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 »

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 »

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 »

Upcoming Conferences

Posted: August 24th, 2012

Are you going to any of these conferences this fall? Check out who from the Think! staff is going to be there with you.

Conference

Date

Location

Who’s going?
ESTO August 26-28 Boston, Massachusetts Ben Vadaszand Helen de Faye. Think! is sponsoring the Ideas and Inspiration session.
Upper Midwest CVB Fall Conference September 9-11 Minot, North Dakota Brian V. Matson
Swarm Sydney September 13-14 Sydney, Australia Sara Kate Raymond
Etourism Conference September 19-20 Auckland, New Zealand Rodney Payne
TBEX September 21-22 Girona, Spain William Bakkeris on a panel discussing measuring ROI
TMI Convention October 8-9 Brockenhurst UK, William Bakker
ProBlogger Conference October 12-13 Melbourne, Australia Holly Galbraith
eTourism Summit 2012 October 11-12 San Francisco, CA Ben Vadaszis giving a Pecha Kucha style presentation on Destination NSW’s #Unmapped campaign 
Australian Regional Tourism Network  October 22-26

 Launceston, Australia  Rodney Payne
Host 2012 (BC Tourism and Hospitality Conference) November 5 Vancouver, BC Think! Vancouver Team
#SoMeT12 November 7 El Paso, Texas William Bakker
ENTER 2013 January 22-25  Innsbruck, Austria William Bakker

 

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

How Social is Your DMO?- Quarter II, 2012 -US Tourism Office Edition

Posted: May 14th, 2012

The Quarter II, 2012 How Social is Your DMO? – United States Tourism Office Edition rankings have been completed and published. And, for the fourth consecutive quarter, Florida has claimed the number one spot.

There were a few changes in the formula and weighting scale again this quarter.  We have added Google+ and Pinterest into the measurement formula.  We have also adjusted the scale for growth in terms of “Likes” and “Followers” via Facebook and Twitter. We also took a closer look at engagement in both of those applications.

We have added an “Engagement Percentage” for Facebook based on the new data that is publically available with the release of Timeline.  See our past post for more on that here.  Some Quarter Two highlights:

- The Top 5 are: Florida, Michigan, Virginia, Oregon and Colorado

- The “Movers” in the Top 25 include: Hawaii, moving to 6 from 14; Ohio, to 8 from 13; Oklahoma, to 9 from 16; Massachusetts, to 16 from 36; Wyoming, 19 from 26; Missouri, 23 from 28; and Utah at 23 from 30.

Congrats to the state of New York – number 7 in the rankings this quarter – for being the first US state destination to break the 1-Million “Like” mark last week.  That is an incredible accomplishment!

Other accomplishments to note:

-       Hawaii was the leader in our Facebook ranking scale.

-       New York graded out best in Twitter.

-       California leads the way in Flickr.

-       Florida holds the number one spot in YouTube.

-       Michigan had the best Google+ presence.

-       New Mexico, who just missed the Top 25 with a number 26 ranking, leads destinations on Pinterest.

One other addition in this report is our All-Time Historical Rankings, which shows the ranking of each destination since we began our ranking scale in July of 2009.

Please review the summary for specific changes in the measurement formula. To view the full rankings for April 2012 visit this link. Please keep the comments and feedback coming, as we will continue to consider them in future measurements.

For more info on social media and tourism, be sure to follow Think! Social Media on Twitter at: @ThinkSM or visit us on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/ThinkSocialMedia.

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Posted in By Dave Serino, Social Media | No Comments »

US State DMO Facebook Engagement Numbers for May 2012

Posted: May 2nd, 2012

Since Timeline went public on fan pages in March, a few page metrics other than “Likes” are now available for public view.  Along with the number of “Likes”, we can also view the number of “People Talking About This” on each individual fan page. You can also view the most popular week of activity on the page, along with the city source and age group of the “Likes”.

A few weeks ago, we decided to add those metrics into the formula for our “How Social is Your DMO?” ranking scale.  As we were preparing the USA Q2-2012 rankings, we decided to spend a few extra minutes and compile a list of the 50 US states in order of Facebook engagement and release those this week. Click here for the list of the 50 US states official tourism fan page engagement percentage ranking, which was determined on Tuesday, May 1, 2012.

The Engagement percentage is measured by the total number of “People Talking About This” divided by the total number of “Likes.”  There were only three states that had an engagement percentage larger than 10% in the top 5. They were: 1) Texas at 28%; 2) South Dakota at 13% and 3) Maryland at 10%.   California, Connecticut and Kentucky rounded out the top 5 – all tied at 7% each.

A majority of the 50 state DMO’s – 36 of them – all fell within the 1% to 5% range.   And, of the top six states listed above, only Connecticut had more than 100K in total “Likes.”  Connecticut’s page has 100,588 “Likes” while Maryland, who ranked third in engagement, only had 6,458 “Likes”.  This is a great example that bigger is not always better.

We all know and understand that this measurement is a moving target and it can literally change hourly – based on a viral post or a successful ad campaign – but it is another interesting metric to watch and measure over time.  It would be very interesting to track this data on a weekly basis for a year to get a more accurate profile of overall Facebook engagement for a destination fan page.

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Posted in By Dave Serino, Facebook, Social Media | 9 Comments »

Thanks, everyone! Social in Sydney is closed.

Posted: March 23rd, 2012

We’d like to thank everyone who helped get the word out about our quest for a community manager in Sydney.

And we’d really like to thank the creative individuals who entered the competition. We’ll be contacting the leading candidates in the days ahead. For those who don’t hear from us, we hope our paths will continue to cross. It’s great to see so much passion and innovation.

Posted in Around the office, Social Media | No Comments »

Social in Sydney much? Then we’re looking for you.

Posted: March 16th, 2012

Get social in Sydney

UPDATE: If you qualify and are interested in this job, let us know soon. This offer closes at 11:59 p.m. EDT in Sydney on Friday, March 23.

Think! Social Media has a job opportunity in Sydney, Australia, for a creative, passionate community manager.

For this job, you must:
- Play tourist in Sydney and throughout New South Wales [NSW] and share your experiences with the world.
- Create original content about the things you do each day — i.e. blog, tweet, pin, post, make videos, take photos.
- Talk with and inspire others like you: people who wish to travel to NSW, are already there on their trip, or have been there and can’t stop talking about the great time they had.
- Live in the Sydney area and be eligible to work more than 12 consecutive months in Australia.

For your efforts, you get:
- Control of your day. As your own boss, each day you decide what you’ll do and when you’ll do it — whether it’s sightseeing in Sydney, heading to the beach to surf, mountain biking in the Snowy Mountains or spending some quality time oooing and ahhhing over koalas.
- Workplace of your choice. When you’re not actively being a tourist, you can work from the office in central Sydney or work from home.
- Access to all the events, attractions and hot spots in Sydney and NSW.
- Paychecks, of course, to earn $50,000 per year.

NSW is the place to start but you will do more of the same for other places in Australia in the months ahead. If you have mastered communication through social media, love the idea of being a tourist in NSW and have a secret desire to be just a little bit famous, apply. BUT, do not send us a resume. You need to find a way to convince us you’re the best for the job by using all the great resources that the Internet offers.

If you need to apply confidentially, contact Think! at jobs@thinksocialmedia.com. Otherwise, use your social savvy to find a way to express your interest.

Posted in Around the office, Social Media | 3 Comments »

How to Engage your Fan Page:

Posted: March 15th, 2012

On Facebook, engagement is everything. If fans don’t engage, they won’t see your posts for long.

Buddy Media is one of the premier Fan Page management companies for big brands in America. They recently released a detailed report outlining much of their learning for effective fan page management.. The original report can be found here in all its glory. Here’s a summary:

- Do not use URL shorteners. Proper URLs get 3x higher engagement
- Keep posts short: 80 characters or less gets 27% higher engagement rate.
- Different audiences engage at different times. Experiment to find the optimum time for your audience. Post at different times to engage different fans. Many pages receive a 20% higher engagement rate outside of business hours.
- Some days are better than others to post. Travel and Hospitality works towards the end of the week. 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.
- Fans follow instructions well. Use ‘action keywords’ to drive engagement;
o Liking a post requires the least amount of effort
o Ask for one word comments
o For Likes: use the words Like, Take, Submit, Watch, Post, Check
o For Comments: use Post, Comment, Tell Us, Check, Like, Submit
- For contests and sweepstakes, softer sells work best:
o Use ‘events’ and ‘winning’ rather than ‘contest’ or ‘promotion’
o Event, Winner, Offer, New, Win, Brand New,
- Questions should be placed at the end of a post. This attracts a 15% higher engagement rate)
Don’t interrogate fans with words like ‘why’. Instead, use where, when, would and should.

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »