I was this week in Sydney for firstly a Backpackers Tourism Advisory Panel (BTAP) forum on Digital Marketing and secondly the ABiC conference and TNT Golden Backpack Awards.
Firstly, let me say congratulations to some of our mates who won awards – particularly, Neil, Shrek and the crew at Stray for their innovation award (it is great that Stray is finally being recognised as the one of the best operators in the world!), and for their Golden Backpacks – Adventure Tours and Campbell and the crew at Base for their hostel and bar awards. Secondly, well done to TNT – I thought the awards dinner was great (even though I was not drinking – argh), but I thought that this year compared to previous years the conference felt a bit like lots of sales pitches from the presenters as opposed to useful ideas and information we could take away.
Anyway, the main reason for my trip was actually to attend a closed forum on Internet Market with BTAP. This turned out to be a very successful 3 hour plus session and one that I really enjoyed!
As expected the conversation initially launched off talking about Facebook, Bebo and My Space and how could these be leveraged for marketing Australia. Fortunately, I think it was quickly agreed that they are not the ultimate marketing medium that many perceive. Personally, I believe that people do not want to be marketed to within these social sites. Facebook might be social – but it is also private and akin to email – no one likes being spammed in their email and they certainly won’t want to be spam marketed to in the social networks. I talked about the Seth Godin concept of permission marketing where you actually identify customers that do want to be marketed to because of a shared interest – whether that be travelling to Australia or using an iPhone. Facebook etc do provide this medium through the creating of groups or company pages – but I do not think they are the be all and end all.
Instead the conversation was drawn (a lot with the help of Peter Burke from Travellers Auto Bahn) toward the role of influencers throughout the Internet. We discussed how Lonely Planet seems to have 4 or 5 primary people that answer 80%+ of all Thorn Tree questions and Tourism New South Wales in fact employees people to work in My Space “influencing” discussion groups etc.
I agree with this approach and I think that there is a real opportunity for savvy marketers to hook into the power of paid bloggers, harnessing the services of the travelling travellers, and identifying and leveraging advocates online for whatever your company might be. As Peter Burke said the idea is to share a thought and let it spread through the network – I am simply advocating the concept of having someone help it along the network.
From BTAPs point of view it was my opinion that rather than trying to do this themselves from a direction of influencing travellers to Australia, BTAP could use bloggers, industry advocates etc to disseminate industry information and create themselves as the perceived expert in all things to do with Australian backpacking. Those “sponsored advocates” could also then engage influential travel bloggers and customers to expound the virtues of the Australian backpacking industry. To be successful there would have to be very little editorial control and the advocates would be free to spark some controversy and drive discussion and idea viruses – of course I put my hand up!!
Finally, there was a simply great quote that I think everyone jumped on from Christy McCarthy from World Nomads: With so much change and new technologies etc in the Internet you just have to keep trying new things all the time and “fail going forward“
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[...] From the Bloggers Summit Workshop I though these were two interesting statements (particularly in light of my BTAP workshop last week): [...]
Those considering the pr/influencer value of bloggers might be interested in this similar thread of thought:
http://www.travolution.co.uk/blog/2008/11/prs-targeting-bloggers-making.php
Hi Dan,
Thanks for sharing this. Some interesting ideas. I just wanted to jump on and nitpick
While you’re right about the inverse proportion of people on the web that are active (content producing) versus passive community members, i can tell you there’s a lot more than four or five travellers on Thorn Tree answering the queries of fellow travellers. Absolutely there’s a core critical mass (as with every online community), but it’s a pretty hearty number for each branch, of which there are many indeed. These are passionate, self-motivated travellers who exchange knowledge freely because they love it (and of course, get a kick out of being a travel mentor for newer explorers).
If I’m reading you correctly, you’re suggesting that paid influencers would do well to move into these spaces (Thorn Tree and other social platforms). Obviously, the success of that would depend massively on the space you target, but generally speaking, this is a risky idea that frequently backfires for brands and organisations. We would *never* permit paid influencers on Thorn Tree. Our approach has the inverse – to nurture authentic connections on the Tree, and develop a system for those blogging about travel to share in our visibility as a brand, through our Blog Sherpa program. We let them do their thing on their own terms and reap financial reward through shared advertising revenue. They’re not blogging about us (that would be seriously uncool, and ethically out of line).
While the intelligence here about recognising influencers is dead on, I recommend extreme caution when paying for comment, or soliciting positive commentary through incentives. I once gave a lecture to a group of travel students about social media; they were being taught to essentially bribe bloggers with freebies. Horrendous. Though Seth’s principles of permission are sound, it doesn’t mean that permission is easily won, or even appropriate in your relationship to that consumer. Get the relationship straight first.
Thanks for getting me riled
Great stuff!
Venessa Paech
Community Manager
Lonely Planet
Nice post, intresting read. Keep posting and I’ll come back for some more reading! Thanks!