sta explorers social media toolkit
TRANSCRIPT
STA Explorers social media toolkit
What’s social media?
• Any interactive online media
• It’s all about creating, sharing and discussing: the people have the power
• 1.5 billion people have PC and mobile internet access across the world
• At some stage, 90% of them interact with the 5 million + social media communities online
• Social media sites include blogs, microblogs, forums, social networks, photo and video sharing sites, social bookmarking sites and many, many more
• It’s big, it’s powerful and it’s ours
What’s an STA Explorer?
• Er, You
• An adventurous travel and social media pioneer, who’s showing others just how brilliantly you can use the internet to share your experiences when travelling
• Someone who has booked their trip with STA Travel and who is also willing to tell it like it is about their experiences of STA, such as staff, deals and tours
• We’re working on the premise that people going away don’t want to speak to a slick travel salesman in a suit or trawl through glossy tourist-trap brochures - they want to see what real people are saying about their experiences of planning, funding, booking and of course actually going on their trip, in an honest, direct, and entertaining way.
Why is it brilliant?
• You’ll make like-minded friends, contacts and travel buddies from all over the world.
• You’ll know how to use all the best social media tools to make a name for yourself online, not just as a traveller but as a tech-savvy mover and shaker. It’s a habit. You’ll get hooked.
• This is brilliant to show to employers. People have even written books and made films thanks to social media.
• You’re giving people advice, tips and entertaining insights into the whole big damn world and what it’s like to travel in it: broadening your horizons and their own
Why is it brilliant?
• You’re helping other travellers get honest, independent, detailed opinions about the experience of booking and travelling with STA Travel. That means they can make the right decisions. They’ll love you for it.
• You’ll have an amazing multimedia record of your travels (and whatever else you want to discuss and share) for you, your friends and your family
Travel + social media =
• Travelling and social media are made for each other: the world is your inspiration and your audience. People WANT your thoughts, your advice, your images, your insights
• It can be useful, entertaining, engaging, multimedia, silly, sad, sweet and even life changing.
• Here’s a few examples why:
www.wherethehellismatt.com
http://grahamettridge.blogspot.com/
www.vagablogging.net/
Now over to you…
• Make the STA Explorer project your own. Whether you’re writing your blog posts, taking photos, making a video or just chatting in forums, be yourself and express yourself - be original and creative, that way it’s bound to be good. Surprise us! Surprise yourself!
• Upload as much stuff as you can, as often as possible
• People want honest opinions on STA Travel, so review and discuss anything STA-related: your booking experiences, flights, insurance, any tours or accommodation they organised, support whilst you’re out there, ease of changing tickets and plans, future plans with them
• Don’t be shy to about what you’re doing as an STA Explorer. Speak up about why you’re getting involved, what you hope to get out of it and any ideas you have to make the project better.
Now over to you…
• Interact with other STA Explorers. Make comments on their blogs, hook up with them on Twitter, link to their sites, keep an eye on their updates through our group FriendFeed and even try to meet up and collaborate
• If you tag your content (posts, photos, videos etc) ‘STA Travel’ it will make it easier for fellow STA travellers searching on the net to find you
Er, but where? And how?
• Obviously, use whichever social media sites and tools you want and like (be brave! find new and better ones! we don’t know everything, in fact Sam knows virtually nothing!)
• However, if you want a bit of guidance, we’ve put together a list of some we like below
• As a minimum we’d recommend you aim to use at least one tool from each group (blogs, microblogs, photos, videos, aggregating, bookmarking)
• Also don’t forget to join at least one of the big travel forums out there to swap ideas, advice and stories
• And interact with other STA Explorers’ content.
• The online travel tools section of STA travelbuzz will give you some more detailed tips and be regularly updated (Molly, get your arse in gear): http://www.statravelbuzz.co.uk/category/online-travel-tools/
Tools we like
Blogs:
W
BLOGS Wordpress www.wordpress.com
Blogger www.blogger.com
MICROBLOGS Twitter www.twitter.com
Plazes www.plazes.com
Jaiku www.jaiku.com
PHOTOS Flickr www.flickr.com
Picasa http://picasa.google.com/
VIDEOS YouTube www.youtube.com
Vimeo www.vimeo.com
Blip.TV http://blip.tv
AGGREGATING FriendFeed www.friendfeed.com
Ping –o -matic http://pingomatic.com/
BOOKMARKING Technorati www.technorati.com
Digg http://digg.com
Deli.cio.us http://del.icio.us
FORUMS Lonely Planet http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/index.jspa
Travellerspoint http://www.travellerspoint.com/
The Student Room http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/
TravBuddy http://www.travbuddy.com/forums
Blogging tips
Posted by Hugh Macleod – on www.gapingvoid.com
• Be original, opinionated and creative i.e. yourself
• Post as often as you can; aim for once a day
• Organise posts into clear categories (Milan, Food) and tag them with relevant keywords (tango, STA Travel)
• Include as much multimedia stuff as you can: embed photos, take videos, even include your favourite playlists
• Imagine what you would like to see and read yourself on an STA Explorer blog: what would you find useful, interesting, engaging?
• Read and comment on other blogs and forums you like and link to them on your blogroll
• Register for sites like Technorati, Digg and Del.icio.us and rate sites you love, so others will do the same for you
Posted by Hugh Macleod – on www.gapingvoid.com
Blogging tips
• Tell people about what you’re doing. Put a blog widget on your Facebook profile, spread your content everywhere, tell your friends,
• Don’t be afraid to ask us for advice, even stupid stuff
• Just do it. Enjoy it. Jump in with both feet. Relax. Have a beer. This could be the start of a beautiful social media relationship.
Keep in contact
http://www.statravelbuzz.co.uk
http://friendfeed.com/rooms/sta-explorers
http://twitter.com/statravelbuzz
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