TOMI

We present you our work based on a social network platform – the official group of the destination LAAX on facebook.

The concept

goal / vision: Laax will be positioned on the social network plattform as the leading alpine destination in Europe.

strategy: Laax follwos on one hand the strategy of customer acquisition and customer retention. On the other hand Laax maintain innovation and achievement.

target group:

- is between 12 and 40 years old

- is coming from Switzerland and all around Europe

- is orientated in wintersports

- is affected by other activities like leisure and evening arrangements

- has a strong disticted attitude

values of Laax: Laax is innovativ, creatif and offers a wide range of variety for all kind of characters and personalities.

product: Official group of Laax on Facebook with an own calender of arrengements during the season, a forum for discussion between the members, a special newsletter for the groupmembers with insider tipps and tricks, picture and video contests, different kind of competions, widgets for the own profile `n to send as present to other friends like snowboards, boots, gloves, etc.

For futher visit our presentation tomorrow at the HSLU-W, Institut of Tourism economies.

Thanks reading our blog. It was a pleasure to meet you online.

Your TOMI – Team.

For our presentation tomorrow, we’ll list all advantages and disadvantages of social network marketing.

Firstly, I begin with the good news. The new form of online-based marketing is closer at customers. Due to the profile information on social networks, destinations are able to reduce transaction cost by canvassing directly the right target group. Another point is the low wastage. Well-drafted marketing campaigns on the World Wide Web distribute themselves very fast. Another advantage is the multifarious applicability of multimedia tools like videos, photos, forums, etc.

Secondly, I advise campaign managers that there are also disadvantages. Groups on social network are very dynamic and are difficult to control. Good news can be propagated as fast as bad news. An essential point is that today the real contact with customers can not be replaced with the virtual contact on the web. You always need off- and online marketing activities and personal interaction.

The list is not finished and I would be glad, if you have other advantages or disadvantages for social network marketing. Please write us your opinion!

In an earlier blog content we wrote about the difficulties to messure the success of your social network campaign. Now we found a website where you can calculate the “Return On Investment” (ROI) of your campaign. You can customize this formula by entering different parameters and it will show you if the campaign was successful or ineffectiv.

Here you can try!

According to the online platform “persoenlich.com”, Swiss International Air Lines started an online marketing campaign on swiss portals, parties- and photo-communities, student sites and social networks. With banners, they want to get young adults to their new microsite “preisalarmstuferot.com”.

The purpose of Swiss is to advise customer of the intransparent price offers of low cost carriers (LCC). They want to clarify that Swiss offers always the final ticket price (all taxes and fees incl.) On the microsite, Swiss detects all hidden extra fees and taxes of LCC’s and shows the customer all services, which are included when they choose Swiss.

Internet users reach the microsite over an online banner, which firstly shows a Swiss special offer. Suddenly a fictive Add of a LLC appeals with the calling “You want it cheaper? Click here!”The click on the button triggers the price alert level red and opens the microsite “preisalarmstuferot.com”.

After many airlines use online communities for their promotion, Swiss has started too in the new online media marketing business.

Today, we create a social network group at facebook and netlog. The official group will be developed by our team and the marketing team of “Weisse Arena”. After our presentation at school, we’ll commit the group completely to the “Weisse Arena”. But before we open the group for members, we have to develop a social network marketing strategy for such network.

Firstly, we analyse the potential of the online market. Secondly, we define our goals, what we want to achieve with online marketing on social network. Thirdly, we define our target group and lastly, create a group with information’s, contests, insider hints, event programs, etc. with our partners. If the group works well, we’ll measure the performance.

I hope you can help us to develop an affective social network marketing strategy.

Yesterday we had a lecture about social network marketing at university. My professor told us different things but he didn’t tell us how you can messure the effect of social network marketing. His answer on my question was: “this is a very important question but also a very difficult one”.

We found a answer on Etority.de (german version). The author says you should use the 4 key datas to messure social media marketing:

1. Attention. The amount of traffic to your content for a given period of time. Similar to the standard web metrics of site visits and page/video views.
2. Participation. The extent to which users engage with your content in a channel. Think blog comments, Facebook wall posts, YouTube ratings, or widget interactions.
3. Authority. Ala Technorati, the inbound links to your content – like trackbacks and inbound links to a blog post or sites linking to a YouTube video.
4. Influence. The size of the user base subscribed to your content. For blogs, feed or email subscribers; followers on Twitter or Friendfeed; or fans of your Facebook page.

David Nelles commented on these four key datas that there is also another essential effect which you have to messure: It’s called Advocacy. Especially to see the Return On Investment (ROI) you should know who is buying your product/service because of social media marketing.

DMO’s – please create your strategy for social network marketing as soon as possible!

I thought I could have a look on Facebook to check which swiss winter destination would have a “fan” group already. It is very interesting to see that none of the destinations I checked has it’s own official group yet. It means that no Destination Management Organisation (DMO) is present on Facebook yet. This is a good indication how big the potential would be. Especially for all the destinations with this kind of target group.

Number of group members (self made/2nd of December 2008):

Note: LAAX is marked in red because we decided to develope strategies how LAAX could use social network marketing.

Soon you are able to read more in this blog about how LAAX could use social network marketing.

Under the link Netzwertig u find different social networks in different categories:

general, music, travels, business, for students, for parents `n families, for seniors, about local networks, for sportler `n sportfans, about lifestyle `n parties, pictures, books `n medias, living `n real estate, for soldats, about animals `n dogs, cars, handy`s, winefriends, `n many more.

But much more interesting are the links to the following travel social networks:

Digitalreise

Globalzoo

Tagyourplace

Tiary

Traveling World

Travello

Trips by Tips

Trip Flip

Vagabund

“Call for papers” – the new social webbook is coming soon.

Prof. Roman Egger from the University of applied science in Salzburg is the head of the team who`s writing a complete book about Social Web in the tourism industry. Today, Monday the 1st of december 2008, they start their campagn `n call for Papers.

The writing team ask all the authors in the tourism, economy `n science industry to send them papers about using `n the application of social Web. Deadline ist the 28. February 2009.

Tourismus Zukunft

Have a look below… Wth application “Where I`ve been” on Facebook u can show ur friends the places `n destinations where u have been. On a detailed interactive world map u can put little flags. U can share `n compare ur own, personalized map wth ur friends… keep in touch wth fellow travellers or give some advice to people who r planning to visit a destination where u already have been.

WhereIveBeen

The homepage of Where Ive been is linked to Facebook, myspace, hi5, bebo `n friendster. Find – Travel – Share, is their slogan. U can regist urself and open an own account. U can create ur own worldmap where u have been `n link it as an exemple to ur own blog. U find over 3 million destination on all over the world. There is a community aswell.

Facebook Where Ive Been

Please show us where u have been and create ur own worldmap.