TBTA Education Day

WHAT TRAVEL PAYMENT IS ALL ABOUT.

Social Media in Business Travel:Why give a tweet?

April 7th, 2011 / Texas Education Day /Texas Business Travel Association

P. 1TBTA / April 2011

By: Rana Walker / AirPlus International, Inc.

AIRPLUS. WHAT TRAVEL PAYMENT IS ALL ABOUT.

I felt right at home when I arrived…



The Social Media phenomenom


AIRPLUS. WHAT TRAVEL PAYMENT IS ALL ABOUT. P. 4TBTA / April 2011


Social Media is not simply fun and games - it’s smart business!

Two-sided

conversations bring

insight, clarity &

understanding

Web 2.0 platforms

allow for better

collaboration &

knowledge-sharing

Receive customer feedback without delay …and before it’s too late!


Social media connections allow you to

build your sphere of trusted influence –

the most important factor for buying

decisions in the future!


Social Media Prism

Content

ConversationExperience

Relationship

http://www.theconversationprism.com/


Social Media is evolving and

changing the way we communicate

and conduct business.

What we lose in control – we gain in

transparency!


Mapping the Social Internet– Harvard Business Review, July-Aug. 2010


http://hbr.org/2010/07/vision-statement-mapping-the-social-internet/ar/1


If Facebook

were a country,

it would be the

3rd most

populated

in the

world!

Only China & India

are more populated –

the USA is 4th


End of 2010:

585 Million

A growth of +74%Beginning

2010:

337

Million

Facebook Profiles

Source: Facebook


Facebook stats


More than 585 million active users

50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day

More than 70 translations available on the site

About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States

There are more than 200 million active users who access Facebook through

their mobile devices

Average user has 130 friends

People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

Go where they already are – ripe and ready to interact:

Source: Facebook


Why Facebook?


Utilize pictures of staff and events to show your company culture

Highlight CRS activities to show your company philosophy

Share research and knowledge – link to additional resources

Promote upcoming events to gain attention and attendance

Highlight partner activities to enhance relationships

Promote sales, services and opportunities to interact

Provide a place for employees to feel connected online. Inter-company

relations provide a global virtual forum for staff

Utilize settings on personal profiles to vary your communications to

specific groups

Project a more human face to your company to 585+ million users:


Business Travel Suppliers on Facebook



Social Commitment & Online Gaming



GBTA on Facebook



35

HOURS.The amount of video uploaded to

YouTube every minute!


YouTube stats


More video is uploaded in 60 days than the 3 major US networks created in

60 years

Today, YouTube alone uses the same amount of bandwidth as the entire

Internet used in year 2000

The equivalent of 150,000+ full-length movies in theaters each week

YouTube receives more than 2 billion viewers per day

YouTube is available in 25 countries and 43 languages

70% of traffic comes from outside the US

YouTube mobile gets over 100 million views a day

Half of YouTube’s users are 20 years old or younger - (the future generation)

Source: YouTube


Why YouTube?


Customer testimonials are quite effective in video

Video blogs from your executives on company activities/events, company

financial results and industry topics

User tips/guides to your products – showcase products and tips for best in

class use

Highlight events and philanthropic activities in an inspiring way

Marketing campaigns can go viral & obtain reach like never before

To be successful, videos should be authentic, clever, witty, touching and/or

motivational

They do not always need to be flashy, expensive or polished to go viral!

For the visual learners – seeing is believing:


GBTA on YouTube


http://www.youtube.com/user/GBTATV


One YouTube example: Virgin Atlantic airline



Source: LinkedIn

LinkedIn Worldwide



LinkedIn Stats


Executive-level executives from all Fortune 500 companies have a profile

on LinkedIn

LinkedIn receives almost 12 million unique visitors per day

Over +3M new members per month = 1+ new member per second

LinkedIn is available in 6 native languages – English, German, French,

Italian, Portuguese and Spanish

LinkedIn hiring solutions were used by 69 of the Fortune 100 companies as

of December 31, 2010

80% of companies also use LinkedIn as a recruitment tool - Oracle’s

CFO, Jeff Epstein, was headhunted for the position via his LinkedIn profile

More than one million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages

Source: LinkedIn


LinkedIn Pages


GBTA LinkedIn Group


TEXAS BTA LinkedIn Group


Search “Corporate Travel Manager” yields: 173,488!


Search “Corporate Travel Manager” in Houston: 2,322!


Why LinkedIn?


Keep track of contacts throughout their career & job moves

Build trust and rapport – therefore, your influence & your company’s

Excellent for recruiting/qualifying a candidate

Share research, take polls and glean knowledge

Join Groups for collaboration with your industry’s like-minded individuals –

share your knowledge and ask for others’ input

Gain transparency through insights into connections, partners,

competitors, staff

Professional networking platform to supplement to the face-to-face events:


Source: Twitter

175 Million ACTIVE users

95 MILLION.The number of tweets per day on Twitter.


Look! A Celebrity

Tweeter!


Twitter Stats


Over 60% of Twitter use is outside the U.S.

Twitter has more than 300,000 new users join every day

There are currently over 110 million users of Twitter’s services

Twitter receives 180 million unique visits each month

There are more than 600 million searches on Twitter every day

There are more than 50,000 third-party apps for Twitter

More than a third of users access Twitter via their mobile phone

Source: Twitter


Why Twitter?


Straight to the point, 140 characters only means no room for fluff

Detect industry trends and take polls/surveys in real-time

Terrific for customer service – make contact with end-user (not often

possible in B2B environment)

Disseminate insightful information quickly and effectively

Share knowledge readily – while it’s still relevant

Excellent for Crisis Communication efforts

Promotion of partner activities for enhanced relationships

Fast, efficient, economical and viral:


Examples of partner and industry interactions



Recruitment & staff interaction!



Allow your staff to be your

online brand ambassadors!

Establish social media guidelines

& teach staff how to share your

company’s already published

public information!


Staff promotion through Facebook!


Staff promotion through LinkedIn!


Staff promotion through Twitter!


Social Media for use in the business travel industry

Global

Efficient

Mobile

Collaboration

Customer Service

Crisis Communication


The Wire…from AirPlus


Business Travel & Social Media - The Wire…from AirPlus


Your staff is talking, about their personal & professional lives – hear them,

anticipate needs, help solve problems and find efficiencies in advance

You have a voice! Strengthen your relationship with partners/suppliers

through shared knowledge, better communication & cooperative collaboration

Participate in industry associations, as a supplement to the face-to-face

events. Use association event pages to see who will be at the events, too!

Raise your internal profile with knowledge sharing – know where to glean the

knowledge and how to share it openly with success

Conduct real-time analysis and view trending topics within the industry

Awareness – know what is being said about your company online. This could

possibly aid other departments (example: customer service or marketing)

Crisis Communications – can be key when the unexpected occurs

The conversation is occurring whether you are listening…or not!

Why should a Corporate Travel Manager care?


Tweets on Twitter per minute-within an hour after the Japan earthquake


Twitter after March Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan:


Hashtags were used such as:

#Jishin: general earthquake

information

#Anpi: confirmation of the safety

of individuals or places

#Hinan: Evacuation information

#311care: medical information for

the victims

#PrayforJapan: support/best

wishes for crisis victims

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=










Twitter for crisis communication – customer service interactions

http://www.twitter.com/TravelGov


US Embassy encourages social media in wake of quake!


Google reacts to Crises with Person Finder pages


Japan’s Mixi & Facebook


Twitter for crisis communication & customer service Examples: after the European snow chaos in Dec. 2010


Tweetdeck – track & update all sites in one place



Ignoring it won’t make it go away….

If we want to know what’s ahead (future) –

we must watch the generation behind us.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12391129


Future Themes for Social Media


Mobile technology & development of

apps will continue at time-warp speed

Increased “personalization” & the

“one log-in” concept

“Trusted” networking gains importance

Location-based marketing will continue

to gains traction – including gaming

Web-conferencing & telepresence

technology will improve & advance

More Security, new laws & regulations

will bring clarity


Social MEdia

Share your personality, NOT your

personal information!

Share your company’s philosophy,

NOT proprietary information!



It was great to meet you.

Have your people “friend” my people!


Many thanks & let’s connect!

Rana Walker

AirPlus International, Inc.

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/ranawalker


mailto:[email protected]

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ranawalker


Back-up Slides


Links to interesting online articles, other industry resources

Observations on travel industry trends & pain points for business travelers

Share your personality & always be genuine- a fraud is easy to spot online!

Ask questions, answer questions – share your expertise & knowledge!

Invitations to events & activities where you/your company will be present

Share your promotional activities, online contests, employee recognition

Highlight your CSR efforts

Link to your partner’s social media pages when they post something valuable

Suggestions for Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook include:

Ideas for posts on Social Media platforms



Today there are those who do not know life without …the Internet, mobile phones or real-time information


96% of Millennials have joined a social media platform (Source: socialenomics.com)

Only 11% of teenagers today use e-mail – they SMS/text & use social

media instead (Source: Insights Consulting Study, 2010)

In Q4 2010, more smart phones were shipped than PCs – a jump 87%

year-over-year and a historical first (Source: Associated Press, Feb. 2011)

There are over 50,000 apps for Twitter alone – Apps are changing how we

interact – The rise of the “Splinternet” where we operate on apps alone.

New technologies provide virtual, robust info accessible in real-time:


Source: LinkedIn

LinkedIn Worldwide


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