March 2011 Archives

This is a guest blog post written by Steve Richards, MD of social media agency, Yomego. In this entry, Steve analyses how the reputations of two online travel brands - Thomas Cook and Travel Republic - are faring in social media.

How a Social Media Reputation (SMR) is scored:
Yomego uses a combination of automated and human analysis to attribute a 'Social Media Reputation' score to a brand. This measures 'reach' (how many people are talking about the brand) and 'satisfaction' (whether those people are saying positive or negative things about it). Both are given a score out of 100. Yomego then applies a 'recency' score which means that recent conversations have more weight than those taking place months ago. All this goes into the final SMR score out of 100.

Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook, usually a fairly popular holiday brand in social media conversations, suffered a dip in fortune in early March, with the announcement that it is to impose a fuel surcharge of between £15 and £40 per person on flights - something that was much criticised in social media. It was further hit when news of the planned merger between the Co-Operative Group and Thomas Cook reached social media audiences (having been covered in most influential news sites). Some users expressed concern that the merger would damage the integrity of the Co-Operative brand, and would create further monopolisation of the tour operator market. Talk of job losses was also inevitable.

What's interesting is that our analysis shows that overall, satisfaction for Thomas Cook is quite high (scoring 76.25 out of 100). It has been negatively affected recently by the fuel surcharge and the Co-Operative partnership mentioned above. But its own foray into social media is relatively low for a brand of this size.

Twenty-six percent of all discussions about Thomas Cook take place on TripAdvisor (Thomas Cook encourages users to share their views; it uses TripAdvisor reviews alongside its own ranking system on thomascook.com), which once again highlights the importance of the review site on influencing travel decisions. Most comments on the site are positive, with just a few negative comments from users disappointed with premium seats, and some users complaining that Thomas Cook often charter Monarch planes. Twitter and social media forums (cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com features heavily) also each represent around 20 percent of discussions.

There's plenty of room for Thomas Cook to get more involved in shaping the conversations around its brand. While it links to its social media communities (Twitter, TripAdvisor, YouTube and its own customer community) from the company website, its content to those communities can be a bit haphazard. Video content seems to be uploaded to YouTube in batches - little and often would be a better approach to maintain customer interest over time. On Facebook, the brand is nearing 10k likes and its UK page provides prompt customer service. But there isn't much attempt at sustained engagement with fans, and the brand seems to favour 'pushing' corporate messages to fans, rather than engaging in conversations (which experience shows is a more effective way of developing loyal customers). 

As a leading travel brand, the company can legitimately speak to customers about a range of inspiring topics - everyone loves to think about, talk about and share experiences of, their holidays. It could start small, by running a few competitions exclusive to Facebook, for example, and inviting users to talk about their favourite holidays and destinations as well as sharing their holiday snaps or videos.

Travel Republic

Travel Republic barely registers on the scoreboard of social media engagement, measuring just 7.4 out of 100 in terms of 'reach' (or 'noise'). This is getting better though; the brand is starting to engage over social media (it has 50,000 Facebook 'likes'), and has set up a YouTube channel (albeit featuring just two videos).

Satisfaction with the brand across social channels is very mixed, particularly on user forums. Liam10uk wrote about a bad experience with the company on Trip Advisor in a post entitled "Travel Republic/Easyjet Nightmare", which had 31 replies. Forums represent a significant proportion of online discussion about Travel Republic as 35 percent of discussion takes place on public forums, including some of the very popular sites such as Mumsnet. But the highest number of conversations are prompted by social news sites (accounting for 52 percent of all content). Travel Republic's recently published Top 20 Hotels in 2010 blog unveiled a £25-a-night hotel as its customers' top pick, and this news spread across major site including Yahoo, which helped to raise the brand's reach score.

Some negative sentiment came from users who had found a quote for their holiday on the company website, and later found the same hotel or packages cheaper elsewhere.

In order to boost its SMR score, there are certain issues Travel Republic could immediately address. On YouTube it has just two videos, and there is scope to create new content around top destinations (or the Top 20 Hotels), as well as including user-generated video footage from customers who have enjoyed their holiday with the company. These customers could be rewarded for their videos, to promote loyalty.

On Facebook, most of the company's recent posts simply ask more users to like the page, or for existing users to invite their friends to do the same. At best, this has a whiff of spam about it; at worst, desperation. Giving people a reason to like the page (competitions, incentives, or an airmiles type scheme) would create much more of an incentive for users to further engage with the brand.

For more information on Yomego's SMR scoring system, see www.MySocialMediaReputation.com.

This is a guest blog post written by Matthew Barker. He is a managing partner at Hit Riddle, an internet marketing consultancy specialising in the travel industry.

Look up "online marketing tools" or "seo software" and you'll uncover more than 30 million results all competing for your attention. Try doing some research on any one of them and you'll find unconvincing review sites, useless coupon codes and a network of affiliate websites, all part of the great SEO pyramid scheme that clouds up the web and makes the job of finding a set of good, reliable tools all the more difficult.

Fortunately enough most online travel marketers don't need to loose much sleep over which suite of tools they're going to blow their budget on. You can easily do all the basics and more with the following free or highly affordable pieces of kit.

Understanding your site's search engine performance is easy with Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools (both free). Yahoo's tool is the fastest way of exploring all the inbound links that are pointing to your site from elsewhere on the web and as every web marketer knows, quality links means quality rankings. This is all the more pertinent with Google's Panda update which has placed renewed emphasis on the diversity and quality of your link profile. The Panda has been unleashed and is in the UK very soon - make sure you're not about to get bitten by checking your link profile now.

Google's excellent Webmaster Tools give you a wealth of information on how the Google index "sees" your website. It tells you what pages have been indexed and when and will flag up any problems with your site that might be preventing complete indexing of all your pages. Your web team should be checking this at least once a week.

Webmaster Tools' sister product, Google Analytics is also free and is an excellent, enterprise-level application that gives you great insights into where your traffic is coming from and what it is doing once it arrives to your site. A word of warning: digging through all  those insights can get addictive. It's best to have a clear idea of what you want to learn before you go in, to avoid loosing half a day gawping at all the colourful tables and graphs.

Getting a hold on how well your site is doing in the search engines can be tricky and all the more so because personalised search, local search and social media signals are increasingly influencing individual results pages which makes it difficult to get an accurate picture of your search rankings. Webmaster tools has a handy "average" ranking display, but what you can do with this data is limited.

A more comprehensive tool is Advanced Web Ranking ($99 for a 12month subscription) which is great if you need to track multiple domains, schedule reports, specify individual search engines and share data with your colleagues. Because this is a paid tool, you also get the added benefit of good customer support and regular updates.

Finally, any marketer running corporate profiles on social media platforms can't but help dread something going wrong; an awkward customer comment posted at 6:15pm on Friday evening when everyone's just left the office or a potential lead gone unanswered because you're bogged down managing accounts on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube while trying to get everything else done at the same time.

These are the pitfalls of using social marketing and one slip can undo weeks of brand development. Fortunately there are a number of new tools that plug into each platforms' API and let you oversee them all from one handy interface. Recently I have been playing with Crowdcontrol HQ (£50 per month) and it's a handy way of moderating all your profiles from one place, and making profile maintenance much more time efficient.

My advice is always to make the most of these proven, affordable tools before diving into anything more comprehensive and time consuming. These are just five out of the 30 million tools out there - do you use any others?

Matthew Barker is managing partner of Hit Riddle (www.hitriddle.com), a specialist in online marketing for the travel industry.

Greenlight, the search marketing and technology firm, has today published its latest report on travel sector searches in November 2010.

The analysis, which looked at 1.2 million Google searches, looks at the most effective search terms and highlights the companies employing them.

Greenlight found that of the 3,200 keywords analysed, "cheap holidays, holidays, direct holidays and ski holidays" made up 33% of the total natural searches.

The most searched for destination specific keywords were "Cyprus holidays, Turkey holidays, Lanzarote holidays, Malta holidays and Spain holidays."

The terms Cyprus holidays and Turkey holidays were searched for 9,900 times each. While these terms may not be an exact reflection of the current popular keywords, they are a good guide for companies looking to increase their natural search ranking.

They also provide some insight into the tactics of the most visible travel sites. According to Greenlight, Thomson.co.uk, Travelsupermarket.com, Thomascook.com, Firstchoice.co.uk and Direct-holidays.co.uk were the top five most visible sites in natural search for November.

The report found that these sites all excel in two areas, content and link equity. "In order for your site to perform better, considerable investment should be made into improving the quality, depth and breadth of content around the keyword topics appraised here.

"You should ensure your site is accessible to search engines. In addition, you should focus on developing linking strategies around each product to rapidly and dramatically improve the quantity and quality of links from third-party websites, and point to the relevant pages within your own website."

According to the report, improvement in these areas is most likely to increase travel companies' natural search ranking.

Greenlight also made recommendations for companies looking to improve their paid search visibility.

The report found that: "research into search trends by Google established that most travel-related queries are performed on Mondays, with slightly fewer on other weekdays. The fewest travel-related searches are made over the weekend, with Saturday seeing the least number of queries."

Greenlight also outlined an hourly strategy to help companies refine ad buying. They found two peaks in the day when travel consumers search most. The first is lunchtime and the second is just after the end of the working day. The report notes these may be the best times to bid for advertising.

To further improve paid search, the report recommends increasing the breadth and depth of keywords and producing plenty of unique ad copy. The most effective paid search campaigns in November came from Icelolly.com, directholiday.com, holidayhypermarket.co.uk, travelrepublic.co.uk and thomascook.com.

While these sites dominated paid search, some, like Icelolly, performed poorly in natural search. This could be a problem, as some consumers ignore paid search results and others are simply less likely to click on what they see as an advertisement.

In the report, Greenlight emphasises the importance of a diverse search strategy incorporating natural, paid and social elements. This gives companies the broadest reach and helps them better interact with customers.

Finding innovative ways to grab people's attention can be difficult, especially for advertisers and marketers competing for attention in an increasingly busy media environment.

People are bombarded by advertisements from the internet, television and the world around them. Most people claim they hardly notice advertisements, let alone interact with the brand.

That is where augmented reality or AR comes in, and big things are expected of it. Put simply, AR is any technology that augments the real world with computer generated content.

While the technology has been around for a while now, it is still developing and is a relatively new way for firms to target customers and provide a channel for people to engage with an advertisement.

This work is already being done by AR specialists like Total Immersion. It works with companies like Coca Cola, 20th Century Fox, Boeing and even the United States Army to create advertisements designed to break through the clutter and get customers attention.

Myles Peyton, sales director of Total Immersion, said: "We are looking towards hockey stick growth in this market.

"It is all about looking at how to use Augmented Reality, whether it is in a PowerPoint presentation, advertising or office technology you will be seeing this technology."

AR includes things like QR codes and smartphone apps such as Layar. Both of these encourage users to interact by drawing them in to a new experience.

QR codes can be accessed using the camera on any smartphone. The code either directs consumers to a website or superimposes a 3D image over the real world being displayed on the smartphones screen.

Apps like Layar do much the same thing, except they use a person's location to augment specific data without the need for any sort of QR code.

Peyton said Layar is only the start. Soon there will be other apps that allow customers to interact with products and services.

"Something I can envisage is Augmented Reality on the move. Like in newspapers and on billboards where customers can just point and shoot to engage.

"That creates a bridge between the advertisements and reality," Peyton said.

While the technology is complicated, the application is simple.

AR allows businesses to target advertising, make it location specific and encourage customers to interact with both their products and their brand.

That will make it an increasingly important part of any future marketing and advertising campaigns.

This is a guest blog post written by Matthew Barker. He is a managing partner at Hit Riddle, an internet marketing consultancy specialising in the travel industry.

Online marketing trends for 2011

2011 will see some interesting new developments in the tools and platforms available to travel marketers. And provided they're used well, they could help many firms make the most from a recovering market.

Google Places, review sites & local search

A big issue for 2011 will be Google Places, already causing web marketers a headache for its impact on Google's search results pages, but potentially a strong tool for locally or regionally-focused travel businesses.

If local business is in any way important to your company, you need a Google Places profile and you need it now. The leverage this tool offers will only become more important, giving you a chance to (literally) put yourself on the map, as well as add photos, opening times, product descriptions, customer reviews and more.

But it doesn't stop at Google Places. There are a growing number of review sites and directories that run on a similar level. Yelp is an obvious one, Yahoo Local is another contender, Insider Pages, CitySearch, and so on. Not all of these will be appropriate or useful for every travel business but the fact remains, as local search takes centre stage in 2011, if you don't have a presence here then you're missing out on the conversation.

"Smart" emails & deals

Just about any travel business has a mailing list and sends some form of email to its clients. Email marketing is one of the die-hards of online marketing but given its reputation as a stalwart, it is surprising how many brands aren't using it to its full advantage.

The key is in segmenting your databases to ensure you're only sending relevant messages to clients. Most email marketing applications include a system for subscribers to self-categorise themselves, according to their interests. Use that and tailor your messages to each group. Your open and click rates will increase and the number of leads will rise.

People are still feeling the economic pinch, and developing smart and compelling deals will be pivotal in 2011.

Mobile browsing

The irresistible rise of mobile browsing will continue to boom in 2011, increasing the importance of mobile optimized sites and the use of travel apps. Not every business has the capacity to jump on the app bandwagon but as a minimum it is important that websites are navigable from mobile devices and, if you're considering a site redesign in 2011, making sure it is also optimised for mobile is a must.

As a bare minimum make sure that product pages and vital information are viewable and make sure your contact information and contact forms are functional.

SEO v.2.0

Search engine optimization is another old horse in the world of online marketing but my guess is that 2011 will see a step change in the way we think about SEO, largely due to the integration of social media signals into traditional search results.

This process has huge implications for search marketers and the key is to get integrated now while the process is just beginning. Implementing Facebook's Open Graph Protocol is a good idea, especially on your core pages. This will integrate your pages within the Facebook universe and set you up for long-term visibility to Facebook's booming network.

Twitter feeds are now displayed on Google's results pages, giving us another opportunity to increase our search visibility. Finally, YouTube, as the web's second biggest search tool, is perfect for agencies with budgets for quality video production.

I expect that online marketers throughout the travel business will be exploiting all of the above this year, hopefully helping to cement the industry's recovery following a difficult couple of years.