Social media round-up
On the list of hot social media topics this week, the #RoyalBaby is undoubtedly at number one. The arrival of Prince George sparked a Twitter frenzy, with more than 25,300 tweets/minute and more than two million mentions in the hours that followed. But, perhaps the biggest sign of the times was Kensington Palace breaking with traditional protocol by confirming the news via email and the regular Twitter updates throughout Kate’s labour.
Customers of all major UK mobile phone network providers can now enjoy in-flight Tweeting, updating of Facebook statuses and surfing the net until their hearts’ content with the additional partnership between EE and AeroMobile. So far this year, more than 120,000 UK-based passengers have used the service, sending 175,000 text messages and making 25,000 calls. With costs at the usual roaming charge, we can now ensure that we still feel connected to the people on the ground even when we are at 30,000 feet.
Twitter has backtracked and apologised after it sent a string of fake tweets from the accounts of real users to champion one of its products. Promoting its new advertising service on its blog earlier this week, the company posted a series of bogus tweets attributed to three social networkers. A note on its marketing webpage now reads: "An earlier version of this blog post included an image with mock tweets from real users of our platform. This was not OK. Once we became aware of this mistake, we took it down immediately. We deeply apologise to the three users included in the earlier images." Some common sense advice to the world’s biggest social media community – Don’t hack your own users. You’ll be found out every time.
This week, Econsultancy gave a few top features that should be incorporated into travel websites:
- Auto-complete – helps to avoid misspelling and helps ease the workload for web users
- Flexible date settings – +/- your chosen dates…for those who don’t have holiday dates fixed
- Usable calendars – travel companies should make it easy for users to select departure and return dates
- Placement of search box – the most important feature for a travel website. Users should be directed to this straight away
- Lots of search options – There should be a limit, but the more options available the more accurate the results should be
- Mobile friendly forms – Make sure users don’t leave your site because it’s not mobile friendly. Make sure the user can select dates and options without the frustration of non-optimised websites
And finally, this week Siren Communications launched a new film in support of Holy Island – a coastal community in Northumberland who are looking to raise funds to re-build their village hall. The project is another great example of the use of video content – giving the residents of Holy Island an opportunity to tell their story and engage with the online community. Check out the short film here!
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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