Social Media in Tourism Business

Petri HollménCEO, MBA

Lyyti Oypetri@lyyti.fi / 040 173 7777

Axxel 2.12.2010Parainen

Today:

Me

SoMe

Customers in SoMe

You / your tourism business in SoMe?

Oh behave! In SoMe

Discussion (hopefully…)

Speaker’s background?10 + years in tourism business (last position: CEO of

s/s Ukkopekka and Rymättylän Herrankukkaro)

MBA from Turku School of Economics

Personal interest in e-business since 2004

Personal blog www.perjantaikokki.fi since 2005

At most over 100 000 monthly readers

”Best food blog of the month – July 2009”

Entrepreneur, Lyyti Oy, (never published a single print add)

Facebook, blogs, email-marketing, viral etc…

3 kids and a beautifull wife

What’s in common?

Frying pan, Villa in Tuscany, B2B-software, backpacker in Australia

SoMe

= Company

= Client / prospepct

Traditional Media

= Message

”The thin line…”

€

LIFE IN SOCIAL MEDIA

Blogs

Pages Pics

Videos

= Company

= Client / prospepct

= Message

SO WHAT? WHAT’S NEW?

Local vs. Global (language restrictions, though…)

Real time – on line - everywhere

Size of the target group

Concept of authority?

It is SOCIAL -> it is communication, not just delivering A message or THE message

Extremely important for tourism! Why?Immaterial products (services)

Friend’s opinion affects buying a lot! (Today, who is your friend?)

After consumption, you’ve got a lot to share. (Cell phone vs. Cool trip to Koh Samui)

STORY!!

What do we do or did?Blogging (shaping the opinions, giving background

information. Making the intangible service more tangible)

FB fan pages (making the product your friend)

LinkedInn -> important for sales people. CHECK WITH WHOM ARE YOU DEALING WITH!

Viral marketing -> Spread the word -> make your friends speak for you!

BIG QUESTION:can you choose not to be in the social media?

Why is it so hard for traditional companies?

BECAUSE…

MarketingDepartment

SalesDepartment

Customer ServiceDepartment

R&D

CUSTOMERS

SOCIAL MEDIA

EXAMPLE # 1

CS in SoMe

EXAMPLE # 2

R&D in SoMe

EXAMPLE # 3

HELP!

EXAMPLES OF TOURISM RELATED SOME-SERVICES

Tripadvisor - www.tripadvisor.com

Tripit - www.tripit.com

Couchsurfing - www.couchsurfing.org

Pallontallaajat - www.pallontallaajat.net

WAYN - www.wayn.com

www.booking.com

www.vacationist.com

Etc. Etc…

So, my customers are there. What should I do and how to benefit?

1. Be real

Meaning?

SoMessa you’ll get caught if you play a role

Reality has to match with your SoMe-presence

If contrary -> your business is in trouble

On the other hand: truth, and even admitting the errors, is valued

2. Listen

Meaning?

As seen before, SoMe offers great medium to listen! To collect feedback, get R&D ideas etc.

By listening and wathcing, you learn the name of the game

You’ve got two ears and only one mouth. For a reason – also in SoMe…

3. Be available

Meaning?

Beeing there with ”norepy@email.com” –attitude is THE wrong way

24/7 presence is not needed – idea is to create, follow and participate

You have to be available in SoMe also for one to one-discussions

4. Dump the projects

Meaning?

”Hello! My name is Petri Hollmén and I just moved into the neighborhood. I’ve started now a 3-month project about communication and solialicing with you and after that I’ll evaluate the results and decide if I wish to continue…”

Not a great idea to earn long term relationships (i.e. ”fans”)

You are already in SoMe since your customers are. At he moment you activate there, you change the way you behave. You don’t start a project.

5. Be valuable

Meaning?

Give more than expected – create or deliver valued information

Don’t waste your keyboard to nonsense. Less is maybe more!

Help your customers with their problems. It always works!

Remember the power of a good story!

Compare:

INFORMATION and FACT

Lyyti is a web-based service, which was born to face the clients needs in organizing events, creating value to events and helping with communication.

Further information and feature list at: www.lyyti.fi

STORY

Lyyti was born, when in december 2006 I received over 2000 registration mails to my inbox in ONE DAY! I spent two weeks copy-pasteing info to an Excel sheet. It destroyed my nerves and a lot of money.

Then we created a service to do that. It really rocks!

Please, have a look!: www.lyyti.fi

6. Find, and you’ll be found

(participate)

Meaning?

If you are active in SoMe, then follow also others in your field

Participate with your name and profile. You are seen and found

If you concentrate only to your self, you are very lucky if somebody gets interested!

Don’t put your nose into everything. Be discrete. But you may also disagree.

7. Link your self

Meaning?

Link you channels together

Choose one channel where you want to be the best

Then link it technically to other forums and channels

If you are a blogger, connect it with LinkedInn, Facebook, Twitter etc. Then you reach much bigger audience

8. Start small

Meaning?

”John from the add agency hi! Shall we make the Pepsi campaign to your company as well?”

Not going to work! SoMe is a process of learning

Choose on channel and method and be good at it. You will, eventually, create ”the snow ball effect”

9. Forget the layout

Meaning?

Nice and beautifull layout mean (almost) nothing

Text is much more important (story, conversations etc.)

You do not have to be a professional writer (unless your customers are…). Just speak the same language as your target group

10. insource, don’t outsource

Meaning?

Would you let your add agency to handle your customer service, R&D and sales ?

Use pros to help you, but they can’t speak on your behalf or pretend to be you

SoMe is about communication. For you, it can be done only by you.

So… what’s in common?

LinkedinTwitterFacebook.com /petrihollmen

/perjantaikokki/lyytipalvelu

petri@lyyti.fi040 173 7777

KIITOS / TACK / THANK YOU!