UK Travel Marketing mirrors Australian endeavours

June 11, 2008, 3:48 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

This article mirrors from the UK to what was documented in an earlier posting regarding Australian Tourism Marketing on Facebook. Amazing how times have changed so rapidly!

Social networking is taking over email, says Facebook director

June 10, 2008

TravelMole’s Dinah Hatch reports that – in the United Kingdom – time spent on social network sites has now surpassed time spent emailing, according to Facebook’s UK director Blake Chandlee.

Chandlee told delegates at the Eye For Travel Travel Distribution Summit in London recently that the average user of social networking sites spends 302 minutes a month on sites such as Facebook, TripAdvisor and Bebo, while they spent only 179 minutes emailing. “If you are only planning on using traditional media to market your product you are only going to be successful some of the time,” said Chandlee. “You need to think how you can add value to the customer experience using these sites. Some 52% of all 25 to 34-year-olds in the UK are on Facebook now and in the last 30 days in the UK, 28 million events (people making arrangements to meet up) have been created on Facebook.”

“There are 10.5 million people in the UK with a profile on Facebook and 100,000 of them have a travel profile, Chandlee continued. “They can be targeted and a whole new level of marketing opens up.”

But Lastminute.com’s CEO Ian McCaig warned that caution should be taken before companies jump into the social networking environment in an attempt to market their product. He explained: “There must be a level of sophistication and consideration because interruptive marketing in this environment does not work and alienates the customer as well as potentially damaging your brand. “You need to check that your marketing is not popping up in an environment where a transaction is not taking place and people are just talking to each other. Intruding on social networking with your brand in an irrelevant situation is not welcomed.”

Author: TOURISM staff
Organization: Canadian Tourism Commission
E-mail: tourism@ctc-cct.ca

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	Social networking is taking over email, says Facebook director
	June 10, 2008

	TravelMole’s Dinah Hatch reports that – in the United Kingdom – time spent on social network sites has now surpassed time spent emailing, according to Facebook’s UK director Blake Chandlee. Chandlee told delegates at the Eye For Travel Travel Distribution Summit in London recently that the average user of social networking sites spends 302 minutes a month on sites such as Facebook, TripAdvisor and Bebo, while they spent only 179 minutes emailing. “If you are only planning on using traditional media to market your product you are only going to be successful some of the time,” said Chandlee. “You need to think how you can add value to the customer experience using these sites. Some 52% of all 25 to 34-year-olds in the UK are on Facebook now and in the last 30 days in the UK, 28 million events (people making arrangements to meet up) have been created on Facebook.” “There are 10.5 million people in the UK with a profile on Facebook and 100,000 of them have a travel profile, Chandlee continued. “They can be targeted and a whole new level of marketing opens up.” But Lastminute.com’s CEO Ian McCaig warned that caution should be taken before companies jump into the social networking environment in an attempt to market their product. He explained: “There must be a level of sophistication and consideration because interruptive marketing in this environment does not work and alienates the customer as well as potentially damaging your brand. “You need to check that your marketing is not popping up in an environment where a transaction is not taking place and people are just talking to each other. Intruding on social networking with your brand in an irrelevant situation is not welcomed.”

	Author: TOURISM staff Organization: Canadian Tourism Commission E-mail: tourism@ctc-cct.ca