Social networking ‘can enhance brand awareness’
Social networking sites can provide travel companies with better brand awareness, more customer insight, more traffic and more content, according to Cheapflights.
General manager Francesca Ecsery told London’s Travel Technology Show that Travel 2.0 sites like Trip Advisor, WAYN.com and Facebook held the key to the future as overall growth in this market was running at 200% a year.
“The most successful companies are managing to link social networking sites to their own sites and using this link to build their own content,” she said.
“This makes sense when you consider your brand is being talked about on these sites, building awareness.
“These sites also give you a greater insight into what people think of your product.
“There is a social networking site based around Primark products and I know that they observe it and read the comments and it often tells them things about their stock availability faster than their own stock management system can.”
She added: “There is a Pam Ann viral on YouTube that showed the comedienne spoofing being a BA cabin crew member. After the viral appeared, BA’s market share went from 11.2% to 16.4%. Once you have a profile on these sites, traffic is driven to your own site.”
Ecsery also added that the age demographic was rising to include more of the over 55’s market, further enhancing the audience that travel companies could reach by linking into Travel 2.0 sites.
“The older generation is getting into social networking and fast,” she said. “With sites like Sagazone taking off, it’s clear this phenomenon is not just for young people.”
by Dinah Hatch
Phil Davies
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