Social Media Campaigns for travel Industry

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1 White Paper Social Media Campaigns for travel Industry Overview Social media has made a huge impact on every major industry, and the travel and hospitality industry is no exception. Travel industry is greatly influenced by word of mouth. Social platforms permit customers to easily share tips and suggestions, and when they are positive, they can be extremely valuable. Creating a killer social media campaign is not about relying on a great brand or having the right assets. It is about striking the delicate balance of perfect timing, relevant messaging, and right audience. 62% of travelers are more likely to book a hotel that responds to reviews Source: PhoCusWright study Dec

2 Top 5 social media campaigns 1) KLM Twitter account, listening to customers KLM used Twitter to add a new flight to its list. A Dutch filmmaker tweeted, Why they didn t schedule a direct flight from Amsterdam to Miami a week earlier. KLM was missing important days of the Ultra Music Festival taking place in Miami on March 21, A KLM representative proposed a wager if the filmmaker could book an entire flight (351 seats) before December 6, KLM will provide them with a direct flight from Amsterdam. ROI: The result, the campaign Fly2Miami sold out the entire flight within 5 hours. Social media has become more and more important to KLM to offer information and service to our customers. We can rightly call it a first the first time KLM deployed an aircraft following a request on Twitter 2) Starwood Hotels made $2 million from a Facebook page Starwood has been active across many social networks including Twitter and Facebook. Starwood created a Facebook fan page solely to promote deals from across its myriad of brands. The Starwood Hotels Travel Exclusives page has attracted some 250,000 fans and counting. 02

3 What Worked It was found that Facebook fans generally spend seven to fourteen times more than non-fans. As part of their hotel room dealmaking, the Facebook fans were spending money on the room nights being offered from this page. ROI: Starwood can track the buyers from the page and as of October1, 2013; Starwood has made around $2 million net in additional room sales as a result of simply creating a fan page. 03

4 3) Starbucks Tweet-a-Coffee Starbucks Tweet-a-coffee was launched on October 28, 2013, and it let their guests give a $5 gift card to a friend by putting tweetacoffee and the friend s handle in a tweet. Users link their Starbucks accounts to Twitter and add a credit card to the account. What Worked The campaign was successful because it infused goodwill into a never-been-done campaign. It not only got people talking but also directly affected the bottom line. ROI: By mid-december, the program generated over $180,000 in purchases. 04

5 4) WestJet Airlines Christmas miracle In airports in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, video booths were set up in boarding pass counters where passengers recorded their Christmas wishes on a live chat with Santa before heading on a four-hour cross-country flight to Calgary. The passengers wished for all kinds of things from Android tablets to cameras, scarfs, and big screen TVs. WestJet staffs in Calgary were recording their Christmas wishes behind the scenes and rushed to the stores to purchase and wrap the holiday goods in time for the flight s arrival. The passengers were caught in cheerful surprise as gifts with their names flooded the baggage claim. What Worked The video has created emotional experience with the viewer, which helps create an emotional bond with WestJet, which is one of the strongest ways to help build up a strong brand, said Tandy Thomas Queen s School of Business assistant professor. ROI: The airline posted a video of their campaign on YouTube and garnered over 2 million views in just 2 days! In total, 13 million views were seen in more than 200 countries and made to the news in the UK, Australia, Japan, Poland, and Malaysia. 05

6 5) Buzztastic STA Travel Start the Adventure (STA) Travel, a travel agency created a buzz site as a central resource for company and customergenerated content. Team at STA identifies and reaches out to the travelers through social media and asks for help to create meaningful and targeted content for the site. Known as voices or STA Explorers, they are encouraged to contribute images, text, and videos about their travel experiences. What Worked The personal touch that was added by reaching out to travelers and making them tell their story to the world. ROI: A meaningful travel site with always fresh content, interesting stories created by genuine brand advocates. Other campaigns to note 1) KLM Surprise The aim of this campaign was to bring random surprises and happiness to the customers and relieve them from boring wait for flights. KLM takes note of passengers that check-in using FourSquare at various KLM locations around the world, such as departure lounges, baggage claim areas, and ticket offices, among others. Using the freely available information on FourSquare, such as links to a user s other social networks, the airline s KLM Surprise team trawls through sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to understand more about the person where they are planning to go next, experiences they have had, what they like doing, and others. Some passengers are then greeted with a surprise gift. Not wanting to miss out on pushing the project further, each recipient is snapped for the KLM Surprise Facebook page and a short story about why they received the gift is specified there. 06

7 2) British Midland International s (BMI) Pinterest lottery The goals of the campaign were to drive awareness about the newly created Pinterest account for BMI and incentivize users to pin destination photos to BMI s boards, thus creating a large amount of user-generated content. Here s how the campaign was implemented on Pinterest: Destination boards were created on BMI s Pinterest account. Each board contained exactly nine pins, and each pin had a unique number on them (1-9). Each week, a number would be chosen at random. Everyone who had re-pinned the image that corresponded to that number was entered into the drawing. A winner was chosen at random, and the prize was a round-trip ticket from any BMI destination. 07

8 3) Mystery hotels One of its most successful engagement strategies from Starwood was the scavenger hunt. Users had to find a mystery hotel by unlocking clues on Facebook and Twitter. The winning location rotated daily. The first ten people to solve the puzzle and who approached the reception desk of the hotel with a pre-scripted line were awarded a prize such as free weekend stays. 4) Drive time Avis was the first major car rental company to introduce a blog; since then it has won several customer service accolades. We Try Harder was launched as a place for customers and staff to talk about positive and negative experiences of car rental since then, the Avis net approval rating has increased by 200 percent. 5) Marriott launches Travel Brilliantly marketing campaign The website, was a platform for portraying Marriott s past and future innovations, and futuristic ideas from influencers, experts, and traveling consumer enthusiasts. Ideas submitted were entered into a cocreation contest, where three judges at Marriott identified top ideas. First fifteen prize winners were chosen and the judges chose the creator of the overall best idea. They got the opportunity to travel with and design future innovations alongside Marriott experts, impacting travel for the next generation. 6) IHG InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) Rewards Club launched Discover IHG social media campaign awarding 2 million hotel reward points. Through the campaign, consumers had a chance to win hotel rewards from IHG when they upload a picture on Instagram with #discoverihg during their stay at any one of the 4,600 IHG hotels worldwide. IHG used the social media tool, Instagram a mobile app for sharing photos and video for their campaign. Almost two million IHG Rewards Club points were up for grabs. Each week, one winner was randomly selected to win 100,000 IHG Rewards Club points and the grand prize winner won one million points. 7) Club Carlson wins top loyalty campaign Carlson Rezidor global loyalty program, Club Carlson s engaging online campaign was designed to thank members for their loyalty by offering a personalized reward through a social media channel, enhancing both the brand and member engagement. Members were directed to Club Carlson s Facebook page where they could watch an animated presentation of their personal festive offers being unwrapped. They could also send personalized, electronic greeting cards with their own uploaded photos and messages. 08

9 The takeaway: Be creative, be sensitive, and be original You can inspire a great deal of attention by building the curiosity, affection, and trust of the people. Define the business objectives such as brand awareness, traffic, sales, loyalty, and customer support clearly. Focus on strategies that create genuine connections between your company and your audience. Know your target audience, remember to add an element of fun and congeniality in your campaigns but do not forget to offer value. Always remember to get RITE (Relevant, Interesting, Timely, Entertaining) content. Content goes beyond text and videos are a great option now Cybage Software Pvt. Ltd. [An SEI-CMMI Level 5 & ISO Company] HQ: Cybage Towers, Survey No 13A/ 1+2+3/1, Vadgaon Sheri, Pune Tel: Fax: Pune Hyderabad Gandhinagar Seattle New Jersey San Francisco Atlanta Austin London Frankfurt Amsterdam Sydney Cybage Software Ltd. All rights reserved. 09