From Social to Viral

Digital 3.0 Strategies for Attracting Today’s Traveler

Michael Terpin, CEOSocialRadius

PhocusWright Conference

Hollywood, Florida, November 16, 2011

Digital 3.0: Broadband and mobile converge. Top social networks become platforms. Social and interest graphs converge. Social, traditional and viral media interact and

expand in real time, blur. Mobile apps + location-based tracking + social

sharing + “interest graph” + real-time Web = Information Osmosis

Broadband and mobile convergence. More, better devices untether the average user,

adding far more time per day online. Fast, mobile access means anyone generate

content quickly.New class of overlay social networks (Foursquare,

Instagram) emerges based on location data, photos/videos and social sharing.

Digital 3.0

Social networks become platforms. Facebook’s 800 million members become lion’s

share of any third-party user base. Google has unique ability to entice new social

network users through search and email. API integration of real-time data lights a new fire

into once-static websites. Connect on the way in… share on the way out.

Digital 3.0

Social and interest graphs converge. Existing interest-graph networks (e.g., Yelp,

TripAdvisor) have added Facebook integration (or more) to connect social and interest graphs.

Every added verification factor will increase bookings.

Social connection (accountability) plus domain expertise (credibility) combined make for powerful trust in a recommendation.

Digital 3.0

Social, traditional and viral media interact, expand in real time, blur.

Digital 3.0

Information Osmosis

= SOCIAL graph

= SOCIAL graph + INTEREST graph

= SOCIAL graph + INTEREST graph + location-based mobile data

Digital 3.0

Social ReferenceControl and manage your own social media profiles and presence.

Thought LeadershipCreate and distribute your unique message.

Blogger OutreachEngage and influence thought leaders, journalists & enthusiasts.

Social Network ActivationBuild, engage and leverage current and prospective constituents.

ViralityTap into crowd dynamics to build rapidly outside your own networks.

Five Pillars of Social Media Marketing

Own as much of your top 10 in Google as possible: Travel industry are easily hijacked by black-hat

SEO. Owned media is first way to fight back. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn profiles Your own blog (or blogs) Guest blog posts, profiles in company websites. News, reviews, press releases.

Observe and manage your presence on Wikipedia. Use, but don’t abuse, social news & bookmarking.

The First Pillar: Social Reference

Create and distribute unique messages designed to impact your audience.

Build a following in sync with your destination, property, brand. Create alliances with other thought leaders. Influence SEO with “off page” tactics. This is less expensive, more effective than retail SEM. Move negative posts off front page of Google. Reverse direct marketing: best prospects find you.

The Second Pillar: Thought Leadership

The Third Pillar: Blogger Outreach

Engage and influence thought leaders & enthusiasts. Create “earned media” from bottom up strategy, tactics. Show other thought leaders your innovations, findings

first. Coax enthusiasts to link to your offers with contests. Create relationships across all categories of bloggers. Done well, blogger outreach will be your best SEO, as

well as serve as a bridge between PR and promotion.

Editorial Blogs

Thought Leaders & Enthusiasts

Personal Diaries

Blogosphere Influencer Pyramid ™

Blogger Outreach

Though leaders provide credibility… …Enthusiasts provide access and energy .

Mommy bloggersFashion bloggersBeauty bloggersTravel bloggers come in many categories.

Thought leaders seek access to information and understanding. Enthusiasts want cool stuff to share with their readers.

Though Leaders vs. Enthusiasts

TT E

Clearstone Venture Partners managing director William Quigley was well respected among his fellow VCs, but was relatively invisible on the global stage. SocialRadius built a blog and Twitter presence for Quigley, then released a carefully edited Power Point to showcase his vision of the future of venture capital.

William Quigley: Establishing Global Conversation QUICKLY through a Thought Leadership BOMB…

SocialRadius leveraged posts in VentureBeat and TechCrunch into a rapid cascade of media coverage in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BusinessWeek, Reuters and a profile in Barrons. In less than two months, the PowerPoint was downloaded 300,000 times.

Case Study Thought Leadership

Case Study: Bombay Sapphire – Blogger Brand Excitement“Spirit of Exploration” adventure blog was created to coincide with integrated marketing campaign, including extensive print ads and contests.

Invited bloggers to participate in contest, defining their personal “Spirit of Exploration” and to cover and compete for an exotic trip to Skybar in Thailand.

Within one month of launch, more than 100 bloggers participated, more than 40,000 entered the contest - and the competition blog had over 1 million unique visits.

Blogger Outreach: EnthusiastsCase Study

EcoMom – Turning Endorsement into E-CommerceEcoMom is an e-commerce site for healthy, sustainable products for babies and young children.

Targeting mommy blogs for product reviews, giveaways and contests led to massive exposure, traffic and direct sales.

Concurrently, more than 70 percent of EcoMom’s sales come directly from links on blogs.

Blogger Outreach + Thought Leadership Case Study

The Fourth Pillar: Social Networks

Every social network is different. They all have different rules – and different paths to influence and monetization.

Each nation has its own “hot” network (and they continue to change frequently).

Facebook owns B2C, Twitter owns microblogging; both will be challenged by Google+.

LinkedIn remains the king of B2B in US, Xing in EU. All social networks can be tracked with off-network

metrics, including short URLs (bit.ly, tinyurl). The rules of the community rule: it’s their sandbox.

Social networks are not just idle chatter.

Social network activity is highly trackable, including links and conversions to e-commerce

Landing pages, offers and messaging can be tested just as rigorously in social media as direct mail, email TV and radio (or even more…).

Recommendations for travel from friends outperform search – 38% of international tourists rely on recommendations v. 22% relied on Web (including search). *

* Source: TRAVELSAT Global Benchmarking Survey, 2011

The Fourth Pillar: Social Networks

Largest global social network (as large as entire Internet user base in 2004).

Highly engaged users (more traffic than Google) Facebook has little impact on search engines. Fan pages have no limit on friends, profiles do. Events, Causes, Groups can be powerful

marketing tools. Get into the newsfeed. It’s the new email. Most companies do not need an “app.” Pay attention to the rapid changes.

Facebook: Key Facts for the Online Marketer

Twitter just passed 100 million ACTIVE users. Sponsored tweets will mainly impact big brands. Travel industry continues to embrace Twitter, yet

engagement varies wildly. Far more predictable growth than Facebook or

YouTube, yet even viral tweets don’t build followings 1:1.

Relevant following is key. What does your following actually do once they follow you?

Twitter: Rapid Growth, Constant Change

Establish authority first with information, engagement. Don’t just sell – earn market share by giving (content,

discounts). Drive users to many places, not just the same order

page. Track everything obsessively:

Follower to follow ratio Tweet to retweet ratio Speed of follower growth Test offers by time, etc.

Twitter: Best Practices for Online Marketers

Presence for presence sake (all hat, no cattle). Spammy behavior (repeated offers, mass following). Inappropriate use of DM on Twitter (DM). Aggressive, inappropriate use of hashtags. Not tracking or testing e-commerce links. Stale information: stay current, relevant. Not tailoring conversations toward influencers. Oversharing, particularly of irrelevant information. Reposting the same message in multiple networks. Improper mix of content and engagement.

Twitter and Facebook: Top 10 Mistakes

Relevant engagement by interest, keyword. Event marketing. Driving Twitter followers to Facebook. Build new followings in niche networks. Time-based offers. Integrating loyalty efforts with social. Create new location-based opportunities. Channeling online influence to offline opportunities. Utilizing social networks for co-op marketing. Fine-tune listening into proactive marketing.

Twitter and Facebook: Top 10 Opportunities

Not everything deserves to go viral. Content & context are most important assets in

virality. Online video is the best, but not only, viral content.

Slideshare can take Power Points viral. Blogger outreach remains the best launching pad

Viral marketing happened before social marketing. Email was original viral app (Dancing Baby, Hotmail). Viral can be planned, but at the phenomenon level still

requires “the perfect storm” (just like a PR campaign or marketing stunt).

The Fifth Pillar: Virality

Case Study: ‘Yes We Can’ Create a Viral Sensation• Recorded January 30-31, 2008• Released February 1-2• 3 million views in 72 hours • 47 million views within three weeks• Tiered outreach to bloggers and

NO traditional media outreach created a media frenzy

(500 mm impressions)• Six articles in New York Times• CNN/Larry King• CNBC, Inside Edition, E, ET, Today Show• This Week with George Stephanopoulos• Campaign won Emmy, Global Media Award, Cannes Golden Lion and Webby awards.

Case Study Viral Video

The Five Pillars in Motion

Social Reference

Thought Leadership

Blogger Outreach

Virality

Social Networks

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Michael Terpin, Founder and CEODirect: 310-862-6312

michael@socialradius.comTwitter: @michaelterpin, Google+: +michaelterpinwww.socialradius.com

Los Angeles: 1237A Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, CA 90401SF Bay Area: 100 Pine St., 10th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111New York City: 419 Park Ave. South, New York, NY 10016Las Vegas: 3277 E. Warm Springs Road, #200, Las Vegas, NV 89120