Post on 19-Jun-2015
description
Travel 2.0How the educational travel industry can profit from Web 2.0Tim O’Neill, Managing Directorwww.reactive.com
Web 2.0 can help you…
Reach your audience
Convert them into customers
Providing a better
experience
Build customer loyalty
And it can do this cheaply, and easily.
1. Reaching your audience
Start your own blog
- great for SEO- free blog software:
- Blogger- Typepad- Wordpress
- you need to be committed!
Personalise your blog
-redesign your blog to match your site-commercialise your blog traffic-integrate product offers & deals
Branded utilities
- widgets and gadgets- can help to create goodwill, and promote your brand
- can have a ‘viral’ effect- but need to stand out from the crowd
Customer review sites
- TripAdvisor, TravelPost, VibeAgent
- post an accurate listing- read what your customers are saying
- respond to negative comments, when appropriate
- constantly improve your products!
2. Converting into customers
Create a Flickr group
- upload photos of your hostel, happy customers, destinations etc
- encourage staff and customers to do the same
- show a real and personal side your business
Create a YouTube group
- encourage your staff, students and travellers to create and submit videos
- provide incentives or prizes- repurpose existing video- a very cost-effective way to include video in your site
Produce new video content
- well produced video can act as a great conversion tool
- www.mgmgrand.com - video is more cost-effective than ever
Mash-ups
- mash-ups with Google Maps are popular
- cost-effective: no need to create your own map functionality
- normally use an ‘API’ from a 3rd party
- Could you offer any APIs from your site?
Start Twittering
- twitter is ‘micro-blogging’ (140 characters or less)
- tour leaders could twitter while travelling
- give site visitors a real insight into what a trip is like
3. Maintaining loyalty & keeping in touch
Offer free tools
- STA Travel blogs gives travellers free blogging, photo and video tools
- uses software from Off Exploring
- great for maintaining loyalty- can offer personalised advertising based on habits / content
Create a Facebook Group
- if you offer group travel, encourage and foster a community
- this allows your customers to keep in contact, and hopefully repeat-book
- lead by example, have trip leaders post regularly
Mobile / SMS
- collect mobile numbers, keep in contact with SMS
- consider providing a mobile version of your site
- iPhone and BlackBerry offer Web browsers, customisation can be easy
Monitor the blogosphere
- see what people are blogging about your brand
- consider engaging with conversations
- don’t pretend to be someone you’re not!
Photo by Jake Wild
Web 3.0 and the Symantec Web
- create web pages that can be read by machines, not just people
- this allows any content to be ‘mashed-up’ in different ways
- E.g. doppler.com and hakia.com
tim.oneill@reactive.comwww.reactive.com
Contact us for a free appraisal of how Web 2.0 can benefit your business *
* Offer valid to BETA members only, for month of October 2008