Social Media Programme

Social media is now mainstream.  Every travel company should now be using Facebook, Twitter, customer reviews and other channels to build brand awareness, improve customer service and drive sales.  Does your company have a social media strategy?

Sponsored by Four bgb, TrustYou and TripAdvisor

Travel bloggers are set to play a large part in the future of online (and offline) promotion for travel organisations.  Attend this session to hear compelling case studies which will help demonstrate best practices for working with travel bloggers..

Introduction from Steve Keenan to the Social Travel Market stream and announcement of the first day’s Silk Road Ch@llenge. In this, bloggers must visit one of the stands of the participating Silk Road countries and blog about their discoveries. An Apple iPad will be awarded...

KLM has made a name for itself through the innovative use of social media in a number of its campaigns. KLM used Twitter to track passengers through Schiphol and give them a prize of their dreams to encourage engagement while it later used Facebook to put its fans faces on Delft tiles on one of its planes. The airline’s head of social media Catherine van Dijk explains how the campaigns were put together and how other travel companies and tourist boards can leverage their social media use.

Andy Jarosz has come from a career in optometry to being a top travel writer and blogger in just two years. Sunvil is one of the companies that pays him to post.  But what does Sunvil get out of its relationship with Andy? Round the World Flights also pays bloggers for content. How does it all work, what do the parties expect and what is the ROI? 

Video could make up as much as 80% of new online content within a decade. This session looks at what and how to film, the pros and cons and what tourist boards want you to see. Plus a rundown of the best cameras, editing software, how to edit and deliver and finding free music.

What should aspiring writers do - become a traditional travel writer, a blogger or both? And where should travel companies and tourist boards go for content? This panel comprises a travel writer who has embraced social media, a travel editor, a PR and a blogger. We discuss what the travel content provider of today and tomorrow needs to be.

How to make the best use of 140 characters in promoting your travel company or your blog. We look at which tweets get retweeted most, which links clicked and how some of the UK’s best travel tweeters formulate their tweets.

Should a blog be more than just a random collection of travel scribbles and thoughts? It should. This session shares best practice on how to make your blog stand out from the crowd by specialising in a particular geographical area or topic but also reveals...

Work your way across east London, solving clues using social media tools along the way and learning about the rich history of the area along the way. Participants will tweet, post and check in at various locations and complete their Treasure Trail Airways boarding card as they go. The partygoers with the most complete boarding cards will win prizes at our final destination, where we will get together for an evening of fun, drinks and nibbles.

An outline of today’s sessions, an update on last night’s social event and the ongoing STM2011 competition.

Wordpress is the blogging system most used by travel bloggers.The panel talk about how they went about setting up their blogs and the techniques and plug-ins they have used to improve the look of their blog, the best plug-ins, how to drive traffic to it, and, importantly, how to make money or drive sales.

The panellists are the cream of Canada - the former digital director of British Columbia who masterminded Vancouver Olympics Games and two UK-based tourism directors. They discuss the effectiveness of their campaigns, what lessons they have learned and their plans for Canada 2012 and beyond. 

Can travel companies and tourist boards look at social media in isolation or should it be part of an integrated marketing mix alongside all e-marketing channels, such as email, mobile and search marketing.

Valencia took out a group of UK bloggers last year, tying in the Formula 1 race with a whizz around the city in four days. In the second year, the blog trip changed format dramatically. What did Valencia learn and what did they change? What did the bloggers on the trip get from it? Plus, a video from this year’s Valencia trip - what they did and what they thought.

A summary of what has happened over the two days of Social Travel Market and a quick tour (backed up with a video) of the STM2011 blogging challenge. Details of next event