This years’ TDS Asia summit, held two weeks ago in
Singapore, was the first to incorporate a conference track dedicated to social
media so I thought it would be fitting (and yes, much quicker) to round up the
most salient trends and topics of the summit by looking at what caused the
greatest flurries of twitter activity that we had displayed throughout the
summit.
As a proud adversary of tweeting, trending, retwooting etc,
I was nonetheless impressed by the scale and sheer potential of the technology
for instantaneous information sharing. Using
our summit #tag and a neat twitter analytics tool called Storify we managed to amass over 1000 tweets
from 200+ individuals over the 2 days and from 16 different countries. When you
consider the multiplier effect of Twitter big-wigs sharing this info with their
thousands of followers, and this being retweeted many times over – The
implications from a brand PR perspective can be staggeringly beneficial or
damaging in equal measure.
The following are just a small selection of the stats and
trends that caused the biggest spikes in twitter activity:
Analyse this!
Data acquisition and analysis is crucial in an increasingly promiscuous online
world. The brands that intelligently leverage customer data can grow both
market share, marketing ROI, customer loyalty and reduce price elasticity
Make data available to everyone in your company- The
Priceline Group #tdsasia
Can't wait for airlines to do it! RT @faithyoong: Wyndham's
conversions up 30% after integrating TripAdvisor reviews on their site #tdsasia
Geek is good! The big theme from #TDSasia is we need more "geeks
who can speak"...understand tech, and communicate it well
Make publishing decisions based on social analytics to stay
relevant with your audience. - Barbara Pezzi #TDSasia
Don't measure activities, but results." - Barbara Pezzi
#TDSasia
"What is the business problem am I trying to solve? How
can social media analytics give me answers to solve it?" - Kelly McGuire #TDSasia
"Number of social conversations about travel is doubling
every 6 months." #TDSasia
The beautiful thing about social analytics is that you're
working with public data. Huge opportunity for competitive insight. #TDSasia
Focus on integrating your technology platforms to see all
data in one place." Prashanth Radhakrishnan, Starwood #TDSasia
Use online customer reviews to understand where your brand
sits in the competitive landscape. - Kelly McGuire, SAS Institute #TDSasia
#Travel businesses that will succeed
will be the ones that use data the best. - Adrian Currie #TDSasia
Big data is very important. Make sure you filter that and put
it into the hands of your employees to make decisions. #TDSasia
Effective use of data requires processes, systems and a
culture of using data for decision making. #TDSasia
Beyond
Mobile Mania: Have a focused
mobile strategy and clear goals!
"Be crystal clear on what your
brand/product stands for." #TDSasia (Also know what you are NOT)
Paypal predicts $7bn worth of mobile payments
in 2012 #tdsasia
Google Q1
2012 Singapore & Australia travel queries on tablet three times bigger as
queries via mobile phones #tdsasia
@simpliflying at #tdsasia focus on the business goal,
not on the medium. It's not about the fan or the follower.
Focus on
and reposition the customer at the
heart of everything you do
Consistent theme so far at #TDSasia - create a customer-centric
organization. How are you using new technology to do this?
Love this: Webjet brings a life-size cutout of a customer
saying "What's in it for me?" to all meetings. #TDSasia
Tips from Lufthansa - be authentic and be where your
customers are. Be relevant and build sustainable relationships.
Personalize and Humanize your brand to become more relevant
Understand the "Internet Culture" of your audience
to guide #content marketing
strategy. - Sam Flemming #TDSasia #smtravel
Lufthansa now among Top 5 airline FB pages, with over 1mn
fans. Impressed with @flying_emirates, which is in Top 15 in a month! #TDSasia
"I am Roger Smith" video campaign @RSHotel used as
a great example of humanizing your brand by @edwardperry #TDSasia #hotelmarketing
@HiltonHotels
welcome program includes chinese speaking concierge, translated welcome
letters, 'local' food #TDSasia #custserv
"When mistakes happen, be human. Relationships
matter." - @simpliflying #TDSasia
Social listening and real-time service can resolve issues,
keep guests happy and prevent negative online reviews. - @edwardperry #TDSasia
Make publishing decisions based on social analytics to stay
relevant with your audience. - Barbara Pezzi #TDSasia
Engage Target and Monetize
your consumer when they are in ‘spending mode’
Guests more likely to spend when they're traveling. At the
booking stage, they try to save. Implications on mobile strat ...
@edwardperry
suggests hotels could learn from airlines and innovate with "social
lounges" to help travelers meet each other #trends
China and its travellers
are only going to become more commercially important – Develop a diverse
strategy to tap into this huge and growing market
Chinese millionaires are 15 years younger (on average) than
their counterparts in the west. #tdsasia #luxury
Your ability to tap in to the China travel market is
partially dependent on the receiving destination to market itself #tdsasia
What are you doing to assist Chinese travelers in using your
products/coming to your destination?
However don’t
discount India:
Over $1B pumped into internet start ups in India last year -
English is India's 1st language! - Himanshu Singh
Indian market is V price sensitive and Chinese market is
tough to enter without the right JV partner/product flexibility...&
vice-versa
Hottest
new emerging trends
I learned a new term from Flocations: Flashpacker. Apparently
its is a traveler that has the time but a limited budget #tdsasia
RT @simpliflying: Wow! Singapore has the highest % of
Smartphones in Asia, at 62%! #tdsasia
Japan-
97% 3G penetration. Not surprised! #tdsasia
According to Google, hotel mobile searches have increased by
3000% from 2010 to 2011 #tdsasia
What's happening today in Japan in terms of mobile is
possibly a peep into future for other countries :) #tdsasia
Wow - interesting. RT @msaio: #tdsasia Air Asia gets up to 14%
inbound traffic from Facebook in Malaysia - More than from Google! #comscore
For any of you who missed our social media and mobile
videographic, you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stnFeBHfU44
And here is a mash-up of all the conference tweets showing
the most salient trends and topics that were ‘trending’: http://www.eyefortravel.com/tds-asia-2012-twitter-highlights