marketing activities early on, other brands have been hesitant to use Pinterest as its previous terms and conditions stated it was purely for non-commercial use. Recognising this, Pinterest has recently launched business accounts. On the surface there is not much difference between a personal account and business account, however, a couple of differences include:

  • Revised terms and conditions for businesses
  • Ability to verify your website (see more details on how to do that here)
  • New buttons and widgets available to add to your website
  • Use company or business name during sign up (rather than first name last name)
  • If you have an existing account, you can simply role over into a business account
Pinterest is a great way to showcase what is truly unique about your business or destination and is proving to be a top referral site for many websites. The statistic floating around at the moment is that Pinterest drives more web traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. As a destination or business, here are a few things to consider or action if looking to incorporate Pinterest into your marketing plan:
  1. Ensure your bio accurately reflects the destination
  2. Ensure images on your website are pin friendly
  3. Add a Pin button to website and look at other ways to integrate Pinterest into your activities
  4. Liking & commenting on others pins can be a great way to grow following & harness a community
  5. Remember you can also pin videos
  6. Get creative with pins and boards by looking at what niches may resonate with your audience
  7. Consider if ‘getting transactional’ may be possible. People are used to making purchases via Pinterest, are there opportunities to tap into that?
Finally, before embarking on the Pinterest or any new digital tactic, it is important to define your goals, your target audience, how this fits with your overall strategy and what success looks like (measurement).
Feel free to hit the comment section below. We would love to here your Pinterest questions, stories or see the link to your favourite Pinterest account.

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Posted in By Holly Galbraith, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Steven says (T)hi(nk)!

Posted: November 22nd, 2012

Starting January 1, 2013 I will join Isabel at Think! Social Media in Amsterdam. Who am I? My name is Steven de Jong, 31 years old, with a passion for writing and travel. Together with my girlfriend Els and my newborn son Pepijn I live in Oegstgeest. (I will buy a drink for the first colleague, who is a non-native Dutch speaker and can pronounce ‘Oegstgeest’ correctly.)

Steven de Jong

I got my Master’s degree in Digital Communication & New Media from the Utrecht University. For several years I have worked as a junior advisor at a media & communication office and as a webeditor at the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions.

In my spare time I wrote a book ‘Aan mijn jongere ik’ in which 33 successful, Dutch women write a letter to their younger selves. Each letter contains an important and inspiring lesson, warning or advice. The profit of the book sales was donated to the Pink Ribbon Foundation.

I’m very much looking forward to creating online and social media campaigns for the tourism industry with our international team of creative thinkers.

Hope to meet you soon,
Steven

Posted in Social Media | 4 Comments »

Facebook Best Practices Part lll

Posted: October 5th, 2012

11. Don’t use URL Shorteners to Share Links

Proper URLs get 3x higher engagement than their shortened counterparts.

12. Different Audiences Engage at Different Times

Experiment to find the optimum time for your audience. Post at different times to engage different fans. There is a 20% higher engagement rate outside of business hours. Some days are also better than others to post. Travel and hospitality works well towards the end of the week, and engagement rates on Thursdays and Fridays are 18% higher than other days of the week. The less people want to be at work, the more they are on Facebook.

13. Ask Questions

Questions should be placed at the end of a post for a 15% higher engagement rate.3

 

 

14. Fans Follow Instructions Well

Use action-oriented words to achieve your objectives:

  • Liking a post requires the least amount of effort
  • Ask for one word comments
  • To get likes us: like, take, submit, watch, post, check
  • To get comments use: post, comment, tell us, share, check, like, submit

 

15. Own your personality

This is probably one of the biggest factors in creating a community that lasts and continually generates positive feedback. The community manager should naturally represent the brand, if your destination was a single person who would it be, that person should be in charge of your online community.

 

What are your Facebook best practices?

Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment »

Facebook Best Practices Part ll

Posted: September 28th, 2012

6. Run Contests to Boost Engagement

People love wining, it doesn’t matter if it’s a sticker or a trip to the Superbowl, people want to win. There are lots of cheap apps that can be used for running contests, just make sure that you are following the Facebook guidelines.

 

7. Drop in Milestones

Timeline is your brands personal scrapbook, and it’s a great way to tell your own story. Take a little trip to the past and add your big milestones as bragging points.

 

8. Ask for your Fans Opinions

Whenever you have the chance, ask your community what they think, but beware that the feedback may not always be what you want to hear.

 

9. Try Posting “Fill in the Blanks”

Make it as easy as possible for fans to comment and urge them to finish a sentence with their own answer.

 

 

10. Give Fans Access to Exclusive Info

Use Facebook as your first resource for spreading information, if you can beat newspapers or tv stations to the punch then you know you’re spreading your content at the right speed.

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

The Value of Social Media in The Meetings and Conventions Market Can’t Be Ignored

Posted: September 26th, 2012

Everyone loves great customer service, and in the meetings and conventions market, customer service is a major factor for meeting planners when choosing suppliers and destinations in which to hold their event. In August, we ran a social listening campaign on behalf of the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau (Dallas CVB), during the annual American Society of Association Executives (ASAE).

Conferences are usually a peak time in social media mentions for a destination and we wanted to capitalize on this to make lasting impressions on conference attendees.

The ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition 2012 was expected to draw approximately 6,500 people to Dallas.  Attendees at this conference carry a great deal of influence on where their associations host meetings, making it a fantastic time to show the conference attendees the remarkable experiences and southern hospitality of Dallas.

The Process

Whenever we found a question, request, or need online that seemed opportunistic for Dallas CVB, we notified a staff member who was then responsible for addressing the comment. In total, five individuals were provided with something extra special during their time in Dallas as a result of the social listening campaign.

 

The ‘WOW’ Factor 

Using Twitter to listen to conversations, @Visit_Dallas identified five attendees who sounded like they needed a little extra love in order to ensure that they had an incredible time in Dallas. Below are some of their stories.

On arrival to Dallas while going through the airport, Christy Jones broke two nails.  We were quick to react, and organized a manicure for her. We continued the conversation with her over the next few hours, and the next day we dropped off the manicure certificate at the reception desk of her hotel after finding out where she was staying.

Up next were Mandy Stahl and Jessica Levin.  Listening in on the first day of the conference, we intercepted a conversation between these two attendees who were talking about the cold temperature.

For more detailed information about Jennifer’s experience in Dallas, visit her blog at http://sevendegreescommunications.com/creating-special-moments-through-social-listening/

Another individual that received an unforgettable experience was Stefanie Reeves of Washington, D.C.  We heard that she wasn’t having the best time on arrival to Dallas, and we wanted to make sure that we changed her mindset by the time that she left.

We monitored Stefanie over the next couple of days to see if there was an opportune time to step in and change her mindset about her time in Dallas.  A couple days later, when she asked us a question about what was the most economical way to get to Cowboys Stadium, we quickly jumped at the opportunity to help her out, by sending a chauffeured limousine to her hotel.

For more information about Stephanie’s experience in Dallas, visit her blog at http://stef73.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/asae12-the-aftermath/

 

Results

The above image shows the hashtag trending in different American cities.

 

We definitely succeeded in providing great customer service to the attendees of #ASAE12. We also proved the importance of social listening, and the value of social media to the meetings and conventions marketplace.

We reached 177,523 people and registered a total 474,464 impressions on Twitter during the campaign.  Best of all, the official conference hashtag #ASAE12 was trending in different cities across the United States throughout the week, primarily in Dallas and Washington, D.C.  Other destinations included Los Angeles, Chicago, Orlando, Topeka, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta.

We surprised five people with incredible customer service, listened in on 14,000 conversations between 1400 people attending #ASAE12 over the course of five days.

A month later, people are still talking online about the amazing time and great service that they received while in Dallas.  We would like to congratulate Dallas CVB on hosting an exceptional event, and allowing us to help wow people along the way.

Posted in By Dustin Bodnaryk, Remarkable stories, Social Media | No Comments »

Facebook Best Practices Part l

Posted: September 21st, 2012

Over the next few weeks I will be posting my 15 Facebook best practices, if you have any best practices you like to follow let me know what they are.

1. Embrace Images

Use imagery to catch users attention and get them interested in what you have to say, you can also show fans what goes on behind the scenes with simple smartphone pictures.

 

2. Keep it Short

Posts that are 80 characters in length, or less get 27% higher engagement rate. So keep it short and to the point.

 

3. Make the most of your cover photo

A recent eye-tracking study noted that consumers pay far more attention to the cover photo than any other content on the wall, so put thought into your photo.

Did you know: Covers may not include:

  • Contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address.
  • References to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features.
  • Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

4. Pay Attention to your Insights

Facebook breaks down your new fans by gender and location to help you get a sense of who you’re talking to on Facebook. It also gives you a great snapshot of what content you put out is getting good feedback and what content is falling through the cracks.

 

 

5. Highlight your Best Posts

Take advantage of the “Highlight” option, this works especially well if you share lots of content each week, or you want users to be drawn into certain posts. I like to use landscape style photos with my content so I can easily highlight it.

Posted in By Phil Moad, Facebook, Social Media | No Comments »

Social at the Core

Posted: September 5th, 2012

Tourism is highly experiential, with unlimited combinations of experiences. Marketing a destination is very different to marketing consumer brands. We believe that tourism marketing should be consumer-centric. For that reason, we put social at the core. Social is so important to destination marketing that we’ve built our entire destination marketing methodology around it.

Posted in By Rodney Payne | No Comments »

My Claim to Fame

Posted: August 31st, 2012

Leading up to The Greatest Outdoor Show On Earth, we helped the Calgary Stampede put together a series of videos aimed at promoting the upcoming Stampede. The videos featured me deep-frying different items – some of it was food, some of it was not edible at all.

The seven videos that were aired received a combined 160,000+ views (I suspect at least 1,000 of those views were from my mom sharing with her friends), and had over 2,700 likes and comments. The videos also generated tens of millions of impressions promoting the Calgary Stampede.

Getting to see the idea evolve, the videos come together, and the great success of the videos was a great learning experience for me.

Which video is your favourite?

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Tori is here!

Posted: August 30th, 2012

Welcome Tori Pearce!

This week marks the arrival of Tori Pearce at Think! Social Media. We’re happy to have her on the team. Though she will be based out of our Amsterdam office, she’ll be travelling the world to meet with prospective and existing clients as our International Business Development Manager.

Many of you have already crossed paths with Tori. Before joining Think!, she had the opportunity as the senior account manager at TripAdvisor to meet a lot of the teams working at DMOs across the globe. For five years at TripAdvisor she looked after display and sponsorship sales with tourism boards. Her work took her to international destinations, including Croatia, South Africa, Estonia, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Kenya, Poland and Ireland.

Previous to entering the tourism industry, Tori was in publishing, working in display sales for online and print magazines. For her full, colorful history, we suggest you ask Tori about her time spent at Hello!, at Cosmopolitan and afloat in a helium balloon over Pompeii.

Tori has a had a life-long “great love” for travel. We’re glad she’s now able to continue to pursue this passion with Think! Please join us in welcoming Tori.

Posted in Around the office | No Comments »

Fan Page Naming Policy

Posted: August 27th, 2012

Facebook has recently put a new policy in place which will stop geographic locations from being used as Fan Page names.

The new policy can be found here

If your Facebook page does infringe this new policy, you will more than likely be asked to change the name in the near future, so it’s a good idea to make the change ahead of time, or at least be prepared to do so.

Having trouble distinguishing whether or not your page infringes the new policy? Send me a tweet or email.

How to change your Facebook Page name.

Posted in By Phil Moad, Facebook, Social Media | No Comments »