Go Future Media

Tripadvisor Masterclass Sydney 2012

Holly — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:14:13 +0000

Tripadvisor Masterclass Sydney 2012 – Review

Tripadvisor is on tour and last week held two workshops in Sydney as part of their current global roadshow. The aim, to reach out to accommodation and tourism operators to share tips on how to make the most of Tripadvisor for your business.

For those that did not know about the ‘Masterclass’ or could not attend, here are the good bits, my learnings and some interesting statistics.

50 million users per month visit Tripadvisor
There are around 1 million businesses on Tripadvisor in 93,000 destinations
25 new reviews are added each minute
There are three elements effecting your tripadvisor ranking 1) Timing (recent, fresh content is best) 2) Quality (positive reviews are best) and 3) Quantity (number of reviews over time). This is a very valuable algorithm to know.
There are several tools to assist in integrating your profile with your marketing activities, website and now Facebook – check out the Tripadvisor widgets section.
As a business owner or manager, claim your business/profile via the management centre. This way you can update your profile, add images and make management responses.
Trip advisor research shows consumers like to see management responses to reviews. When you think about it it does show a level of care and attention to detail that as a tourism operator your probably want to be expressing
Only 7% of negative reviews are currently getting a management response (opportunity people!!)
One thing I learnt was you can add video to your profile and keyword tag the video so it comes up in Tripadvisor search eg use tags such as surfing, beach, ski, wine tasting etc….
Also new, you can now send a private message to a user (click on their name)
The other good idea was to update and change your description and profile from time to time. For example if you have an event coming up, change your bio to reflect this (more attention o detail).
Trip advisor has many online resources including business blog, how to guides, checklists and videos – you can access these through your management centre.
Out of the above points it wasn’t clear which of the features are free and which require the paid level called ‘Business Listing’. From what I could gather one of the aims of the Tripadvisor Masterclass Roadshow is to inform and entice you to upgrade to a paid business listing. A paid business listing means your profile will include your phone number, website and email address ( as well as some additional features). There was no ‘hard sell’ and if you are interested they did give out a limited time discount code which is MCSYD12, valid until 21 March and gives 15% discount – see www.tripadvisor.com.au/businesslistings for info.

Overall there were many interesting points, examples and stories and personally I thought Brian Payea Head of Industy Relations did a great job and was open about some past customer service issues between trip advisor and industry. I found the workshop valuable and as Google and Facebook algorithm’s are so important you now have a little more insight into how TripAdvisors works remember fresh, quality and quantity.

Did you attend a worship? Was there any points you picked up that I missed? Would love to hear from you with any questions or comments.

Pinterest for Destinations

Holly — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:11:12 +0000

Many tourism destinations across the globe have tapped into the Pinterest phenomenon. While DMOs like Visit Savannah adopted this platform in their marketing activities early on, other brands have been hesitant to use Pinterest as its previous terms and conditions stated it was purely for non-commercial use. Recognising this, Pinterest has recently launched business accounts. On the surface there is not much difference between a personal account and business account, however, a couple of differences include:

Revised terms and conditions for businesses
Ability to verify your website (see more details on how to do that here)
New buttons and widgets available to add to your website
Use company or business name during sign up (rather than first name last name)
If you have an existing account, you can simply role over into a business account

Pinterest is a great way to showcase what is truly unique about your business or destination and is proving to be a top referral site for many websites. The statistic floating around at the moment is that Pinterest drives more web traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. As a destination or business, here are a few things to consider or action if looking to incorporate Pinterest into your marketing plan:

Ensure your bio accurately reflects the destination
Ensure images on your website are pin friendly
Add a Pin button to website and look at other ways to integrate Pinterest into your activities
Liking & commenting on others pins can be a great way to grow following & harness a community
Remember you can also pin videos
Get creative with pins and boards by looking at what niches may resonate with your audience
Consider if ‘getting transactional’ may be possible. People are used to making purchases via Pinterest, are there opportunities to tap into that?

Finally, before embarking on the Pinterest or any new digital tactic, it is important to define your goals, your target audience, how this fits with your overall strategy and what success looks like (measurement).

Feel free to hit the comment section below. We would love to here your Pinterest questions, stories or see the link to your favourite Pinterest account.

Four Food Festival Tips

Holly — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 05:51:03 +0000

Arriving at Taste of Sydney Food Festival on Saturday I quickly realised how unprepared for the day I was.
Within moments, my friend and I had rattled off a bunch of things we ‘should have done’. I often don’t take my own advice but hopefully if I write it down I may remember for the the next food festival I attend (which will likely be Noosa Food and Wine Festival in May).

Tip 1 – Do a Recky

Now this is one piece of advice I generally do adhere to. So you don’t spend the day wondering around lost and so you don’t get stuck just in one tent or section I recommend doing a recky (reconnaissance) of the whole festival sight before you make any purchases. I think it also takes away the anxiety of thinking you may miss something important.

Tip 2 - Check out the Menu Online

I really wish I had done this!! Check out the menu online prior to arriving at the festival

Tip 3 - Bring Your Own Plastic Glass

They try and slug you about $6 for a plastic empty wine glass – too much!

Tip 4 - Share Plates with a Friend

So you can taste more of the dishes I would strongly suggest take a friend who is a sharer.

What are your favourite foodie festivals and what is your number one tip for attending food festivals?

Tourism Tweetup

Holly — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:13:47 +0000

Go Future Media started Tourism Tweetup in early 2011 as on opportunity for those working in tourism marketing, to come together to chat about the use of social media as a marketing tool.

We often get together as tourism sales people but much less often seem to have the opportunity to get together as tourism marketers. This thought lead to a tweet and this tweet lead to the idea to create a regular tourism marketing ‘TweetUp’.

Upcoming Tweetup Dates – Sydney

Tuesday 19 March 2013 6pm

Successful Blogging at March Tourism Tweetup

We will be chatting to travel writer and blogger consultant Annabel Candy at the March #TourismTweetup in Sydney next Tuesday.
Annabel has been blogging for over six years and is passionate about how blogging can help achieve business objectives.
Her blog, Successful Blogging offers loads of blogging and social media tips. Also an avid traveller, Annabel runs a successful travel blog Get In The Hot Spot.
We are thrilled Annabel can join us from Queensland to be at Sydney Tourism Tweetup next week.
Free: All welcome: RSVP appreciated.

Tuesday 19th March 2013 - 6pm
Slip Inn - 111 Sussex St, Sydney

Upcoming Tweetup Dates – Byron Bay/Bangalow

TBC

Email: holly@gofuturemedia.com or call 0432 274 846
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Can’t attend but want to join in?

You can follow the hashtag #tourismtweetup on Twitter to keep up to date with all discussions at these tweetup’s and connect with other like minded people.

Please feel free to contact me anytime if you would like further details, to RSVP or to discuss how you can incorporate social media into your marketing strategy.

Holly - 0432 274846 – hollyg at thinksocialmedia.com

Bronte Cemetery

Holly — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:10:48 +0000

The featured carousel is controlled by the theme option's panel where you can specify all posts tagged with a specific word to appear here. You can then limit the amount of these posts to display. Cool hey?