Big Attraction Group Meeting

Using Social Media

About Fox Communications

Established in 2001 as a PR and marketing consultancy.

Worked with numerous clients on the media relations side of PR.

Involved in the digital side of marketing since the beginning and therefore began to specialise in online PR and later social media.

Now works with many organisations in both the PR/Online PR sectors and in social media strategy and campaigns.

Social media is all about conversations – usually instant! Hence the requirement for a background in PR and solid experience in marketing. The difference between success and failure can be small so always ensure that anyone responsible for social media agency knows:

What to say, how much to say and what not to say. And also how to say it and how not to say it!

Social Media is…..

“Communicating over the web and using new technology to effectivelycommunicate with stakeholders” Source: CIPR website 2007

We believe that it enables us to:

LISTEN to our customers and potential customers in ways never previously possible

ENGAGE with multiple stakeholders (online customers/partners/influencers) in relevant and interesting ways

IDENTIFY those that influence others and the issues related to our organisation and sectors

MEASURE outputs and outcomes of our engagements

Social Media is…..

Forums and blogs

Social Media is…..

Podcasts

Social Media is…..

Social Networks

Social Media is…..

Social Media is…..

Social Media is…..

Visit York

We initiated a dedicated social media campaign that utilised both Twitter and Facebook.

Firstly for the 4 for 3 / 3 for 2 Nights Accommodation Offers Campaign, and then the Shop and the City Campaign.

Facebook – Visit York

www.facebook.com/visityork

Fans/Likes

Fans at 06/12/090 fans.

Fans at 16/05/10615 fans (or Likes!)

Facebook – Visit York

Facebook - some random quotes from Fan interactions on www.facebook.com/visityork

“Plenty of pubs with snugs full of fireplaces too! :)”

“Love York shopping!!”

“How did the Tourism Awards go last night? Who won? We're very intrigued at Live&Love York Magazine!”

“Fabulous place York.....I have been there once but found it magical......will go back again hopefully soon !

“Haha, Duttons for Buttons! Super nomination. Sheer nostalgia. As for me, it stands between The Cat Gallery in Stonegate and The Blake Head Bookshop in Micklegate. I must say in later months I would add the Chinese supermarket in George Hudson Street...”

“Watching everyone enjoy ice creams on the tour bus while sitting in exhibition square on my lunch break”

Twitter – Visit York

Visit York on Twitter

11/12/09: 418 followers

Latest – 17/05/10: 1,095 followers

Increase of 677 followers throughout campaign The Visit York Twitter account now appears on 73 lists

Visit York has now made 1,334 tweets!

Twitter – Visit York

Visit York on Twitter - some comments from followers

@VisitBritainNDC RT @VisitYork Come racing in York. The Dante Festival, York Racecourse. http://bit.ly/cYAsn2

@GeminiCloud9 @VisitYork Just watched Visit York mini break film and definitely returning again this year!

@RobinHoodPark Check out @visityork 's video for ideas of great things to do while staying with us. York has something for everyone whatever the weather!   

@ScenicDrives RT @VisitYork: Great sunset shot of York http://bit.ly/aDkHYa

@Thecookingrooms  @VisitYork El Gaucho on Walmgate is definitely up there. Ate there on Tuesday night and it took us back to Buenos Aires.

@MarkyMarkGilroy @VisitYork FAR too many to choose from!! Blue Bicycle, The Biltmore and Nineteen are all up there. Heard great things about Ate O'Clock too.

Visit York - how social media can influence

The Shambles won the Google Street View Most Picturesque Street Award.

The second we heard about the nominations for York streets, we began spreading word on Twitter and Facebook, asking people to vote for the nominated York streets and providing the link for them to do so.

The request was also passed on virally and will have no doubt increased the vote significantly. This is a perfect example of the speed and power of social media.

When it won, we announced the news instantly – which was also spread around like wildfire - via re-tweets and posts.

Visit York - how social media can influence

Listening and responding.

Via Twitter we saw a post from an IT consultant who wished to organise an international conference in York but was encountering resistance from foreign delegates who didn’t know much about York.

He tweeted us for help and this resulted in him meeting up with Visit York staff which in turn led to him booking the international conference.

The nature of social networks is that people are far more likely to interact. They don’t need to phone, find the correct email address or visit. A presence in social media means that we’re there and available in a way not previously possible.

What’s New?

So, what’s around the corner in social media, the next big thing?

Well YouTube has been around for five years now but experts predict its phenomenal growth will not just continue, but explode!

“Video sharing website YouTube now gets more than two billion hits daily”.

“Every single minute, over 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube”.

Sources: BBC News, May 17, 2010. YouTube Fact Sheet, May 2010

YouTube – an under-exploited resource

Here’s a tip. If you want your videos to be found and viewed, play the game. Optimisation helps your video get discovered in YouTube search results

YouTube

A major part of getting your videos found and viewed is simply through the clever use of headlines, descriptions and tags.

Help your videos be discovered in search results and ‘Related Videos’

• Title: 120 characters– Think of your title as a headline– If you include brand name in title, it should go last

• Description: 5,000 characters– Be as detailed as possible (short of entire transcript)– Include URLs (with http://) to Playlist or website

• Tags: 120 characters– Be as detailed as possible– Include: Brand, city, topics

Source: YouTube Partner Help Centre

Source: YouTube Search, May 7, 2010

YouTube

Why so important?

We work with specialists in YouTube optimisation and here’s an example of the results they achieved with a client who run an online travel video channel.

On YouTube the travel client in question had received 1,510 total views in eight months.

In the next 100 days, they received 116,905 total views.

It really works!

Another benefit: In April, external links to the client site grew from under 1,000 to over 2,500.

Incredible for SEO purposes.

Foursquare

What is it?

It’s a location-based social network that combines your friends, location and status, meaning it allows you to tell your friends where you are and what you’re doing.

The interesting thing about Foursquare is that this happens in a pseudo-game format. When you check-in at places – such as your Attraction - you receive points. After multiple check-ins, you earn badges. And you can see how many points you have in comparison to your friends.

It’s mainly based around mobile so it’s ideal for catching visitors on the move

Foursquare Five Tips to Get Started and Use Foursquare

1.   Add Your Business

2.  Add Friends - Like any social network, you need people to communicate with. 

3.  Get Active - Check in each day.  Add “Shouts” (profile updates) relevant to what’s going on.  Events coming up?  Promotions? Check into other locations as well. Don’t just promote yourself. This is a good way to see what other businesses are doing – and who’s in their network!

4.  Add Tips - You can add “tips” in locations.  Add information, promotions and events. What about car parking info around your attraction? Anything useful.

5.  Reward Those Who Check In - You should be rewarding Foursquare users who check into your business.  Because you will be checking into your business each day, you’re likely to be the mayor fairly quickly.  So aim your promotions to anyone who checks in, not just the mayor.

Foursquare

Is it worth it?

It’s amazing how fast a social network can catch on. Foursquare was mentioned heavily at the SXSW conference in Texas and in the ten days that followed, 100,000 users signed up. Some call it a fad that will fade - but remember, that’s what they said about Twitter and Facebook!

Why is social media so important?

Using social media properly has many advantages – here’s just four for starters:

PR – it’s a powerful and instant PR channel. It works both ways. E.g. Conduct a survey on Facebook and you’ve got an instant story.

User value – you’re providing great information and entertainment for your customers – what’s not to like?! Plus they feel valued as it’s way for them to provide feedback and get questions answered.

Market Research – You’ve got a ready made market research team at your disposal. Find out what customers like and dislike. Gauge demand, ask for ideas.

Search Engine Optimisation – keywords and links on social networks referring to your site will boost search engine rankings. This can be incredibly important.

There are some great examples of organisations really pushing the envelope in social media – let’s look at these now

Some ideas for you

There are some great examples of organisations really pushing the envelope in social media

A topical example is The National Trust. When the volcano dust cloud was at its peak and most flights in the UK were cancelled, they began Tweeting this: “Stuck in the UK? We're giving stranded tourists free entry to our places (show us your passport & delayed plane ticket) http://bit.ly/bygeH7”

This actually led to some offline coverage in the nationals thus proving that PR can work twoways in social media

Let’s take a look at some others now

Great examples

Warwick Castle - The Grand Scream of Things

“Warwick Castle: The Castle Dungeon at Warwick Castle is celebrating its first birthday - we're looking for your screams, big and small! Simply post the video on our wall and the video with the most likes by the competition closing date, wins £1000!”

Not only is a great way to attract followers, it gets them to interact with the brand and creates compelling user generated content. As well as Facebook activity, it creates great and free content for their YouTube channel.

Great examples

Tourism Queensland – Best Job in the World

Tourism Queensland wished to launch a new brand (the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef) into eight key international markets. It began marketing a job vacancy for ‘Island Caretaker’.

Initially job ads were placed on and offline, driving people to an engaging website. It then gathered user-generated content (video job Applications) and supported the interactive campaign with a presence on social networking sites. PR went ballistic, both on and offline and it is estimated that it the campaign was seen, in one form or other, by over 3 billion people.

Great examples

TATE – Tate Tracks Campaign

Campaign aimed at attracting traditionally hard to reach 16-24yr old audience to visit the gallery – through a relevant, appealing medium – MUSIC

Relevant musicians were invited to visit the Tate Modern and select a piece of art to inspire a new piece of music...

12 artists participated including:

-Basement Jaxx-Chemical Brothers-Klaxons

Great examples

TATE – Tate Tracks Campaign

The 12 x tracks were made available to listen to in Tate Modern only, and a month later downloadable via the Tate Tracks micro site

-Then, a campaign was launched through MySpace to find the 13th track...

-The campaign encouraged young musicians (16-24yrs) to submit tracks based on a piece of art at Tate Modern – encouraging friends and family to vote for their work

-Finally a shortlist of 20 tracks was open to public vote on the Tate Tracks micro site

-This is estimated to have exposed the Tate brand to 2 million people.

Great examples

TATE – Tate Tracks Campaign

Great examples

Metropolitan Museum of Art – ‘It’s Time we MET’ Campaign

Campaign launched in Feb . It asked visitors to the museum’s permanent collection to photograph their experience, and then enter a competition on Flickr for a chance to be part of the gallery’s next advertising campaign.

(NOTE – Most museum’s DO NOT allow photography)

-There were 999 images submitted – of which, two were chosen to form part of the next advertising campaign

- The majority of submitted images were STRONG because they are REAL experiences from REAL people

Great examples

Metropolitan Museum of Art – ‘It’s Time we MET’ Campaign

Great examples

Royal Opera House, London – Twitter Opera

An Opera performance is not normally that accessible a medium and its audience is greying. To attract new audiences, it devised a project that appealed to creative individuals.

The Royal Opera House invited people to tweet contributions to the plot to @youropera

They provided a starting point of: “One morning, very early, a man and a woman were standing, arm-in-arm, in London’s Covent Garden. The man turned to the woman and he sang…”

-Over 900 people composed the final piece-1,000 people turned up to view the final 20 minute opera

-“actually watchable, listenable and rather funny,” Opera critic at the Daily Telegraph

Great examples

Royal Opera House, London – Twitter Opera

Remember - Social Media isn’t…

The answer to all your marketing prayers

It takes a lot of work and a lot of time to become effective and for it to work for you.It can help all other forms of marketing but it does not work in isolation.

It should be:

IntegratedPR ledCommittedLong-termConsistent

Not to mention engaging, interesting, two-way, entertaining, different, amusing, viral, informative, playful, helpful…..you get the picture

How should we join in?

When promoting online, think in categories:

•Listen and Monitor

•Research

•Promote Yourself

•Keep the channels open at problem times

Always remember:TransparencyHonestyObjectivesTimely responses

Don’t forget to include references to your social networks on all your marketing communications. E.g. ‘Follow Us on Twitter’, ‘Join us on Facebook’. ‘See our YouTube channel’. To get people to engage with you on social networks, you need to get them there in the first place - and the offline method is often neglected.

It’s great but how do we Measure?

Clear objectives – what to measure and what will be useful?

Buzz and sentiment – not just numbers. This is where monitoring and listening come in. 30 new followers in one morning? Big deal.

What if 20 people that morning were complaining about your attraction’s customer service? That’s a big deal. That’s more useful for you to know than numbers. Stay alert as to what people are saying about you; it’s great for improving your offering and ironing out problems – and it can even avert a potential crisis.

Check out software such as Meltwater Buzz

Measurement

Web analytics – when measuring, remember to use tools such as Google Analytics. You need to know the effect social media is having upon your main web site. You can also see exactly what has proved successful, and what hasn’t.

Other signs – don’t forget to count and consider conversations, downloads, video views and comments, competition entries, Re-Tweets, Likes, referring URL visits, page impressions, visit times, influential followers, Interactions, Organic SE positioning, in-bound links, Fan photos and videos, etc. etc.

It’s not just about number of Fans and Followers!

I’ll tell you a story

Single most important thing to take away?

Integrate. Social media only works if it’s part of the bigger picture.

It’s part and parcel of PR today and will amplify your efforts. It’s powerful and immediate and can work well with your advertising, promotions, direct marketing and every single other aspect of your marketing.

It can even help with your recruitment!

Social media isn’t difficult, think of it as telling your story.

Treat each medium differently, but ensure it embodies your Attraction’s personality. Consider how to utilise it so that it will spread your stories in the most effective way.

Have fun – it will show!