Facebook for Tourism

Lifting the lid on the ‘book’Mary Mzumara

The principles haven’t changed… It’s just multimedia now

• Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time Internet text messaging (chat) or synchronous conferencing.

• It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfers via Direct Client-to-Client.

One of the tools in our arsenal

…and there are lots of tools

that facilitate...

Credit: Ben Werdmuller http://www.flickr.com/photos/benwerd/

the creation ...

and sharing ...

Credit: Jason Staten http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonstaten/

of stuff

Facebook is the new AOL

As marketers, you need to know the rules of engagement for success

You can do anything successfully on Facebook as long as it’s in Facebook

• Develop using the Facebook API

• Run your campaigns in Facebook

Highly customised pages

Credit: EricaJoy http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericajoy/

Open participation and engagement

Celebrate your brand advocates

Credit: EricaJoy http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericajoy/

Integrate other content

Credit: EricaJoy http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericajoy/

Facebook - fish where the fish are

Credit: EricaJoy http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericajoy/

Facebook Penetration in SA:• 3.79% of SA Population is on Facebook• But this is only 0.68% of the global Facbook

audience

1 869 460

Total SA Facebook Population

3.79% of SA Population

0.68% of Global

Facebook Audience

Nigeria’s Most Popular Sites*As listed on Alexa.com

1) Yahoo.com

2) Facebook.com3) Google.com.ng

4) Google.com

5) Blogger.com

6) Bing.com

7) YouTube.com

8) Wikipedia.org

9) MSN.com

10) Nairaland.com

• There are currently 871,520 Nigerians registered on the network, as well as 200,000+ Ghanaians

Global Facebook Audience:• Total population: 305 700 760

Top Countries on Facebook:

Age Distribution of SA Facebook Users:• 32%: 25 – 34 yrs old• 31.5%: 18 – 24 yrs old• 14.9%: 35 – 44 yrs old

• Vast majority (63.5%) of the SA Facebook users between 18 – 35 yrs old. A young audience.

Age Distribution of USA Facebook Users:• 25.2%: 25 – 34 yrs old• 24.9%: 18 – 24 yrs old• 18.2%: 35 -44 yrs old• 12%: 45 – 54 yes old• 9.4%: 14 – 17 yrs old

• Higher number of users over the age of 34 and under the age of 18 in comparison to SA.

• 50.1% of the users between 18 – 35 yrs old.

• 27.8%: 18 – 24 yrs old• 27%: 25 – 34 yrs old• 17.3%: 35 – 44 yrs old• 12.2%: 14 – 17 yrs old• 8.9%: 45 – 55 yrs old

• Almost identical to the USA demographics. Probably indicative of earlier adoption and internet penetration

Age Distribution of UK Facebook Users:

How to implement an effective Campaign

1. Define your goals

For example:• Increase customer base• Generate leads • Drive sales • Build awareness• Reach new customers• Engage with customers via new channels

2. Ask Questions• How will you build your customer base?

– Buy them • ads driving traffic off of Facebook reach around

0.1% click-through rate• ads that drive Facebook participation usually

perform at least 2-3X better

– Bribe them • Great prizes!

– Amaze them

2. Ask Questions• Are you ready to handle negativity?

– People can and will make negative comments. How will you handle it.

– Consider your company structure – do you need a social media policy

– Who is allowed to speak in these spaces – do you need as ‘social media community manager’

2. Ask Questions• What’s your willingness to experiment,

take risks, and adjust your plans?

– You can’t predict how people will respond – are you fleet footed enough to move with the times?

3. Measure, Measure, Measure

• Use tracking to measure how your campaigns perform– Use bit.ly for trackable urls

3. Measure, Measure, Measure

• Facebook has inbuilt metrics – but consider tracking beyond facebook

– How much traffic do you generate from your social media platform

– Does the traffic from facebook convert at a higher rate than your online advertising?

4. Follow the rules • Promotions will only be considered for

review/approval by existing Facebook clients - through either direct or inside sales. (e.g. need to pay for advertising before being considered for Facebook promotions)

4. Follow the rules • All promotions (including contests, sweepstakes

or competitions) in which Facebook participants are eligible to win must be approved by a Facebook representative (plan for a 7 day approval timeframe).

4. Follow the rules • All promotions must be hosted on a third-party

site and through an opt-in application developed specifically for the promotion. Promotions using general Facebook features such as photo uploads, wall posts or discussion boards are not acceptable. Winners of these promotions cannot be contacted through Facebook, either.

• For example: a winner cannot be chosen based on their participation in a discussion board or an upload of a photo to a Facebook album - instead, a specific photo sharing application or discussion submission application would need to be developed for this promotion. This application should also include collection of participants contact information, so that the winner(s) can be contacted via email - and not Facebook message. (Facebook is happy to refer you to a number of third-party developers with whom they have worked with in the past to help develop a specific application.)

4. Follow the rules • As to be expected, promotions can’t be targeted

to anyone under 18 years of age and those under 18 cannot be allowed to participate. Promotion of gambling, alcohol, firearms and tobacco is strictly prohibited. Please note, as of today promotion of prescription drugs, dairy products and gasoline is also prohibited (although is scheduled to be discussed in a Thursday meeting with Facebook’s legal team).

4. Follow the rules • Promotions that are hosting completely off of

Facebook can be announced on a Facebook page without prior approval from Facebook, however, the term “Facebook” should not be included in the promotion copy, or in any of the promotion’s rules - for that matter. Additionally, all promotions held on Facebook need to include the following disclosure:

• “This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to [recipient(s) of information] and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for [disclose any way that you plan to use the user's information].”

4. Follow the rules Key takeout:

– Plan ahead and allow for a larger promotion budget to include the development of a Facebook application or a third-party promotion page on a brand Web site

…Let’s finish with lifting the lid

FBML = Facebook markup language

…good old fashioned HTML

Edit events

Dip in and take a bite!