FreshNetworks Blog

If you’re based in London you probably know the disruption and frustration caused when there is a strike on the Tube – especially more so as the strikes are often timed to cause maximum impact on journeys to and from work. If you are based out of London you probably care less. But for all people the current strike that started today is a good example of how broadcasters are using social media both as an information source but also as a broadcast medium.

BBC London News (@BBCLondonNews) has been using Twitter for some time as a source information, comment and research for pieces. Most notably through certain reporters such as Matt Cooke (@MattCooke_UK) who have built a presence on Twitter. This is a common use of social media among news organisations, and we wrote last year about the benefits (and challenges) of user-generated news. But with this Tube Strike, BBC London News are doing some things different and truly experimenting with social media.

The are of course doing the basics – they are using and promoting the #TubeStrike hashtag, and reporters such as Cooke are sharing information, photos and retweeting other comments about the strike. They are sourcing photos through social media and sourcing stories and information about the strikes and the impact on commuters the same way.

Perhaps more exciting, however, is how they are then presenting this information back to people and how they are using social media to broadcast information and news about the strike.

The BBC is experimenting with social media to map and report on the tube strike and the impact it is having: the London Tube Strike Map. As with other such maps, they are plotting information shared on Twitter using the #TubeStrike hashtag, and they are also including audioboos with the same tag. But where they are leveraging the reach and power of the BBC is to combine these social media sources with more traditional sources – you can submit information by text, email and by filling in a form on the site too.

This is a simple tool but can be an effective one and its use will become more obvious as we enter the second day of the strikes and more content is added. What BBC London is doing is experimenting with different ways of both sourcing and then presenting information and news. It is using social media in the way that many of its viewers are doing and providing them a real service. We already know that many people will be using Twitter as a search engine to find out information about how their journey to work is being affected by the strike. BBC London is bringing this information together in one place and, perhaps critically, combining it with information it sources from other places.

Organisations like the BBC should be experimenting with social media where there is a clear benefit for their audience of doing this. If it works and attracts a sizeable and relevant audience then they can develop these tools and experiments to enhance the news and travel coverage they currently provide. With the London Tube Strike Map they are moving beyond sourcing information and research through social media, to using it as an integral part of their reporting and information provision. If the experiment works it could provide a model for how news organisations can provide such information in the future.

View the London Tube Strike Map

I wrote previously about how social media is changing travel, comparing a journey I have just taken traveling across the Balkans and Greece with a trip I took 15 years ago across Western Europe. The rise of social media has changed the way we travel. It has given us new opportunities to help plan our travel, and to help us whilst we are en route. It helps us choose hotels and restaurant, to see what others have experienced and to keep in touch and give real time reviews whilst we are travelling. And many travel and leisure companies are planning their social media strategy to help them capitalise on this change in consumer behaviour.

Having just returned from the trip, I can report that social media has helped to change how we travel whilst we are on holiday as well as in the planning phase. The use of reviews and forums to help choose locations is common to many of us. Using social media in real time as a travel assistant is less so.

Social media as a real time travel resource

We are very used to social media as a tool to help choose and plan travel. To help learn what others thought of particular hotels, restaurants or venues. And to learn about what there is to do and see in different destinations. But social media as a real-time travel resource is developing. Whilst away in Greece, I saw how this could work best. Using Twitter, I posted a picture on Twitter of where I was and what I was doing. A few minutes later I had a response recommending a place to eat – a place that was not touristy but full only of Greeks, and that I wouldn’t have found at all without this piece of advice.

Of course, it helped that my friend, @AJBradburn, works in the travel industry and has lived across Greece. But it did mean that I had perhaps the best meal of my trip thanks to advice I got in real time on Twitter. An experience I would not have had without social media.

How Foursquare could become the ultimate travel companion

Perhaps the most useful social media tool when I was Foursquare. And in an unexpected way.

I have often thought that the greatest value you can get from Foursquare is not in gaining Mayorships or points, but in leaving reviews and information around a town for others to pick up. Then, when I’m in a new town looking for a place to eat or drink, I could just switch on Foursquare and find somewhere to go based on the tips (or reviews) left by others).

When I was travelling I did this for the first time, with much success. Travelling in relatively less well-travelled places (including Bosnia and Serbia), I was surprised to find quite so much activity on Foursquare. But using it I was able to find bars and restaurants, read reviews and even find other information, including the passwords for various cafe wifi access, based on the tips left by other users. This was incredibly useful, and after benefiting from these tips I was even prompted to leave my own. Including for the bar that was recommended for me in Athens.

There is a real opportunity for Foursquare to become a valuable resource for travellers and for others looking for reviews of venues near where they are. This would be particularly useful for those visiting new places or new areas of town. When you want to find places near where you are and read reviews of them.

Of course this is not necessarily what Foursquare was designed to do and there are some changes that would help to make it more useful as a review site like this. Notably it would be good to improve the ability to search for venues. It would be great if I could search for venues before I visit a town and then favourite ones I want to try out. Then, when I’m on location, I could look at my favourites on a map and visit them.

Also, as Foursquare grows it will become important that I can filter tips. In a city such as Sarajevo there are not that many bars recommended on Foursquare. In London there will be hundreds (if not thousands). I will only be interested in certain reviews and those from certain reviewers – usually people that I consider to be ‘people like me’. An ability for Foursquare to learn what I like and what I do and then tailor recommendations based on this will add significant value to the service.

Of course, the first stage will be to encourage more people to leave tips. Foursquare is not about becoming Mayor of a local venue. It is about you sharing the best of what is in your town with others. And it is about you being able to tap into local knowledge when you are on location. Or it will be if it becomes and more user-friendly resource for this type of knowledge exchange.

Image via Wikipedia

I am about to embark on a trip alone across Europe overland – mainly by train. It’s almost 15 years since I last made a similar trip. Many things have changes over this period – I’m older, have travelled a lot more and am now more likely to stay in hotels than camp rough – but the biggest change is the way that social media is helping me do things I could never do back then. On that first trip, I had no mobile phone and not even an email address. Now I have many tools at my disposal to help plan and do more.

1. Planning the trip

Then: 15 years ago my only planning tool were two big books – a set of European train timetables that I had to pour over to check if I could get from one place to another, and a Western European guidebook. I couldn’t find out anything about the journeys I might take except for when the trains would be, and I risked falling into the trap of only going to places in the guidebook. I could only plan, not book, and I put my faith in some timetables and 0ne guidebook.

Now: I have bought some guidebooks – but only for cities that I am planning to spend a lot of time in. My main planning tools this time have been online – a mix of more traditional tools (including the fantastic European train directory at The Man in Seat Sixty-One) to reviews sites (such as Tripadvisor), individual forums and blogs about certain destinations and even Twitter and Flickr. I’ve been able to research the different options, discover places I would never have found about in guidebooks and even check things such as what the overnight trains I am getting look like, what people say about them on Twitter and use these user reviews and images to decide when I want to travel in a seat, when in a couchette and when it is worth paying extra for a sleeper compartment.

2. Keeping people informed

Then: Without a mobile phone or email address the only way I could keep people informed was by finding a public phone box and calling home. I had an unwritten agreement that I would call home every five days to let people know where I was. I had left a rough plan with them and that was it. I don’t know, but I imagine there were some worried moments when I missed my planned call as I had to choose between queuing for a phone at a station in Rome and jumping on the train that evening to Sicily (I chose the latter!).

Now: This is an area of real change. Not only do I have a plan that some people can see on TripIt, but social media and mobile internet means I can inform individuals but also anybody who is interested in what I am doing, seeing and experiencing. And where I am. Twitter will let me update people in real time, tell them where I am and even share photos of what I am doing and seeing (if you’re interested you can follow me @mattrhodes). Foursquare is a great tool to allow me to quickly and easily share exactly where I am – the hotel, restaurant, station or beach I am on. People back home will know what I am doing and will be able to share the experiences I am having.

3. Keeping myself entertained

Then: On long train journeys and overnight you need ways to keep yourself entertained and distracted. Back then I had a MiniDisc player and a set of compilations I’d put together before I went. I had some books and then had to rely on meeting people who knew of things to do and things that were on in the destinations I visited. Or I had to rely on myself stumbling upon them – which once found me in a hard rock festival in Hungary…

Now: I’m still taking a lot of books, but rather than making my own compilations I am taking Spotify – and am crowd-sourcing a playlist so I can hear things I wouldn’t normally listen to. If you want to add some tracks to my list find it here: Make Matt a holiday playlist. I can use Twitter to find out what is on in destinations and what people think of them.

So what does this mean for the travel industry?

Social media is changing the way we travel. The way we plan, the way we book, the way we act when we are travelling and the way we report on it (in real-time and after the event). We are using review sites to book hotels and events. We are using Twitter and Flickr to find out what people really think of places we are going to or things we are going to do. We are using these same tools to report, often in real time, on what we are experiencing.

In this environment those in the travel industry need to take social media seriously, and find ways to make it work hard for them and their brand. They should be listening to what people are saying about them, their destinations and services and about their competitors. They should be identifying their advocates and dealing with those who are less positive about them online. They should use their experience and expertise to add real value to the discussions and debates in social media. And they should capitalise on the real-time discussions and reviews to showcase what people think of them, and also to start to service people in social media.

We’ve blogged before about how the travel industry can use social media and it is one of the industries where social media can make a real impact on a brand and a business. Right now, I am just grateful for the way social media has made planning and reporting on my travels much easier than 15 years ago – follow me to find out what I think of the places I visit!

One sector that is really embracing social media is the travel and leisure industry. And it is an industry well suited to social media and online communities – people share an experience or situation and this provides a reason for them to connect and engage with each other (and with a brand). We have seen some great uses commercially from companies like Marriott and InterContinental and Expedia but social media really works well in the travel and leisure industry when it is used in real time. In the latest FreshNetworks Video, Matt Rhodes describes three areas where this works well:

1. For customer service – Social media is a great customer service tool – not only does it allow you to connect with and engage customers online, but it also means that when you solve one query you do so publicly for all to see and for all to share. This winter I was skiing in the French Alps this winter when snow back in the UK  caused a halt to most of the flights leaving Geneva for London. I knew that Easyjet were using Twitter, but rather than tweet them myself to ask if my flight was going I saw that somebody else already asked the question and I could see the response. Saving me from having to ask the question and Easyjet the hassle of having to respond to the same question multiple times.
2. For real time experience capture – Social media is quick and easy making it the perfect media for allowing people to express the way they are feeling in the moment, which does not always come through if you are writing a review after the experience has finished.
3. For real time information sharing – Holidays and stays don’t always got to plan and things change: the weather, the times, the traffic etc and so social media is great for being able to transmit information in real time.

See our video post on Social media in the travel and leisure industry below.

According to a recent report in Travel Mole, the travel and tourism industry is facing a social media revolution.

The Social Travel Report, carried out by independent media agency Total Media, has found that almost 70% of consumers surveyed use the internet to book their holidays, compared to 23% by phone and just 8% in-store with travel agents.

Those seeking to go away on a break trust complete strangers more than recommendations from the travel industry itself, and most British holidaymakers see the internet as an extension of the word-of-mouth recommendations they receive from friends and family.

Online reviews on social networking sites like Facebook,  or travel websites like TripAdvisor, are now more influential than brochures, advertising, travel supplements and travel agents. And travellers are willing to write reviews, as well as be influenced by them – almost one in every three UK holidaymakers over the age of 16 has written an online review.

Perhaps surprising to some, it is a slightly older generation of consumers who are leading the travel social media revolution. 16-24 year olds are the most likely age group to visit a travel agent, while 74% of the 35-44 year olds who were surveyed use travel websites to book their holiday online.

So in order to regain lost ground, it seems that the more traditional travel and tourism operators need to become more social. Aside from developing a sustainable social media strategy, perhaps a more general message in this age of increased online conversation and heightened word-of-mouth is to engage with customers, not advertise to them.  Share things that would be of interest, encourage them to review your products and offerings, and interact with them online on a regular basis. By bonding with customers through social media, rather then bombarding them with information and sales messages, perhaps more traditional travel operators can enjoy the success of some of their online counterparts.

Some more reading

• Death of the travel brochure as holidaymakers opt for online reviews (telegraph.co.uk)
• Online Reputation Management in the Hotel Industry (blogs.praized.com)
• Facebook and Twitter Change Travel Trends (travelinsurance.org)

Like many people I will be travelling later today. Taking one of the last trains on Christmas Eve from London to the north of England. And like many people I have spent the last few days checking the weather and the news, hoping that my train will run and I will make it on time.

Christmas is a time when lots of people travel, and a time when lots of travel gets delayed, cancelled or goes wrong. That perfect storm of high volume of travellers and some of the worst weather of the year. In the UK we’ve seen a lot of travel-related issues recently: the story of the Eurostar cancellations is well documented online, flights, trains and the road is also disrupted .

We’ve posted already this week about what this means for the travel industry and in particular how to use social media as a crisis management tool. But there is another role that social media can play – as a useful, up-to-date and real-time information source for the people travelling. Official information sources can be useful for things like departure times or changes to routes, but they don’t necessarily tell you the full story and, critically, rarely give you advice on what to do.

So here are five ways you can use social media to stay on top of your travel plans this Christmas:

1. Use Twitter to find out what’s happening, now. Twitter is as much a search engine as a social media tool – one of the benefit of people sending updates and telling us what they are experiencing is that it provides a great real-time resource to find out what is happening from people who are on the ground. When your plane is not leaving and you’re not sure why, you will often find more use from a search of Twitter than the departure boards in airports. I personally find it most useful for finding out about travel around London. Whilst the Transport for London site might tell me there are ‘Minor Delays’ on the Piccadilly Line I get into work, a search of Twitter for ‘Piccadilly Line’ will tell me exactly what is happening from people at stations or on trains.
2. Use Twitter Lists to follow official updates. Sometimes you want to know the story from people on the ground, and sometimes you want to know official updates. This is where Twitter Lists come in useful – before you go on a journey, put your airline or train company, breakdown service or road agency into a Twitter List – you then have one place to go for official updates rather than many. And you can separate the official advice from the human stories from people on the ground.
3. Share and search for photo updates. Weather and travel are often very photographic – photos of people trapped queuing at St Pancras station this week waiting to board a Eurostar service convey much better than words ever could the real scale of the delays to the service. As well as updates, share photos of what is happening, show people where you are and what you are doing. Also use photos to educate yourself. Find out how busy that airport really is by looking for photos people have taken of the queues at check in.
4. Update your friends on where you are with Facebook or Twitter. Status updates have many uses but they are particularly useful when you want to tell a large group of people the same thing. If you’re delayed, trapped in snow on a road or at a station waiting for a delayed train, you want people to know you are okay or that you need help. Rather than having to contact lots of people separately, use your status on Facebook, Twitter or another service to keep people up to date on where you are, how you are and also to ask for help when you need it. Mobile internet access makes this possible and is a significant benefit for anybody needing help.
5. Use user-generated weather updates. As with updates on travel, user-generated weather updates are a great source of information of what is really happening, right now, on the ground. Perhaps the best example of this in the UK is a Twitter mash-up: #uksnow map. This uses status updates from people on Twitter who send their postcode area and a rating for how much snow their is out of ten. This data is then used to produce a map of snowfall across the UK. In real-time. From users on the ground.

Social media has changed many things about the way we can live our lives and will continue to do so. Travel and weather are two cases where users can get real benefit from using social media to do old things in new ways and to do completely new things. Whether you want to get real-time information, information from people on the ground or share your own experiences or updates to let people know what is happening. Social media can help make you better informed and better connected when travelling.

I for one know that I am monitoring activity at St Pancras station and on East Midlands Trains. Things look okay so far…

Thomson is a well-known package tour and holiday brand in the UK and part of the global travel group TUI. They have a good reputation and brand in the UK, supported by a relatively strong High Street presence. But one traveller’s bad experience on a holiday to Tunisia has caused them and their brand problems in social media, and in their search rankings.

Andy Sharman went on holiday to Tunisia with Thompson in June this year and had, by his own account, a fairly disappointing time. After his complaints failed to receive a response that satisfied him, Andy wrote about his experiences on his blog.

Whatever the truth of what Andy was told or what happened to him in Tunisia is not important. For your brand, and your business, satisfaction is a balance of expectations and reality as seen by the customer. Andy was unhappy and he wanted to complain.

Using traditional media, this complaint would have taken a fairly standard path all of which is done in private:

1. Customer complains to Brand (by telephone or by letter)
2. Brand responds to Customer (typically by letter)
3. Customer is either delighted (and may then tell their friends and colleagues in person) or dissatisfied (and will also tell their friends and colleague, but this time a very different story)

With social media, this pattern has been disrupted quite severely. Rather than a private exchange between Customer and Brand, the first few steps are public from the very beginning. From the minute the customer wants to complain their thoughts, experiences and attitudes (whether justified or not) are public knowledge. The brand’s job is no longer to assess and respond to a single complaint, but to manage an attack on their brand reputation. It is now bigger than just customer service.

With social media, complaints have moved from being a customer service issue to being a branding and corporate reputation one.

Andy’s blog shows exactly how serious these complaints can be. Within a couple of months his post had been read by over 10,000 different people and, perhaps more worryingly, was appearing above Thomson’s own sites for searches on Google for terms relating to Thomson and Tunisia.

Blogs, and social media more generally, are a great way for people to distribute their content. They can get it seen by a large number of people who can link to it, comment on it and reproduce it on their own sites.  Very quickly a brand has a story that is no longer private and is also no longer contained. Other people have linked to or reproduced the complaint on their own sites and forums. Some publicly and others in places that even Thompson cannot see.

So, what should brands do in this instance. Earlier this year we wrote about how to react if somebody writes about your brand online and included a great process diagram developed by the US Air Force. The process is simple and clear, showing when you should respond (and when you shouldn’t) and how you should respond if you do.

The most important thing for a brand to do is to engage in the same media that the complaint is made in. Have good buzz tracking and monitoring in place so that you pick up on potential issues early and then respond through the same media – be that by commenting on a blog, joining a forum, responding in Twitter or on Facebook. When you do respond (and if this is appropriate) you should consider  five things:

1. Be transparent about who you are and your role. Give your name and some means of contacting you
2. If you want to refute some claims in the post only do so if you can source your side of the story
3. Be timely, but make sure you give yourself enough time to get a real response together
4. Respond in a tone and manner that reflects your brand
5. Focus on those blogs that carry the most influence

Customers are using social media to turn what were once private complaints with the brand into public discussions. Brands can capitalise upon this if they respond in the same manner, in the same public forum. This is the best way to take back some control of the situation and to begin to restore your brand’s reputation online.

I recently chaired a roundtable on social media in the travel industry for Travel Trade Gazette where agents, providers and those working in PR in the travel industry discussed best practice use of social media and also what they hoped and thought would happen in the future.

The travel industry is a great place for social media innovation, as is seen by the many examples of online communities in the travel industry. Consumers tend to search for information and advice before making a purchase and want advice from people that they recognise as being like them. If these people like that particular hotel, resort or country, then I might too. And travel is an industry which generates a lot of stories, media and experiences, which are perfect for people to share with others. So people are looking for information to help make their purchase, and other people are generating a lot of stories, pictures and media. If organisations get it right, travel should offer a real opportunity for innovative and effective use of social media.

This week’s Required Reading at FreshNetworks comes from David Griner, and looks at how the role of the traveler has changed with social media (and the rise of what Griner refers to as the Traveler 2.0) and at how organisations in the industry can use social media to leverage this growing breed. The basic advice is the simplest (and best): encourage customers to share their stories, interact with them when they are doing it and start your own stories.

The presentation is below and is great for it’s look at how traveler (and consumer) habits have changed, but especially for a wealth of examples of great use of social media in the travel industry.

Image via Wikipedia

There are many examples of big brands in social media (in fact you can find a whole range across different industries in our online community examples), but at the Marketing 2.0 conference in Paris it was great to hear some real case studies from the people behind these strategies and campaigns.

Two presentations that particularly stood out were from Scott Monty at Ford and Paula Berg from Southwest Airlines. Both have a strong history of customer engagement and have been, to some extent, pioneers in their use of social media and online communities. And both of their presentations were refreshing in terms of the information they shared. For me, four core themes came from what they said:

1. It’s about people not firms – social media is about people engaging with people, and firms that want to engage with them all also need a personal touch. You should put faces on the individual people who make up your brand and let people see and engage with them. Of course, from the brand’s perspective it is best to do this is a way that is sustainable even when the individuals leave the firm.
2. Make things public – social media is a about sharing and it provides a real platform for firms to share their knowledge and information. In fact, Scott Monty told us that Ford, as part of its social media strategy, shared with the public anything that used to appear on its intranet that was not commercially sensitive. This seems to be a great approach – social media and online communities are about openness and honesty. Brands who are open and honest will be most successful.
3. Connect with people where they are already – don’t make it difficult for people to find and connect with your brand. Rather provide them a route, a way to connect with you. As Scott Monty said “every obstacle we put in the way closes a distribution channel”. The best examples of social media marketing, and the best online communities also engage people where they are – be that on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or blogs. They engage them and then provide an easy route for them to engagement.
4. Provide a place for people to go to – whilst engaging people where they are is important, you need to provide something for them to do once you have engaged them and the best examples of big brands in social media provide a place for these people to go to. An online community, web site or other activity that you drive people to where they can really engage with you on a site that you provide and where you benefit from the engagement as much as the consumer does.

Read all of our posts based on the Marketing 2.0 Conference here.

Some more reading

• Social Media Marketing: Time Trap or Opportunity Magnet? New Study Reveals the Answers (buildabetterblog.com)
• Big brands on Twitter (wheelontheweb.wordpress.com)
• Innovators in Social Media (businessweek.com)

For the next in our series of Online Community Examples we are looking at examples of online communities in the travel industry

Online communities in the travel industry

The travel industry is one well suited to online communities focused on engagement. Whether you’re an airline, holiday company or hotel chain, your guests typically only experience the brand on a limited number of occasions annually. They may be leisure travellers who might only stay at your hotel once per year or even business travellers who use your airline each time they fly to New York. In all cases the experiences these consumers have with your brand are limited and for a fixed period of time only.

Online communities offer you a way to extend this brand experience between visits or experiences, they allow you to engage and interact with your consumers even when they are not staying at your hotel or flying your airline. This is of critical importance when it comes to rebooking – if you can keep your brand at the forefront of your consumers’ minds then they are more likely to rebook with you. If you can offer them extra services, or offer a way to extend their holiday experience, they are more likely to rebook with you.

The three examples below show different ways in which companies in the travel industry are using online communities to engage their customers with a view to increasing customer loyalty.

Best Western’s On the Go with Amy

One of the real benefits of social media for travel is it puts a human and personal face on what is a very personal experience. One reason why people use Tripadvisor so much is that it contains real reviews from real people talking about their own experiences. But rather than just using experiences as reviews, we can also use personal experiences as inspiration tools. And this is what Best Western do so well with On the Go with Amy.

As with many great examples of online communities, On the Go with Amy is simple concept, but one that delivers well against Best Western’s objectives. The community is a blog from travel journalist Amy Graff, where she share first hand travel experience and chronicles her trips and visits. From a business trip to New York to a family road tip down Route  66 in the US.

By using this medium, Best Western are putting the excitement and experience back into travel. They are giving people a set of first-hand experience and by juxtaposing business and leisure travel they are associating themselves with both of these experiences. Amy has become the company’s travel spokesperson. As well as chronicling her own travel, she gives on issues from advice on travel accessories and on historical sites to visit with children.

This community gives people a real insight into travel, ideas and advice but does it with a personal voice and a very public face. The site is clearly branded and supported by Best Western but it is not overtly selling their hotels. It is engaging people in a personal experience, which is what travel is all about.

Marmara’s Marmarafit

Marmara is a French travel agency that specialises in package holidays in the Mediterranean. They have a loyal customer base and people will often return to a Marmara resort for their annual holidays. In 2008 they launched an online community site to allow people to continue their experience even when they are not on holiday.

The community site has two basic parts:

1. Marmaramis: every Member who joins the community gets a profile which allows you to upload photos of your vacations, tell the community where you have been on holiday and which resort you are going to next (and the dates). You can also make friends with people you have met on holiday or with people you are going away with.
2. ClubMarmara: using this profiling data, individual members can be associated with the Resorts to which they have been or that they are going to. Their photos, videos and discussions are associated with the relevant Resort.

The site provides a way for people to share their experiences when they get back from holiday, keep in touch with friends they met on Resort and post photos and videos of their vacation to share with these people. They can also find people who are going to be on the same holiday as them before they go, ask questions about Resorts they have never been to and find out what it is really like in the words of people who have been before. In this respect, the site is a great customer retention tool. It provides a way for customers to extend the holiday experience even when they are not away.

But the site also offers significant benefits in terms of customer acquisition. It is building a large quantity of discussions and descriptions of holidays, great both from a search perspective but also as peer-to-peer marketing. If you have never been to a particular resort before, or indeed never been on vacation with Marmara, you can read real reviews, see real photos and even contact people who have been on holiday to ask them for their thoughts. Getting your customers to really do you marketing for you.

Qantas Travel Insider

Many airlines have launched online community sites in the last year. We have already written about BA’s MetroTwin and the Air France-KLM Bluenity sites. Qantas launced it’s own online community at the end of 2008: Qantas Travel Insider.

The site is aimed specifically at the airline’s Frequent Flyers and allows them to describe their first-hand experiences of destinations, recommending places to stay, eat or drink and things to do in the various cities to which Qantas flies. This is a clever use of passenger experiences and knowledge. The Frequent Flyers are the ones who know the destinations best, and they are also those most likely to find themselves going to a new city and needing advice like this. By focusing on this group, Qantas is also catering for the desire for us to share with and learn from ‘people like me’. The Frequent Flyers will associate with each other and so lend credibility to the advice.

Alongside the user-generated travel advice, Qantas Travel Insider also has a large amount of more editorial content. From articles and recommendations to blogs and the Ask the Crew feature. This is a good approach to online communities – users don’t necessarily care about who gives them advice or tips, they just want to know that it is both from a credible source and of use to them. Mixing user-generated content with editorial content and expert advice can be successful online community strategy. In the case of Qantas, it also lets them use their own expertise – getting cabin crew to answer questions about things to do and places to go at destinations. Adding a concierge service to their on-board service and  thus really enhancing the passenger experience.

See all our Online Community Examples

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Some more reading

• Improving user experience on travel websites (travel-rants.com)
• How does one measure “engagement”?
• Olivier Roche: “Avec marmarafit.com, nos clients se rencontrent avant leur départ”