Social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Wayn.com and TripAdvisor have become a hugely powerful and cost-effective driving force behind travel marketing, according to speakers at the E-Tourism Africa summit held in Cape Town this week. They say the emergence of social media and the resulting shift of control from suppliers to consumers - who increasingly distrust formal advertising and instead make choices based on online word-of-mouth, reviews and referrals from their online friends - constitute the biggest media revolution of our times. Spending on social media advertising has doubled recently while print media advertising is in decline. Social media also means that, if it is used effectively, any small business can now compete with and have the same global advertising reach as big international companies. For small businesses, social media networks may even be a better marketing tool than a website, as long they are able to convert online conversations into sales, says Wesley Lynch, MD of Realmdigital. “If you still don’t have a Facebook Fanpage, you really should get one.  You’re likely to get a greater number of people to engage with and generate content that you can comment on too – something you won’t get from a low traffic website. If you can encourage people to post on your Fanpage you are actually outsourcing the production of content and you’re not paying for it,” he points out. Because of smart phones and the mobile web, people now also have access to their social network applications as they travel. Lynch says smart phones will take over from notebooks and laptops by 2012/13 internationally. Instead of being scared of what people say online about your business or products, every tourism business should have a dedicated social media content facilitator in its office to manage and respond to what is being published and discussed about their business online, says Pete Ward, co-CEO and Founder of Wayn.com, with 16m users, the world’s biggest lifestyle and travel online community. He says social media allows businesses to engage with their audience, get relevant leads, and influence people’s decisions before they know what they want to do by planting ideas in their heads.  Social media can help with branding, user-generated content (UGC), data capture and sales. Social media campaigns are more cost-effective than other advertising campaigns because they can be adapted as they develop. To use social media he advises the following:
• Set clear objectives
• Define successes
• Target the right audience, in the right time and in the right way
• Determine how you will engage users
• Be creative and see how your audience reacts
• Listen, understand and respond. If needed, adapt your campaign.
• Learn from your experiences and refine your message.
• Face negative feedback head-on.