Social Media Influences Most British Holidaymakers

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Michael Carney

It’s been evident for some time that social media plays a significant role when it comes to travel –and no surprises there. When you’re planning to visit somewhere you’ve never been before, who else would you ask first but friends who have already been there? Social Media simply extends the already-elastic definition of friends to include friends-of-friends-of-friends.

Now a new British study by online travel agency sunshine.co.uk reveals that more than half (54%) of U.K. holidaymakers use social media to plan their holidays.

They review hotels, resorts and destinations online, requesting personal recommendations from other online users, using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to gather information and reviews about a particular place before they book.

According to the survey (reported by Go Timeshare):

Almost every single person polled out of Sunshine’s 1,102 British holidaymakers said that yes, they do use social media and the internet to look up resorts before choosing exactly where they want to holiday.

They were then asked to select all that applied from a list of possible answers about how they went about researching their future destination/accommodation and the results were

  • Review websites – 62%
  • Social media platforms – 49%
  • Information from travel agent – 33%
  • Word of mouth – 26%
  • Travel guides – 19%
  • Other – 13%

61% said they used Facebook to share and post comments and photos, whilst 17% said they used Twitter to do so.

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Top 100 UK Social Brands

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Michael Carney

A recent study by social brand consultancy Headstream identified the Top 100 Social Brands in the UK. You can download the full report here, but these are some of the findings that are most relevant:

A. THE TOP TWENTY SOCIAL BRANDS

B. THE INTRODUCTORY VIDEO

A collection of talking heads which will give you a bit of an introduction to the Social Brand 100.

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C. TEN KEY LEARNINGS

And here, reported by WallBlog, are the ten key learnings from the Social Brand 100 study:

1. Social brands don’t just send messages, they create value for people and communities.

2 Social brands are happy to exchange rigid control of their brand for greater involvement with people.

3 Social brands manage their brands in a more human context. It is less about the word of the brand guidelines and more about the spirit of the brand, often replacing formality around tone of voice in favour of expressing brand character, values, purpose and cause.

4. The types of content that social brands can create categorised as providing information, utility, entertainment, reward, incentive or something that reflects a person’s character and what they value. Brands are still totems to what we believe, reflecting our personality.

5. Timeliness of response is a critical indicator of social enablement. Social brands are agile and responsive to the needs of people, relishing opportunities as they arise.

6. Being appropriate in social doesn’t mean using a lot of brand outposts. The use of brand outposts is driven by what is most relevant for the community.

7. Negative and positive sentiment is acknowledged and accepted by social brands

8. Social brands create, develop and encourage behaviors that mirror community or individual behaviors. They meet and exceed expectations, often delighting people in doing so.

9. Social brands are true, compelling, authentic and transparent.

10. Social brands simplify their intent and continually act to achieve it. They have established what they want to achieve and ensure everything builds towards this commitment. To be a social brand you have to be a good brand, a good employer, make good products, provide good customer service and have a moral centre to your purpose by those that represent you.

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Social Media Reaches The Tipping Point

Posted on June 11, 2011 by Michael Carney

Social Media is the hottest topic in marketing circles right now and many businesses (around the world, not just in New Zealand) are feeling pressured to get involved with social outlets such as Facebook  or Twitter. Small wonder — research analysts eMarketer are reporting that social media has reached the tipping point, with more than half of all U.S. internet users now frequenting social spaces in a typical month.

Where the U.S. goes, can New Zealand be far behind? Actually, we may well be ahead of them. 82% of New Zealand internet users have been to Facebook — and more than 1.75 million Kiwis now have an account on the site [Source: Nielsen NZ Social Media Report July 2010].

And it’s becoming habitual — half of us visit the Facebook site at least once a day, to catch up on what our friends are doing (and to tell them where we’ve been and what we’ve done).

So Kiwis can now be found in large numbers hanging out on social networks. Should marketers be there too? Absolutely, notes eMarketer, channeling the results of a February 2010 survey by Chadwick Martin Bailey, a market research firm. According to their data, 33% of U.S. Facebook users have become fans of brands on the network.

And plenty more social network users are talking about brands online. Whether it’s good news or bad news, if it’s hot it spreads in milliseconds across the social networks.

An unfortunate example? On September 26 2009 Kraft launched the glorious new Vegemite iSnack 2.0 in the quarter-time adbreak of the AFL Grand Final. Before the adbreak was even over, tweets of death were resounding across Australia and thence across the world:

NO! Vegemite cream cheese product CANNOT POSSIBLY be called “Vegemite iSnack 2.0″. Bad joke or most epic FAIL in FMCG branding history” – tweeted by downesy

I said “do you speaka my language?” She just smiled and gave me an iSnack 2.0 sandwich. #vegefail – tweeted by jmappellekim

On the rather more positive side, a recent Nielsen/Facebook joint study showed significant uplift in Advertising Recall, Awareness and Purchase Intent amongst those brands “liked” in Social Media.

Nervous yet? Worried about your brand? Or just eager to take advantage of the added value if fans ‘love you’ socially?

It’s time to upskill yourself on social media — it’s too late to be an early adopter, but now would be a good time to start getting yourself socially adept. Check out our ecourses.

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