YATEC Diary – 4th session

How can we as an industry keep up in the fast moving world of technology and social media? This is the question that was discussed at the fourth session of the Australian Tourism Export Council’s National Development Program.  

Keystone Corporate Positioning MD, Donna Meredith and WorldNomads.com Partnerships manager, Katrina Greeves presented to participants about the use of technology and social networking in the tourism industry and how businesses must keep on top of these technologies to meet their customers needs and demands.

Meredith used the short-term growth of Twitter as an example of just how quickly social media technologies can take hold. From January 2009 to February 2009 – in just one month – Twitter grew by 1,384 per cent. How can tourism businesses - especially in a year like this one and without employing someone full-time - be expected to keep up with such a fast moving trend? Meredith added that four-year-old YouTube is now home to 100 million videos. How do you get your video to stand out in a group of 100 million?

She added that the tourism indsutry used to be about command and control, where an operator could determine when, where and how it would get its product to the consumer but now it is all about choice. How does an operator stand out among the rest of its competitors on all of these online promotional platforms in an effort to be chosen by the consumer?

In the world where tourism operators are each attempting to have a presence on Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, TripAdvisor etc, what makes them unique?

Each presenter highlighted the importance of understanding your target market. Greeves said “By understanding people, we can understand what they really want, what they really get excited about, and that allows us to look at our products and find out how we can fit in.” She added that new technologies are enabling marketers to have individual conversations with their customers rather than blurting out a mass message to all in the hope some people will listen.

Meredith said that finding a niche was important to getting attention. “You want to kill a product, call it mass market. Everything is niche.”

But how do you find your niche market? ATEC industry development manager Jennifer Woodbridge – who also spoke at the seminar – said it’s all about research. She said: ”It’s absolutely essential to analyse each international market and to obtain a detailed understanding of them and to understand their needs and their decision making process.”

Thumbrella reporter Alice Terlikowski is participating in the Young Australian Tourism Export Council’s National Development Program and will be blogging on a weekly basis following each session to give Thumbrella readers an insight into the eight-week program.

By Alice Terlikowski  ·  November 10th, 2009 at 12:31 pm

  • Email This Post
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • Technorati Favorites
  • Delicious
  • StumbleUpon

Comments


  1. Mary
    10 Nov 09
    2:22 pm

    2. so…we should research our target markets, figure out what they want and then choose the best medium to speak to them, and now with social media, be open to the fact that they (ie your target market) have the ability to speak back. I guess to me it sounds like any other marketing strategy just with another element thrown in and making it more personal. I feel that this way forward is a good thing – I know companies are often concerned that if they get a bad review but then again, companies have the unique ability to listen to their consumers and if they do it right, tailor their service and/or product to better suit that markets needs? This is surely a good thing isn’t it?

  2. Daryl Johnson
    10 Nov 09
    3:59 pm

    3. Interesting read – in the rush for organisations to get involved in social media and attract users/followers can I ask your thoughts on user loyalty? Do you think a user will follow/become a fan of an organisation or tourism operator and continue to interact based on their product/deals offering or do you think it might become a bit cluttered (similarly to what direct mail is today) and scare people away? Thanks

  3. Katrina Greeves
    19 Nov 09
    12:04 pm

    4. @Mary – yes, it is a good thing, companies now have even more opportunities to make a great impression and deliver great service and/or better products.

    The challenge is to keep on top of it. In reality, not every (tourism) business allocates enough $/time/ people to make all of this happen. (This post is a case in point – I could/should have been listening closer to this string of comments, and responded sooner – for that, I apologise. I’ve now signed up for notifications)

    Great companies (like Zappos) create a culture of exceptional customer service which extends into numerous social networks. They put in place tools for the right people to listen well to what the world is saying about them, respond quickly and transparently to comments (good and bad), respectfully build a relationship with their community, deliver exceptional products and services (without this nothing else will help), and create a timely way to feed back these comments to see if they’re hitting the mark.

    @Daryl Johnson – Recently some interesting stats, published out of the US, show people do follow companies to get great deals and offers. However, in my opinion, using social media to push your product offering/deals is not a great way of building long term brand/user loyalty. It’s a sales tactic, not a long term social media strategy.

    (Also check out Carolyn Child’s excellent presentation at ABIC talking about how consumers are not always motivated by price)

    A good social media strategy develops relationships first, and does business second. Build trust and connect with people to develop a community of loyal customers/followers who actually want to listen to what you have to say by having real, interesting conversations, and then reward their loyalty with a great offer.
    Think of social media as it really is… social…you wouldn’t walk into a pub full of people you didn’t know particularly well and start the conversation with “hey…get 10% off, buy now” – now that would be a little scary!

Have your say