The social side of WTM Latin America
By Mark Frary
Anyone who read our recent WTM Social Media country report on Brazil will know just how important social media is in Brazil, where I have been this week for the first ever WTM Latin America in Sao Paulo. The event has been busy and buzzy and, if the attendance at the various conference sessions I have been running here are anything to go by, there is a keen desire to learn more.
At the WTM Vision conference session, Euromonitor’s Lisandra Minussi underlined the importance of social media in Brazil. She said that the country was the fifth most internet-connected country in the world. Broadband penetration is expected to reach 25% by 2015. Minussi told a packed room, “Brazilian consumers trust social media posts from friends and family about brands.”
Hidden Pousadas’ chief executive Alison McGowan shared her compelling story of how the company had become one of the biggest proponents of social media in Brazilian tourism.
Greg Brand, creative director of travel video agency Travizeo, shared with a room of destination marketing organisations (DMOs) practical tips about using the world’s second biggest search engine – video platform YouTube – to promote themselves. Recent research from Experian Hitwise shared during the session revealed the growing number of visits to video sites such as YouTube which end up on a transactional site. Travizeo’s Brand showed those present how they could make sure that that final destination site was the country’s own.
Facebook’s client partner for travel in Brazil, Joao Carlos Pastore Chieregati shared a platform with Hotel Urbano, one of the country’s most socially successful travel brands, in a packed session on how travel brands could work with the world’s - and Brazil’s - most popular social platform.
The online travel agent’s chief marketing officer Roberta Oliveira shared with the audience how it had worked with Facebook to achieve a fan base of more than 6 million people with an impressive level of engagement. Pastore also shared his thoughts on the social network’s most recent developments – Newsfeed and Graph Search.
Many of the more than 1,200 exhibitors at the show showed their social side too. Event partner Germany was promoting its youth campaign HotSpots which relies heavily on sharing tips for cool places via apps.
Canada, which had a big presence at the show, proudly displayed its Twitter handle and hashtag on its stand where others relied on “old-fashioned” website addresses.
User-generated review site TripAdvisor also had a high profile presence at the show, including its mascot Ollie the Owl. Here’s me pictured with the old bird, discussing the prevalence or otherwise of fake reviews.
Lisandra Minussi (Euromonitor); Alison McGowan (Hidden Pousadas Brazil), Mark Frary (Travel Perspective), and Micaela Juarez (WTM)
The show was also attended by an impressive number of travel bloggers from around the world as well as from Brazil itself. The appetite among destination marketing organisations from the region to work more closely with bloggers was a refreshing change.
Traverse: a triumph of a travel bloggers’ conference
Pics: Rebecca Stones, CultContent, RoamingRequired, Jen Lowthrop, Katie Willmore
By Steve Keenan
Well done Paul Dow and Michael Ball for hosting the inaugural Traverse conference for travel bloggers this weekend.
Just five months after first hearing of their plans, the pair put together a well thought out and smartly executed conference in Brighton attended by 150 bloggers, speakers and industry supporters.
It worked in many ways. The one-day conference on Saturday had a choice of 12 workshops (three at any one time), covering SEO, video, photography, pitching, social media, WordPress, blogs MoTs and digital storytelling. Each speaker then spent two hours or more meeting attendees in 10-minute, one-on-one chats, topped off by a Question Time panel.
There were free socials on Friday and Saturday evenings, and a nationalist march on Sunday through the city just in time for the photo walk. They thought of everything.
There was a palpable buzz around The Clarendon Centre venue. And there some nice touches - the Thai food, music in the common areas, drinks during QT ordered on Twitter and a Sunday morning breakfast.
Personally, I had a engaged audience for the Writing workshop, and met a bunch of enthused bloggers tackling diverse issues such as dating on travels, disability, video, marketing photography, mapping and much more. I don’t think I heard a bad word about the format, and the sponsors were equally positive.
Michael and Paul set out to deliver a conference that was helpful to bloggers, rather than just stand-up speeches and little opportunity to talk. And it worked. It was affordable (just £32 all-in for all seminars and socials) and practical, in not having to take time off work.
And it made me think that the format could be repeated every six months, with a new batch of speakers to keep it fresh, with venues around the UK. Clearly, there was a demand for this conference that was met.
The pace of change is so fast in social and digital, that such a format could be sustained. Plus, of course, it’s the opportunity for an almighty party and shedloads of networking.
You can also sense, as Kevin May pointed out, a whiff of a new co-operative movement in the air. Travel blogging is still very fragmented in the UK and there was much talk of professionals subbing blog posts, a spokesman for bloggers and - of course - money-making wheezes.
Other conferences - such as TBU, TBex and our own Social Travel Market at WTM - are bigger, grander affairs that include headline speakers talking about The State of the Union-type speeches, and attempt to cover lots of bases.
There’s room for all but they don’t cater quite so tightly, affordably and conveniently (UK, over a weekend) for bloggers.
The autumn blogger conference schedule is already looking busy. But Traverse stuck to its original concept and it worked. And if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I look forward to the next, maybe next March, and then again in September, 2014 (date corrected: thanks Sophie!). Glasgow and York, please.
* Read the 101 Holidays report from the conference, written by Simon Willmore. Also, a report from Monica, The Travel Hack.
Google maps out the future
By Steve Keenan
Three days ago, our minibus broke down 1,800m up the mountains of eastern Armenia, about 50kms from our destination for the night.
It was just a fanbelt but it meant four hours before a mechanic could get out from the capital, Yerevan, and repair it. So we went for a walk.
Our guide knew the region, on the edge of a village called Shatin, and bought bread and sausage before we climbed up to a crumbling fortress high on a ridge.
But once up there, she didn’t know where the route down the far side would end up.
So I looked up Google Maps on the iPhone, checked the road layout in the next valley and, once down, we called the mechanic with our location and he picked us up.
It’s so easy now. And if Armenians had made better use of Google Map Maker (the country has 4G and excellent mobile coverage), maybe the village inhabitants could have added where to get coffee. Maybe even a local mechanic with a spare Mercedes Sprint fanbelt.
More than 180 countries now have Map Maker, including Armenia. And as of yesterday, the UK finally has it too, allowing people to add local features such as footpaths, cycle routes and water fountains. Very handy if heading out for a walk.
Users can see pending updates from other users, and can then review those contributions. As much as others can see theirs. A Google team also gets involved before additions are published.
At a demo to launch Map Maker in the UK, location details were added to codebreaker HQ Bletchley Park, such as hut numbers, building layouts and a lake.
It’s all getting down to the detail, and collaborative mapping is a development that anyone in travel can relate to. Add footpaths to the holiday cottage location, cycle routes to your country hotel or water fountains on a clifftop walking holiday and everyone benefits.
In essence, it’s Wikipedia maps - which will be handy, because I doubt the Google cameras will ever get up the path we took to the ridge.
I’d point out the fork in the track that led to the fortress (turn right, not left), the bizarre toilet block at 2,300m and the right track down the other side (turn left, not right).
The last detail I now know, as we turned right and ended up scrambling down rocks to the road. With the guide in heeled and tassled boots. It made for an unexpected treat of an afternoon.
The way it’s going with maps, however, there won’t be as many surprises in the future. Just knowledge, pure and simple.
Judge a brand by its cover
I wrote recently about Facebook’s new news feed which is gradually being rolled out to the network’s billion or so users.
The new changes represent both opportunity and threat to travel brands on the network, as I discussed at the time, but Facebook has been making other changes of relevance to anyone using Facebook to market their travel and tourism business or organisation.
Last month, as well as announcing newsfeed, FB made changes to the rules governing cover photos and what they could contain.
Previously, Facebook said cover photos could not include discount and pricing information, calls to action such as “Like us” or “Download this” nor contact information that should go in Facebook’s About section.
The new guidelines now state: “Cover photos can’t be deceptive, misleading, infringe on anyone else’s copyright or be in violation of the Pages Terms. You may not encourage people to upload your cover photo to their personal timelines.”
The restriction on the amount of text allowed in a cover photo - 20% of the image size - remains in place. I would argue that using such a large amount of text is probably counterproductive. News feed’s new look is all about great images so why not take advantage.
On their own, these changes are of importance but the changes to news feed also mean that cover photos are becoming more important as they will now appear more prominently (see below).
It is important to note that not all the cover photo is used but a significant chunk from the centre. The amount of space this takes up on newsfeeds, including (hopefully) friends of people who like your brand, means that sourcing a great cover photo is going to be more important than ever. Mr & Mrs Smith, shown in our picture, has always used great images.
Getting a subtle call to action in the central area used could also help sell your message to your fans and their friends, as long as they haven’t chosen the new option to only see friends in their newsfeed.
If you’re interested, the optimum size for a cover photo is 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall. The file should be less than 100 kilobytes in size: go for an sRGB JPG for speed or a PNG file for image quality.
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