This document outlines a 6-week training program on decoding social media for digital tourism excellence. It discusses key learning outcomes around social media strategy and monitoring. It profiles major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor, YouTube, Flickr, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. It also covers developing a social media strategy, managing multiple accounts, and consolidating social media activities. Participants are asked to do a competitor analysis and commit to actions like creating accounts and pre-scheduling posts on two free platforms for the next three days.

1. DIGITAL TOURISM
EXCELLENCE
Despina Karatzias
Decoding Social Media:
6 Week Training and Implementation Program
Date: 29 July 14 to 2 September 2014

2. Welcome –Week One
 Name, Company, Role
 Why are you here?
 What would you like to most get out
of this course?
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3. Decoding Social Media
 Communication and interaction with
new and potential customers is a vital
component of an online strategy.
 Social media allows more interactive
engagement than traditional online
communication and marketing
activities (e.g. emails).
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4. Key Learning Outcomes
 Monitoring & Making a Commitment
 Overview of key social media
platforms
 Importance of social media strategy
and monitoring your activity
 Tools available to help you manage
and monitor your activities
4

5. DTE40: Social Media for Tourism
-Objectives-
 Competitor Analysis
 Committable actions for creating, posting and
sharing content
 Develop a social media strategy for the next 12
months
 Create accounts for a minimum of two
networks
 Sign up for 2 free platforms and pre-schedule
posts for the next three days
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6. What is Social Media?
 Social interaction meets technology
 Online environment that creates
communities/networks of internet
users with shared interests
 Websites or platforms that connect
people and allow them to share words,
images, videos and audio
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7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUCf
Fcchw1w&feature=channel&list=UL
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8. How things have changed
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9. 9

10. Social Media Media for Tourism
 Can be used to generate bookings
through booking buttons on facebook
pages, links to booking pages via
twitter etc.
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11. 11

12. 12

13. 5 Reasons why it’s Unavoidable
1. People may already be reviewing
your product or uploading
images/videos of their experience with
you
2. You probably have a presence on
social media networks whether you
want to or not!
13

14. 3. At a minimum, it’s important to
monitor what is being said about you
and respond to negative reviews
4. Important to manage your online
reputation (Week 4)
5. Social media is not going away...
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15. Key Social Media Platforms
 Text, images, video
 More than 1 billion
monthly active users
worldwide
 Not restricted to clients
or connections
 Business page
 Facebook focus (Week3)
15
facebook
www.facebook.com

16. Key Social Media Platforms
 140 characters only
 Text and images
 500+ million registered users
worldwide (170 million active
user accounts)
 Not restricted to clients or
connections
 Standard account
 Twittwe Focus (Week 4)
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Twitter
www.twitter.com

17. 17

18. Key Social Media Platforms
 Text reviews and related
images
 60+ million unique
monthly visitors worldwide
 Standard business
account (paid upgrade
available)
 Trip Adviser (Week 5)
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TripAdvisor
www.tripadvisor.com

19. Key Social Media Platforms
 Video
 800+ million unique users
each month
 Not restricted to clients or
connections
 Standard account with
business profile
 YouTube (Week 5)
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YouTube
www.youtube.com

20. Key Social Media Platforms
 Images
 More than 6 billion
images worldwide
 Not restricted to clients
or connections
 Standard account
 Tourism e-kit tutorial 48
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Flikr
www.flikr.com

21. Key Social Media Platforms
 Text, images, video
 500+ million users
worldwide (235 million
active user accounts)
 Not restricted to
clients or connections
 Standard account
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Google +
plus.google.com

22. Key Social Media Platforms
 Text, images, video
 Available to any internet
user
 Part of your website or
via a platform such as
Blogger or WordPress
 Blog Focus on (Week 6)
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Blogging

23. Key Social Media Platforms
 Text, images
 Used for professional
networking
 187+ million users
worldwide
 Standard account
with business listing
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LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com

24. Key Social Media Platforms
 Create, manage and
share photo collections
 ‘Virtual pinboards’ of
photos found on the web
 Approx. 25 million
unique monthly visitors
 Launched business
accounts Oct 2012
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Pinterest
www.pinterest.com

25. QR Codes
 Quick Response
Codes (known as QR
codes) are a bit like a
bar code
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 Can be scanned by smartphones
and tablets using a combination of
the built in camera and a specific QR
code scanning application

26. Competitor Analysis
 Who are your 3 top competitors
(local/interstate)?
 Where do they hang out?
 What is their following? Likes/followers
26

27. 1. Identify your competitors
 Most brands have an active Facebook
and Twitter but many do not have an
account on other networks like
Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram,
YouTube, etc.
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28. 2. Identify Their Voice
 Take note of whom they post as (e.g.
is it as the voice of the brand, or a
person within the brand?)
Zappos.com is another great example of this.
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29. 3. How many Fans & Follower Ratio?
 Are they following everyone that
follows them? Do they only follow a
handful of people? (Followers/Following)
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Brand Handle Followers Tweets Following Ratio
Global
Ballooning
@globalteam 597 1,515 372 2:1

30. 4. How Active are They on Social
Sites?
 Look at their post frequency.
 Look at the previous month and take
note on how many times they post
unique content during that time period
 Don’t include replies or re-tweets here
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31. 5. Engagement Rate with Fans:
 How many engagements are they
receiving on average per post.
*Take the average engagement per post and divide
it by the number of Fans they have.
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32. 6. What Types of Content are They
Posting?
 Photos
 Videos
 Polls
 Contests
 Questions/trivia
 Endorsements/ sponsorships
 Do they repost other brands content?
 Do they use hashtags frequently?
 Are they using a link shortener service?
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33. 7. Weekly Percentage Growth
 For Facebook: Go the brand’s feed, scroll to the likes
and you will find total page likes and new weekly likes
 Divide the total Likes of the week to the total Likes
 For Twitter: Go to a free tool called
http://twittercounter.com/ where you can compare your
handle to your competitors
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34. 8. Lastly, Paid Media
 Impossible to find the actual dollar amount they spend
on social
 Ways to see if they are spending money to acquire new
Fans are:
 Simply browse their Facebook or Twitter sites and look
for “Sponsored” ads.
 Do you see a promoted account under “Who to Follow”
on the left hand side of your Twitter feed like below?
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35. 35
Steps to Social Media Success

36. What are you prepared to do?
 This is a commitment – what are you
committing to?
 Where are you now/where would you
like to be?
 Which platforms and how many?
 How many posts?
 How long?
36

37. Things to consider…
 Consider an offline equivalent – local
chamber of commerce
 Can’t expect to go to a few networking
functions, hand out business cards
and get a lot of business
 The more you put into it the more
benefits you will see
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38. 80/20 Rule
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'The 80/20 Rule' should always be a big part of your social media strategy. It simply
comes down to this: use just 20% of your content to promote your brand, and dedicate
80% to content that really interests your audience and engages them in conversations.

39. Developing a
Social Media Strategy
A planned approach will help to:
 Ensure your online image is
consistent with your business
 Avoid duplication or contradiction of
content across networks
 Build on your marketing plan
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40. Developing a
Social Media Strategy
 Conversation Calendar – what you
will say, who will write it, where you
will publish it etc.
 Social Media Policy – aims of social
media activities, procedures,
standards, handling worst case
scenarios
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41. Managing multiple social media
accounts
- Juggling different social media
channels can be challenging on
your time
- there are tools that allow you to be
more time efficient by bringing all of
your social media accounts
together
- Let’s explore ‘consolidation’ tools.
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42. Am I ready to consolidate?
“Consolidation benefits most when
you have a strong understanding of
different types of Social Media”
3 Options:
1. Manage separately
2. Link accounts together
3. Use a dashboard
4. Outsource
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43. Consolidation tools
See page 6-8 of Tutorial 40A:
- www.bufferapp.com
- www.hootsuite.com
HOMEWORK: Sign up for 2 free platforms
and pre-schedule posts for three consecutive
days
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44. Linking Accounts:
- https://www.facebook.com/twitter/
- Instagram to Facebook or Twitter
To share photos from Instagram to Facebook:
Go to your profile and then tap on Android or on
iPhone in the top-right corner
Tap Share Settings
Tap Facebook and then link your accounts by
providing your Facebook login info
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45. Summary and Questions
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 Many social media activities are free –
but it does take time
 You can’t avoid social media – once
you are in you must make a
commitment – consistency is key
 An effective social media strategy
usually includes a calendar and a
social media policy

46. Thank you for your time
www.atdw.com.au
@desikaratzias
despina@instituteofexcellence.com.au
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