Traveling with Twitter

For wired travelers everywhere, Twitter is increasingly becoming the go-to site for everything from getting hotel recommendations to sniffing out midtrip dinner companions, writes The Wall Street Journal.

The travel industry, it seems, has good reason to home in on tweeters; while only about 46% of all Internet users report using social networks like Twitter, a recent survey by travel-research firm PhoCusWright found that the figure jumps to 60% when you count just people who buy travel online. With the economy still keeping many would-be vacationers at home, getting in front of so many proven travelers is a no-brainer for companies. What’s more, Twitter gives providers a chance to spot unhappy customers and, ideally, to fix the problem before their griping has a chance to spread through cyberspace.

But by all accounts, traveling by Twitter remains a bit buggy. To begin with, the technology is so new that travelers and companies alike are still working out the best ways to use it. Too many companies are missing the chance to engage travelers with tips or news, says PhoCusWright analyst Douglas Quinby, and instead are using the site only for self-promotion.

Fuente: Wall Street Journal.com

New opportunities arise in online travel marketing

It has been an interesting week for online travel. There have been a couple of key announcements from Google that could dramatically change hotel’s PPC strategy and on the mobile side of things, John Tigg, head of mobile at Yahoo, claimed that the travel sector are playing catch up when it comes to mobile marketing.

Google first stirred up a bit of a storm in the travel sector last week, when they announced a trial of hotel price listings in Google Maps. Google brought up text results to the left of the map, that showed a dropdown of hotel price listings.

So why did this create quite a furore? Because the text results are based on an advertiser’s prices in PPC ads. Anyone that has ever worked in the online travel sector will know that hotels and travel agencies have an aggressive SEO strategy – being number 1 in Google is a hallowed ground that is fought tooth and nail. So what this potentially means is that while you may have successfully fought your way to the number 1 spot, that could quickly be irrelevant if the hotel in position 3 has a PPC ad that advertises a cheaper rate hotel.

From a consumer point of view, this is an excellent move by Google. As they are also going to allow you to search by available date, it has made searching for a hotel room that little bit easier - entire trips can theoretically be planned out without ever having to leave your first search destination - Google.

Fuente: simplyzesty.com

What social media ad types work best?

A new study tested seven different types of ads on two different publisher websites, Facebook and Allrecipes. Of the seven advertising types, banner ads and newsletter links were the most successful at encouraging purchase.

But what type of ads on Facebook or other social networks work the best? To find out, Psychster Inc. teamed up with Allrecipes to determine which kinds of ads are most effective and whether the platforms advertisements appear on make a difference.

- While sponsored content provided the most user interaction (and was the least likely to be perceived as advertising), it also triggered the lowest level of purchase intent and the fewest viral recommendations.

- Corporate profiles are effective but they work better when users can become a fan of the profile and add a logo to their own page.

- More people engage with give/get widgets than with banner ads, however widgets do not increase purchase intent or viral recommendations.

- Regardless of format, the most effective advertisements were those that were related to the content on the publisher’s website (i.e. a soup advertisement on a cooking website).

- Of the seven advertising types, banner ads and newsletter links were the most successful at encouraging purchase intent.

Fuente: Mashable.com