guide to social media strategy development, implementation and performance measurement
DESCRIPTION
Our guide to social media strategy development prepared in April 2010 for the tourism and hospitality industry - currently being updated.TRANSCRIPT
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development,
Implementation and Performance Measurement
Dr Jim Hamill and Alan Stevenson
April, 2010
http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Purpose of the Guide
1. EVALUATE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE
Applications, impact, customers, conversations, features and characteristics
2. AGREE YOUR GENERIC SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Channels and depth of engagement
3. KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Measuring success
4. INTERNAL SOCIAL MEDIA AUDIT
Progress benchmarking
5. READINESS TO ENGAGE
Are you ready to engage?
6. SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
Vision, strategy, objectives, targets, customers, key initiatives and actions
7. CHANNEL ACTION PLANS
“Getting there”
8. ORGANISATION, RESOURCE AND PEOPLE ISSUES
The key pillars of social media success
9. IMPLEMENTATION
Professional project management for social media success
10. MONITOR AND MEASURE
On-going performance measurement
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The social media revolution……….
Figure 1: The Social Media Revolution
A Fundamental Shift
• 78% of consumers trust
peer recommendations
whilst only 14% trust
advertising2
• 25% of search results
for the World's Top
Brands link to User
Generated Content4
• 93% of Social Media
users believe a
company should have a
presence in Social
Media5
“Marketers don't understand
channels where you have to
talk and listen at the same
time...” Josh Bernoff, 2009
Social Networks
• 66% of the global internet population visit Social Networks1
• Visiting social sites is the 4th most popular online activity
ahead of personal email1
• Time on social networks is growing at 3x the overall Internet
rate, accounting for about 10% of Internet time1
• There are 400m Facebook users, roughly 50% are active; more
than 50m use LinkedIn
Publishing
• 77% of all active internet users regularly read blogs6
• Organizations that blog get 97% more inbound links to their
website and 55% more website visitors7
• 54% of bloggers post content or tweet daily; 34% of bloggers
post about products or brands2
Multimedia Sharing
• 13 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute and
100m videos are viewed per day4
• 3.6bn photos are archived on Flickr.com as of June 2009.
Roughly 1 photo for every 2 people on the planet4
Mobile Web
• In December 2009, 25% of the UK's population (16m people)
accessed the Internet from their mobile3
• iPhone App downloads hit 1 billion in 9 months from launch2
• 2.2bn minutes were spend on Facebook (UK) in December
2009 using mobile handsets3
Open Source and Free Hosted Applications
• As of February 2009, there are more than 230,000 open
source software projects8
• There are more than 100m downloads in 80 languages of
OpenOffice, the Open Source version of MS Office9
• More than 25m people use Google Apps, including major
corporations like National Geographic and Jaguar Landrover10
Source: The Authors and Others Cited
(1) Source: Nielsen, Global Faces & Networked
Places, 2009
(2) Source: Socialnomics’09 (YouTube)
(3) Source: Guardian Unlimited, “Facebook
Leads Rise in Mobile Web Use”
(4) Source: What the fk is Social Media
(Slideshare)
(5) Source: Cone, Business in Social Media
Study, September 2008
(6) Source: ‘Universal McCann Wave 3’ 2009
(Slideshare)
(7) Source: Hubspot Inbound Internet Marketing
Blog, 2009
(8) Source: Sourceforge.net
(9) Source: OpenOffice.org
(10) Source: googleblog.blogspot.com
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Introduction
The Web 2.0/Social Media revolution presents major opportunities (but also threats) for
Scottish tourism and hospitality businesses. The proliferation of travel review and
recommendation sites, peer-to-peer interaction in online communities, user generated
content, openness, sharing, mutual collaboration, online democracy, people and network
empowerment create exciting new opportunities for engaging with and energising your
customers, employees, business partners, stakeholders and brand advocates. Rather than
talking ‘at’ your customers, social media provides new, low cost channels for talking ‘with’
them i.e. business and marketing as a two-way dialogue and conversation with your customers,
a two-way dialogue with your network. As shown on the cover page, Web 2.0/Social Media is
not a thing, it is a state of mind!
There will be ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in social media. ‘Winners’ will be tourism and hospitality
businesses who fully utilise the interactive power of social media for engaging with and
energising customer, employee and network relationships.
With emerging social media (SM) opportunities, come new organizational challenges. Tourism
and hospitality businesses in Scotland are increasingly asking the following questions. What
social media channels should we engage with and how deep should our level of engagement
be? How can social media best help us to achieve our overall strategic goals and objectives?
What resource should we commit to social media, what Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
should we use and how can Return on Investment be measured? How open should our
organization become? Who is talking about us, where online? How can we best manage our
online reputation? What ‘buzz’ is being created about our brand? Do we require new
organizational structures and new ‘mindsets’ to leverage the full potential of social media?
What new skills, knowledge and staff training are required? Should we have a corporate wide
‘Social Media Proper Use Policy’ for staff?
The timing of this Guide to Social Media Strategy Development for the tourism industry is very
pertinent. Levels of industry awareness and enthusiasm for social media have increased
exponentially over the last six months and there is now general acceptance of the exciting
opportunities being created. However, with growing enthusiasm comes the realization that
effective use of social media presents major strategic, operational, management and
organizational challenges for most companies.
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Purpose of the Guide
Given the explosion of interest in Web 2.0/Social Media, it is not surprising that many tourism
businesses, DMOs and others are beginning to ‘dip their toe in the water’; experimenting with
low resource, low risk social media engagement activities. These early initiatives, often started
by ‘social media evangelists’, are very much to be encouraged. They help considerably in
improving organizational knowledge and understanding of social media and provide an early
indicator of what will or will not work. Hopefully, such early initiatives will firmly establish
social media as a key strategic priority.
With growing experimentation, comes the realization that successful use of social media
requires sound planning and the application of professional project management procedures to
social media strategy development, implementation, management and performance
measurement.
The purpose of this ‘Guide’ is to present a detailed
overview of the key strategic, operational,
management and organizational challenges
involved in planning, implementing and managing
successful Web 2.0/Social Media strategies for
sustained tourism growth. The ‘Guide’ is
structured around the Ten Key Steps involved in
building a successful social media (SM) strategy
summarised in Figure 2 and in the Social Media
Development Cycle shown in Figure 3. A key
premise of the Guide is that ‘Social Media Planning
Pays’. In other words, a planned and systematic
approach to SM strategy development will
considerably improve the likelihood of success, ensuring that your SM strategy is fully aligned
behind and supportive of your core business goals and objectives
Figure 2: Ten Key Steps to SM Success
1. The social media landscape
2. Generic social media strategy
3. Key performance indicators
4. Internal SM audit
5. Readiness to engage
6. SM strategy development
7. Channel action plans
8. Organisation, resource & people
9. Implementation
10. Performance monitoring
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Figure 3: Social Media Development Cycle
Source: The Authors
The Ten Steps can be sub-divided into three main stages:
• Getting the foundations right (Steps 1 to 5)
– Your social media landscape; generic strategy; key performance measures;
internal social media audit; and ‘readiness to engage’
• Social Media Strategy Development and Implementation (Steps 6 to 9)
– Vision; strategy; objectives; targets; customers; key initiatives and actions for
‘getting there’; organisation, resource and people issues; project management
for social media success
• Performance measurement (Step 10)
– Measuring on-going success and business impact
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To get the best out of the ‘Guide’, you should ask yourself the following questions as you read
through it:
Self Help Questions
• What impact is social media having on my industry? How are my customers and
stakeholders using it? What are the specific opportunities and threats for my business?
What conversations are taking place relevant to my business, where and by whom?
What sentiments are being expressed? How open should we become? Do we need a
new organizational ‘mindset’ and structure?
• What are the most relevant SM channels for my business? Which channels should we
use and how engaged should we become in each channel?
• What KPIs should we use to monitor on-going social media performance?
• How well are we currently performing? What progress have we made benchmarked
against agreed KPIs and industry ‘best practice’?
• What are our main SM strengths and weaknesses; what obstacles and barriers do we
need to overcome?
• How do we ensure that our social media strategy is full aligned with and supportive of
our core business goals and objectives?
• How do we develop Action Plans for ‘getting there’?
• What are the key organizational, people and resource issues that need to be resolved?
What professional project management procedures will ensure successful
implementation of our agreed SM strategy?
• How can we measure on-going performance and business impact?
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1. Evaluate Your Social Media Landscape
At its simplest, social media can be thought of as a set of applications and technologies that
allow individuals to interact in online communities, directly exchange information with one
another and create their own online content. As shown in Figure 4, the social media landscape
and range of applications available is extremely broad and diverse – too wide for any
organisation to consider all of the applications available. The starting point in developing a
social media engagement strategy is to monitor and evaluate the social media landscape for
your business. Social media landscaping will help you decide the best generic strategy to follow
(Section 2) and should be undertaken at five main levels:
• Applications – what social media applications are most relevant to your
business/organisation?
• Impact – what impact is social media having on your industry, how important has it
become?
• Customers – how are your customers using social media? What impact is it having on
customer behaviour?
• Conversations - what online conversations are taking place relevant to your business;
who is saying what about your brand where on the Internet and how should you
respond?
• Features and characteristics – what are the key features and characteristics of social
media that you need to understand i.e. social media culture?
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Figure 4: The Social Media Landscape
Source: FredCavazza.net
Applications
To avoid the ‘we must use it because it’s available’ trap, you should identify the social media
applications and channels most relevant to your business. For most organisations, these would
include the applications listed in Figure 5 below and covered in more detail in Appendix 1.
Figure 5: Most Relevant Social Media Applications
• Feeds and Alerts • Multimedia Sharing
• Review Sites • Rich Internet Applications
• Publishing • Social Bookmarking
• Microblogging • Mobile and Internet Telephony
• Social and Professional Networking • Open Source and Hosted Applications
Source: The Authors
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Industry Impact
Three of the most important questions to address in deciding the generic social media (SM)
strategy most appropriate for your business, are:
1. What impact is Web 2.0/Social Media having on your industry, product/service, or
strategic business unit?
2. How important is SM to achieving your overall strategic goals and objectives?
3. What are the specific SM opportunities and threats for our business?
In terms of the first two questions,
you should strategically position
your organisation, product/service
or strategic business unit on the
matrix shown in Figure 6. The
vertical axis shows the industry
impact of social media and the
horizontal axis the strategic
importance of social media to
achieving your core business
objectives. There is a clear generic
strategy recommendation
emerging from each cell:
• Strategic priority
• High engagement strategy
• Passive approach
• Industry leader
Figure 6: Generic SM Strategy Matrix
High industry impact/
Low strategic
importance
Strategic priority
High industry impact/
High strategic
importance
High engagement
strategy
Low industry impact/
Low strategic
importance
Passive approach
Low industry impact/
High strategic
importance
Industry leader
A Passive approach to social media strategy development and implementation may be
acceptable in industries where social media has had limited impact and is not considered
strategically important to achieving overall business goals and objectives. A more proactive
approach will be required in all other situations. A High engagement strategy will be required
in industries where social media has had a major impact and is considered ‘mission critical’ to
achieving strategic objectives. Your organisation has an opportunity for emerging as an
Industry leader in cases where social media is considered to be strategically important but the
overall industry impact, to date, has been quite limited. As social media begins to have a more
important industry impact, your organisation should be strategically positioned to capitalise on
this. In industries where social media is already having a major impact, but your organisation
Source: the Authors
Strategic Importance
Ind
ustry
Imp
act
Low High
High
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has only made limited progress, the development and implementation of an effective strategy
should be considered a Strategic priority.
In terms of the specific opportunities and threats for your business, we would suggest that
social media has the potential for impacting on ten main areas as summarised in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Business Impact of Social Media
1. Mindset
6. Reputation Management
2. Business Intelligence
7. Sales and Marketing
3. Customer Insight and
Understanding
8. Product Development and R&D
e.g. engage and co-create
4. Customer Interaction
9. IT/Software/Applications
5. Enhanced Customer Experience –
Rich Internet Applications
10. Operations, Internal Processes and
HRM
Source: The Authors
Appendix 1 shows the way in which different social media applications can be used to deliver
real business benefits across five areas:
• Knowledge and insight
• Engagement and reputation management
• Enhanced customer experience
• Sales and marketing
• Operations and internal processes
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Customers
Your customers, business partners, employees, stakeholders and brand advocates will already
be using social media in some capacity. Understanding the why and where of how they use it
and the influence of social media on customer behavior and decision-making is a cornerstone of
SM success.
Being customer and network led is critical to a successful social media strategy. It boils down
to three very simple questions:
1. Who are our customers, who do we wish to engage with?
2. Where do we find them ‘hanging out’ on social media?
3. How can we best engage and energise them?
Figure 8 shows a useful model for thinking about your SM presence. Consider the very centre of
the diagram as your company, organisation or web site. Each of the surrounding nodes
represents online communities that your customers may already be engaging with i.e. the
Social Media Channels where your customers ‘hang out’. These may include Facebook,
LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, blogs, forums or other social media channels. Your generic
SM strategy will be determined by where your customers ‘hang out’; how you can best engage
with and energise them.
Figure 8: Online Customer Communities
Source: Mashable – www.mashable.com
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Conversations
One of the major trends on the social web has been the emergence of Social Media Monitoring
Tools – applications which allow companies to monitor the conversations taking place about
their brand across different social media platforms; who is saying what, where on the social
web. We have identified over 100 companies operating in this space, as summarized in Figure
9. These range from no or low cost tools such as Google Alerts, Trackur, Social Mention and
ViralHeat to more expensive and sophisticated tools such as Scoutlabs, Radian6, SM2 and
SocialRadar. The more expensive tools allow businesses to monitor and evaluate the following:
• ‘River of news’: all the information pertaining to your business
• The volume of relevant mentions
• The topic trends (peaks and troughs over a period), tying in with events or other
initiatives
• What is being said at an aggregate level
• The mention medium: tweet, blog post, forum post, news item, media upload
• The importance of individual mentions
• Overall sentiment or tone and reputation issues
• The importance of channels, sources or individuals (influencers)
• Updates and changes as they happen
• Actionable insights based on the above
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Figure 9: Social Media Monitoring Tools – Tag Cloud
Source: The Authors
Who’s talking about you?
Using a Social Media Monitoring Tool relevant to your business, undertake an initial review
and evaluation of who is talking about your brand, where online. Sum up your initial findings
here:
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Features and Characteristics
Before discussing specific applications and how you can use these in your business, this section
presents the key features and characteristics of social media. An understanding of the ‘Ten Key
Principles’ is critical to your future success in this area.
Figure 10: The Ten Key Principles of Social Media
1. The social aspect: Web 2.0 is first and foremost a social phenomenon. A key feature is
online democracy and user generated content. You cannot control what people say
about your brand online.
2. Power shift: Web 2.0 and social media empower your customers, empower your
network. There has been a major ‘power shift’ from companies and organisations to
customers.
3. Declining effectiveness of traditional approaches: Traditional sales and marketing
approaches are becoming less effective. Customers no longer listen to broadcast brand
messages.
4. Pull versus Push: It has become more difficult to push information/sales messages at
customers. In an SM environment, the customer decides what information feeds they
wish to subscribe to.
5. New ‘mindsets’ are required: Social media is business as a conversation with your
customers, a conversation with your network. New organisational mindsets are
required. Most organisations are not good at talking with their customers.
6. Engage and Energise: Effective use of social media is about engaging with and
energising your network (customers, employees, stakeholders) to become brand
advocates.
7. New performance measures: New performance measures are required. Measures that
evaluate the quality of your customer base, the quality of your online network and the
strength of the relationship you have with them. In a social media era, the 4I’s
(Involvement, Interaction, Intimacy and Influence) become the main drivers of future
business success.
8. Social media monitoring tools: Monitoring the online conversations taking place about
your brand has become ‘mission critical’.
9. Redefines online marketing: SM redefines the concept of a web site and online
marketing. It is no longer about driving traffic to your site. It about online engagement
with your network and delivering rich online customer experiences.
10. New approaches to your business: New approaches based on communities, networks,
openness, customer empowerment, engaging with and energising your network.
Source: The Authors
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2. Agree your Generic Social Media Strategy
Your evaluation of the social media landscape provides the foundation on which decisions can
be made concerning the generic social media strategy most appropriate for your organisation.
Your generic social media strategy covers options and decisions in two main areas:
1. The number of social media channels to use
2. The depth of your engagement in each channel
Based on a detailed research project involving the world’s top 100 brands, the recent
Engagementdb study (www.engagementdb.com) identified four main types of generic social
media strategy:
• Mavens: Brands that sustain a high level of engagement across multiple social media
channels. Mavens have a robust social media strategy supported by dedicated teams.
Active engagement across a range of social media channels is a key element of their
overall brand management strategy.
• Butterflies: Brands using a large number of social media channels but with lower than
average engagement scores in each channel. Would probably like to become ‘Mavens’
but full organizational buy-in and resources to do so have not yet been achieved.
Danger of spreading activities too thinly.
• Selectives: Brands that focus on a small number of channels but with high engagement
scores in each one. Selectives focus on deep customer engagement in a small number
of channels where it matters most. Social media initiatives at these brands tend to be
lightly staffed, started by impassioned evangelists on a shoestring budget – can be a
powerful beachhead for further development.
• Wallflowers: Brands using a small number of channels and with below-average
engagement scores. These brands have been slow to respond to the opportunities
presented by social media, currently dipping their toes in the water, cautious about the
risks and uncertain about the benefits.
Your Generic Social Media Strategy
Agree the generic social media strategy to follow. Indicate whether you are a Maven,
Butterfly, Selective or Wallflower? What do you need to become?
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3. Key Performance Measures
Your social media engagement strategy should be fully aligned with and supportive of your
overall strategic goals and objectives. It is critical, therefore, that Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs) are agreed for measuring on-going performance and business impact.
Using a simplified Balanced Scorecard approach (see Section 6), KPIs should be agreed covering
both ‘lag’ and ‘lead’ measures.
• ‘Lag’ measures are your ultimate business goals and objectives.
• ‘Lead’ measures are the social media KPIs that will help you to achieve your overall
business goals and objectives.
We would recommend using the ‘4Is’ approach to agreeing your Social Media KPIs –
Involvement, Interaction, Intimacy and Influence, as shown below.
Figure 11: Social Media KPIs – the ‘4Is’ Approach
Involvement The number and quality of people in your various online networks; those
that read or view
Interaction Actions they take – post, reply, comment and review
Intimacy Levels of affection or aversion to the brand; community sentiments,
opinions expressed
Influence Advocacy, viral forwards, referrals and recommendations, social
bookmarking
Source: The Authors
The ‘4Is’ can be measured at two main levels. Each social media channel provides its own
statistics for measuring channel performance e.g. Facebook ‘Insights’, YouTube video statistics,
Twitter analytics etc. Second, Social Media Monitoring Tools (see Conversations, p11) can be
used for more detailed analysis and for evaluating the overall ‘buzz’ created by your social
media activities.
‘Lag’ Measures ‘Lead’ Measures
List here the overall strategic objectives to
be achieved from your social media activities
List here the main social media KPIs to be used;
for example, the ‘4Is’. In an SM era, these
become the main drivers of future business
performance
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4. Internal Social Media Audit
Your Internal Social Media Audit evaluates progress made, benchmarked against agreed
criteria. Key questions to address include:
• What progress has been made?
• What social media channels do we already use?
• What is the level of engagement with each channel?
• Where are the main areas for future improvement?
Benchmarking is a key element of the Internal Audit and should be undertaken at five main
levels:
• Social Media Landscape – what progress has been made benchmarked against the
opportunities presented by your social media landscape?
• Generic Strategy – the level of progress made benchmarked against your generic social
media strategy?
• KPIs – what progress has been made benchmarked against agreed KPIs?
• Industry ‘Best Practice’ – the level of progress made benchmarked against industry
‘best practice’? How does your current level of SM engagement compare with the
industry average? What lessons can be learned from industry ‘mavens’?
• Strategic Gap Analysis – based on the above, what is the ‘Strategic Gap’ that exists
between the ‘current’ and ‘ideal’ scenarios; between where you are and where you
should be? The ‘Strategic Gap’ provides a very strong basis for future social media
strategy development.
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5. Readiness to Engage
The Internal Audit of progress made (Section 4) should be followed by an evaluation of your
organisation’s readiness or preparedness to engage with social media. This involves evaluating
the social media strengths and weaknesses of the organisation and the main barriers and
obstacles to be overcome. The template shown in Figure 12 can be used for this purpose.
Figure 12: Readiness to Engage
Strengths Weaknesses
List here the main SM strengths of your
organisation e.g. strong brand, quality
customer base, customers already active in
Social Media etc.
List here the main SM weaknesses of your
organisation e.g. limited staff knowledge and
understanding, resource issues, organizational
mindset, influence/attitude of the IT Dept etc.
Obstacles/Barriers Overcome
Detail the main obstacles and barriers for your
organisation.
Indicate how barriers will be overcome,
including in-sourcing / out-sourcing options
Source: the Authors
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6. Social Media Strategy Development
Steps 1 to 5 will establish a very strong foundation for developing and implementing an
effective social media strategy for your organisation. Steps 6 to 10, discussed below, cover
social media strategy development and action plans for ‘getting there’. They address in more
detail the following issues: organisation, people and resources; implementation; and
performance measurement.
We would recommend the use of a simplified Balanced Scorecard approach (see
www.balancedscorecard.org) to SM strategy development and implementation. This will
ensure that the social media actions and initiatives you introduce are fully aligned behind and
supportive of your overall business goals and objectives.
The key steps involved are:
• Agree the social media vision for your organisation
• Identify the key strategic objectives and targets to be achieved
• Detail who your most valuable customers are, where they ‘hang out’ on social media
and how you can best engage with them
• Describe the key social media actions and initiatives you need to introduce to achieve
your strategic objectives and targets
• Detail all organization, people and resource issues to be overcome
You will find the Social Media Landscape framework shown in Appendix 1 to be very useful in
developing your SM strategy. This matches ten of the most important Web 2.0/Social Media
applications with associated business benefits in five main areas:
• Knowledge and Insight
• Engagement and Reputation Management
• Enhanced Customer Experience
• Sales and Marketing
• Operations and Internal Processes
Social Media Planning
Using Appendix 1, detail the main social media applications relevant to your organisation and
their associated business benefits
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You can use the template in Figure 13 to ensure that your Web 2.0/Social Media strategy is fully
aligned with and supportive of the overall business goals and objectives of your organisation.
Figure 13: Web 2.0 Balanced Scorecard Template
Strategic Theme
Insert here a clear statement of the overall ‘vision/mission’ to be achieved from your Web
2.0/Social Media Strategy:
Strategic Objectives
List the main strategic objectives to be achieved:
List the main KPIs to be used in evaluating the on-going success of your SM efforts:
Identify the main Targets for each KPI listed:
Customer Perspective
Your overall aim here should be to build a ‘quality’ customer base i.e. a strong base of loyal,
high value, high growth potential customers providing your organisation with a strong
foundation for sustained growth in sales and profits
Insert here a clear statement covering the main customer segments and their relative
importance to achieving your overall business goals and objectives:
List the main customer segments for your organisation:
Rank order these in terms of importance to achieving core business goals and objectives:
Internal Perspective (2.0 Initiatives)
In this section, you should begin to map out the key Web 2.0/Social Media initiatives and
actions required to achieve your overall goals and objectives. For each 2.0/Social Media
‘Initiative’ you should state clearly the overall objective to be achieved; targets and KPIs; and
the key actions required for ‘getting there’.
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Initiative 1
(e.g. Facebook)
Insert here a summary of Initiative 1 actions required to ensure that
overall strategic objectives are achieved. This should cover a clear
statement of:
� Initiative 1 Objectives.
� Targets and Performance Measures.
� Key Initiatives and Actions required.
Initiative 2
(e.g. Linkedin)
Insert here a summary of the Initiative 2 actions required to ensure
that overall strategic objectives are achieved. This should cover a clear
statement of:
� Initiative 2 Objectives.
� Targets and Performance Measures.
� Key Initiatives and Actions required.
Initiative 3
(e.g. Twitter)
Insert here a summary of the Initiative 3 actions required to ensure
that overall strategic objectives are achieved. This should cover a clear
statement of:
� Initiative 3 Objectives.
� Targets and Performance Measures.
� Key Initiatives and Actions required.
Other initiatives Continue as above
Organisation, Resource and People Issues
In this section you should briefly identify the Organisation, Resource and People issues that
will impact on your ability to successfully implement the Key Web 2.0/Social Media Initiatives
and Actions agreed above.
Organisation
Insert here a summary of the key organizational issues that need to
be resolved:
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Resource
Insert here a summary of the key Resource issues that need to be
resolved:
People
Insert here a summary of the key People issues that need to be
resolved:
Source: the Authors
The Social Media Strategy emerging from the above Balanced Scorecard exercise can be
presented as a one page strategy map as follows:
Figure 14: BSC Social Media Strategy Map
Brief statement of your overall 2.0/Social Media Vision and Mission
Strategic Objectives
Customer Perspective
Internal Management Perspective
Organisation Perspective
Source: the Authors
Strategic Objectives
KPIs / Targets
KPIs / Targets KPIs / Targets
KPIs / Targets
Customer
Group 1
Customer
Group 2
Customer
Group 3
Customer
Group 4
2.0/Social Media
Initiative 1
- Objectives
- KPIs
- Targets
- Actions
2.0/Social Media
Initiative 2
- Objectives
- KPIs
- Targets
- Actions
2.0/Social Media
Initiative 3
- Objectives
- KPIs
- Targets
- Actions
2.0/Social Media
Initiative 4
- Objectives
- KPIs
- Targets
- Actions
Organisation People Resource
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7. Channel Action Plans
Once your Social Media Strategy has been agreed, brief Action Plans should be developed for
each priority SM channel. This can be done by cascading the Balanced Scorecard approach to
each channel identified as a priority for development e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. The
Action Plan for each channel should include a clear statement of:
• The overall objectives for that channel
• The KPIs to be used
• Specific targets
• The key channel actions and initiatives for ‘getting there’.
The template shown in Figure 15 can be used for this purpose.
Figure 15: Channel Action Plans
Channel X e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc
Objectives KPIs Targets Actions
Insert here bullet
points summarizing
your overall strategic
objectives for this
channel
Insert here the main
KPIs you will use to
evaluate channel
effectiveness
Insert here the
specific targets
agreed for each KPI
Insert here the
specific channel
actions and initiatives
required to achieve
agreed targets, KPIs
and objectives
Source: the Authors
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 25
8. Organization, Resource and People issues
Organisation, resource and people issues sit at the bottom of your SM Balanced Scorecard NOT
because they are the least important issues to address. In fact, the exact opposite is true. The
success of your social media strategy is very much dependent upon appropriate decisions being
made in the areas listed below.
Your ‘Social Media Strategy Document’ should contain a section that covers the following
issues:
• Roles, responsibilities and resources
o In-source roles and responsibilities
o Out-source roles and responsibilities
o Role of the Social Media champion
o Social media decision-making and control structures
o Resource plans
o Organizational culture and ‘mindset’
• Policies and guidelines
o Social Media Proper Use Policy
o Social Media Content Guidelines
o Social Media Channel Guidelines
o Customer Response Policy and Guidelines
o Employee Response Policy and Guidelines
o Legal aspects to the above
Organisation, Resource and People Issues
Detail the issues that your organisation must consider in this area
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 26
9. Implementation
Professional project management procedures should be used to ensure that your SM strategy is
delivered ‘on time, within budget’ and that agreed business objectives are achieved. Following
professional project management procedures will ensure that your Social Media Strategy
addresses the ten key success factors of any project:
1. Objectives – clarity; business case; link to overall strategy of the company
2. Project Scope – avoid being too narrow or too broad
3. Commitment – by the company, project team
4. Prioritization – vis-à-vis other commitments
5. Communications – project team, management team, employees
6. Project Team Dynamics – minimizing team conflicts
7. Scheduling and Managing Workload – aim being to achieve more with less
8. Deadlines – ‘Just in Time’ affects quality
9. Project Quality – aim to meet or exceed expectations
10. Customer Value – ensure the project meets the needs of “project customers”
Project management knowledge and practices are best described in terms of their component
processes; every project goes through a life cycle as shown below. Social media projects are no
different.
• Initiation / Definition: agreeing objectives and deciding what needs to be done
• Planning and Analysis: creating a solution
• Implementation: implementation and roll-out of the solution
• Performance and Control: evaluate progress and performance
• Project Closure: close the project and take lessons into the next project
There are a range of skills and resources that accompany successful Project Management, too
many to mention in this document.
Social Media Project Management
Outline the issues that you or your organisation must consider in this area
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 27
10. Monitor and Measure
To ensure that your SM strategy delivers a return on your investment, it is important to monitor
and evaluate on-going performance benchmarked against agreed objectives, KPIs and targets.
Performance evaluation should be undertaken at three main levels:
• Individual Channel Performance – the effectiveness/success of each channel
benchmarked against agreed targets for the ‘4Is’ i.e. Involvement, Interaction, Intimacy
and Influence. Most channels provide easy to access statistics for measuring each ‘I’ to
a very high degree of accuracy.
• Wider Social Media Performance – in addition to measuring the performance of each
channel, we would recommend monthly or quarterly reporting of the overall ‘buzz’
created by your SM activities using appropriate Social Media Monitoring tools. This will
show the impact of your SM activities on others and other channels. It will measure the
volume of mentions, trends over time, which channels are driving your buzz, who is
taking your message further, through which channels, and what affection or affinity are
they showing, and so on.
• Underlying Business Performance – the performance of each social media channel and
the overall ‘buzz’ created are ‘lead’ rather than ‘lag’ measures. In a social media era,
they are the main ‘drivers’ of future business performance. The final level of
performance monitoring, therefore, is linking your social media activity to overall
business goals and objectives e.g. enquiries, sales or customer loyalty. Is social media
achieving your ultimate business objectives i.e. ‘lag’ measures?
Whilst social media channels and monitoring tools provide a high level of (previously
unavailable) performance data, they cannot map every ‘cause and effect’ of your SM
initiatives. Whilst some of your users will visit a site and take an action directly from the
SM channel, others will go directly to the site or search for the website later.
Furthermore, some may learn about a great product or service from a Facebook friend,
but order by more traditional means e.g. phone or email. How are these interactions
captured? In this respect, businesses must be pragmatic and to some extent creative in
how they evaluate Social Media impact on underlying business performance.
Through creating a series of performance touch-points your business or organisation
can build an SM evidence base. Web analytics packages such as Google Analytics should
be utilized; they help your business to understand the following:
• those ‘jumping’ from Social Media channels and then taking action
• changes in proportions that are arriving “brand aware” and
• peaks in website activity and relationships to social media ‘buzz’
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 28
However, discerning the underlying business impact of Social Media will also involve
comparing Social Media “buzz” with trends in overall business activity (online and
offline). It will involve, taking time to “speak” to your customers, directly and through
polls or surveys in order to understand how they engage in SM channels and which of
your initiatives influenced them.
Ultimately, it will involve use of one of the new generation of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) systems. Companies like Salesforce.com have already given their
application a strong “2.0” focus. In addition to capturing “traditional” customer
interactions, these tools are also capturing your customers’ social media interactions
with you across Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and others. Salesforce.com has been quick
to adapt their product and grasp the opportunity Social Media has presented, others
will soon follow.
Monitor and Measure
Outline how you will measure the on-going performance of your Social Media Strategy
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 29
Summary and Conclusions
With more companies and organisations becoming serious about social media, there is a
growing realization that successful SM practice requires sound planning and the application of
professional project management procedures to SM strategy development, implementation
and performance measurement.
This Guide has outlined the Ten Key Steps involved in SM planning. We hope that you have
found the content of the Guide to be useful in determining your own response to the exciting
opportunities that lie ahead. We would be more than happy to answer any questions you may
have either by e-mailing us at the contact addresses shown below or by posting on our ‘crowd
sourced’ Web 2.0 and Social Media e-Learning Community at www.web2-0cpd.com.
Thank You.
Dr Jim Hamill and Alan Stevenson
April, 2010
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
A Strategic Guide to Social Media Page 30
Appendix 1 – The Social Media Landscape and Business Benefits
The Web 2.0/Social Media applications most relevant to the majority of companies and
organisations are listed in Figure 16, each is matched with associated business benefits in five
main areas:
• Knowledge and Insight
• Engagement and Reputation Management
• Enhanced Customer Experience
• Sales and Marketing
• Operations and Internal Processes
References for Further Learning are also provided. The shaded columns indicate the main uses
for each application.
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
A Strategic Guide to Social Media Page 31
Figure 16: The Social Media Landscape for Tourism and Hospitality Businesses
Overview Further Learning Knowledge and
Insight
Engagement
and Reputation
Management
Enhanced
Customer
Experience
Sales and
Marketing
Operations/
Internal Processes
Feeds & Alerts
Users subscribe to
receive regular updates
from favoured web sites,
blogs, online news
channels etc. The two
most popular ways of
doing this are by
subscribing to an RSS
Feed and/or registering
with Google Alerts.
Updates can be read on
an RSS Reader,
smartphone or received
by e-mail. An increasing
number of Web users
are accessing
information updates this
way. It represents
information ‘pull’ rather
than ‘push’
RSS in Plain English
http://bit.ly/yVQr
Google Reader 1
http://bit.ly/aZZmK2
Google Reader 2
http://bit.ly/bjMyuc
Make Google Alerts your
virtual research assistant
http://bit.ly/dunB3k
Essential for you
to subscribe to
relevant feeds
and alerts for
building market
/customer
knowledge,
insight and
understanding
Google Alerts
can be used as a
free ‘social
media
monitoring’ tool
alerting you
when someone
talks about your
brand or
destination
online
Improved
customer
insight and
understanding
should enhance
the online and
offline customer
experience
through
customisation/
personalisation
Feed / Alert
monitoring can
generate direct
sales leads and
opportunities;
improved
customer
knowledge can
lead to a better
online customer
experience
Feed/Alert
monitoring can
support a range of
business processes,
such as
procurement (new
contracts or
tenders), employee
monitoring and
new product or
service
development
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 32
Overview Further Learning Knowledge and
Insight
Engagement
and Reputation
Management
Enhanced
Customer
Experience
Sales and
Marketing
Operations/
Internal Processes
Review &
Recommendation
Sites
Sites like Trip Advisor or
Booking.com which
allow travellers to post
reviews and
recommendations
covering destinations,
accommodation
providers, restaurants,
activities etc. Businesses
can respond to
comments and integrate
reviews into their site.
TripAdvisor Explained
http://bit.ly/9l2itq
TripAdvisor Tutorial
http://bit.ly/9Yjjvn
Monitoring
review and
recommendation
sites is critical to
developing deep
customer insight
Develop and
implement an
agreed
reputation
management
policy for
responding to
visitor
comments
(positive and
negative)
Use reviews to
improve the
customer
experience;
make it easy for
customers at
the trip
planning stage
Leverage
positive ‘word
of mouth’
effects to
increase sales;
minimise the
impact of
negative
comments
Improve Internal
Processes (such as
Staff Training,
Customer Service)
and the Product or
Service itself based
on customer
reviews and
recommendations
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 33
Overview Further Learning Knowledge and
Insight
Engagement
and Reputation
Management
Enhanced
Customer
Experience
Sales and
Marketing
Operations/
Internal Processes
Publishing
Includes Blogs
(Wordpress, Blogger)
and Wikis (Wikispaces,
Wikimedia). A typical
blog or wiki will combine
text, images, video and
links to other web sites.
They promote user input
and user generated
feedback and comment.
Used creatively, blogging
tools can be used to
build your web site
rather than relying on a
proprietary CMS –
significantly reducing
costs. Wikis provide a
more efficient means to
publish, where the
community creates and
reviews content e.g.
Wikitravel
Wikis in Plain English
http://bit.ly/18mwD
Wikipedia Tutorial
http://bit.ly/2elx94
Blogs in Plain English
http://bit.ly/170yk
Blog Marketing
http://bit.ly/coOQyT
Wordpress Tutorial
http://bit.ly/Jczfj
Wordpress Lessons
http://bit.ly/ihlCq
Wikis are great
sources of
knowledge
through which to
engage and
leverage.
Customer
feedback through
blogs can help to
build deeper
customer insight.
Provide an
opportunity to
engage with
your customers.
Speed and ease
of publication
supports good
reputation
management
often at the
highest levels of
the organisation
e.g. CEO blog.
Provide access
to accurate and
up-to-date
information.
Allow
customers to
research,
interact and
feedback.
Support the
customer at the
planning, arrival
and post-visit
stages.
Good
communication
tools, which
make it easy for
customers to
view, comment
and pass-on key
messages to
others. Great to
engage
customers,
build brand
awareness,
increase sales
and provide an
SEO uplift.
Blogs and Wikis
improve internal
communications
between tiers of
management e.g.
the CEO and the
staff on the floor
and within
Departments e.g. a
Staff Suggestion
Wiki. This is
particularly
relevant for larger
organisations.
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 34
Overview Further Learning Knowledge and
Insight
Engagement
and Reputation
Management
Enhanced
Customer
Experience
Sales and
Marketing
Operations/
Internal Processes
Microblogging
Sites such as Twitter and
Yammer which allow
users to send short
‘tweets’ of 140
characters or less.
Twitter is a public
Microblogging platform
whereas Yammer is
restricted. You can
follow any Twitter
account and be
followed. Twitter is good
for building a community
of users with an interest
in your status updates.
Twitter in Plain English
http://bit.ly/Unzp
Twitter Tutorial - Getting
Started
http://bit.ly/X9FsK
Twitter Guidebook
http://bit.ly/EQU82
Famous for its
ability to break
news; Twitter
users are often
the ‘first to know’
e.g. breaking
news of the Haiti
earthquake.
Twitter Search
and Twitter lists
help find and
organise your
knowledge feeds.
Engage your
followers with
tweets, replies,
retweets or
direct
messages. You
can quickly
identify and just
as quickly
respond to
potential
reputation
issues through
this application.
Access to up-to-
date
information for
the hyper-
connected.
Particularly
useful at the
arrival or
activity stage.
Customers and
potential
customers can
interact through
grouping tweets
with #hashtags
Identify and
engage
customers and
more
importantly
influencers and
opinion setters
directly.
Application
makes it easy
for great
messages to
reach a wide
audience. Great
to engage
customers,
build brand and
increase sales.
Twitter monitoring
can improve
process efficiency;
allowing speed and
efficiency of
response to
emerging
opportunities and
threats. Yammer is
a closed network
and good for status
updates as part of a
company intranet.
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 35
Overview Further Learning Knowledge and
Insight
Engagement
and Reputation
Management
Enhanced
Customer
Experience
Sales and
Marketing
Operations/
Internal Processes
Social and
Professional
Networking
Sites which allow users
to build their own online
profiles, connect with
friends/business
associates and engage in
social/professional
networking. Includes
most notably Facebook,
the largest social
network in the world
with 400m registered
users and LinkedIn, the
largest 'professional'
network with over 50m
users. For those looking
to create their own
network there are sites
like Ning.
What is Facebook?
http://bit.ly/cBjR5
Facebook for Business
Marketing
http://bit.ly/2lvgFM
Facebook for Business 101
http://bit.ly/cwdd27
What is LinkedIn?
http://bit.ly/lBCQ
How & Why To Use
LinkedIn.com
http://bit.ly/749Hq
Great resources
for keeping track
of what friends,
customers,
associates and
colleagues are
doing. Provides
status updates of
your network.
LinkedIn is an
extension of your
Contact
Management
System.
Provides an
opportunity to
identify
reputation
issues as they
arise and
engage
customers and
staff, quickly
and efficiently.
Supports good
reputation
management.
Facebook is
typically used
for customers
to engage with
the brand
(through 'fan
pages’) or
access support.
LinkedIn allows
your customers
to get advice
(through
groups) and
connect to you.
Increasingly
paying their
way through
lead generation
and increased
brand loyalty
resulting in
increased sales.
Some are using
these tools to
build brand and
move into more
lucrative
business
networks.
Facebook is
replacing Customer
Support Systems
for some large
brands like
TalkTalk. LinkedIn
and Facebook
extend and in some
instances replace
the Contact
Database.
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 36
Overview Further Learning Knowledge and
Insight
Engagement
and Reputation
Management
Enhanced
Customer
Experience
Sales and
Marketing
Operations/
Internal Processes
Multimedia
Sharing
Sites which allow users
to upload, share and
comment on multimedia
content – video and
images. The most
popular include YouTube
for Videosharing and
Flickr for Photosharing.
Online Photo Sharing in
plain English
http://bit.ly/b8zlsq
How to Use YouTube
http://bit.ly/qAYt9
Online Video for
Marketing
http://bit.ly/baPonK
YouTube is a
great resource for
tutorials and
how-to guides.
Both YouTube
and Flickr will
provide a range of
videos and
images on your
brand, product or
destination. A
review of related
comments can
provide insight.
Video and
images tell a
story more
effectively than
words. Many
recent brand
reputation
issues centre
around an
uploaded video.
Monitoring
these media
(and responding
effectively) is
critical to
reputation
management.
Photo and
Video Sharing
are great ways
for customers
to express their
experience of a
brand, product
or destination.
Both great and
terrible.
User Generated
Video and
Images can
provide
valuable viral
impact for a
brand e.g. see
the Battle at
Kruger. These
channels can
also leverage
existing media,
increase brand
awareness,
improve sales
and provide an
SEO uplift.
YouTube and Flickr
are essentially
multi-media
repositories. It is
possible to store
your favourite
video footage and
images which can
then be embedded
into your own site
and elsewhere.
YouTube can also
be viewed as an e-
learning and staff
training tool.
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 37
Overview Further Learning Knowledge and
Insight
Engagement
and Reputation
Management
Enhanced
Customer
Experience
Sales and
Marketing
Operations/
Internal Processes
Rich Internet
Applications
Mash Ups are
applications created
through applying and
combining different
applications (or APIs).
They are often free and
available for use through
a browser. Examples
include Panaramio
images 'mashed' in
Google Earth or
TripAdvisor comments
mashed into a Tourism
site.
Podcasting is a method
of distributing
multimedia files, such as
audio or video, over the
Internet using RSS, for
playback on mobile
devices and personal
computers. Podcasts can
be found on websites
and directories like
iTunes.
What is a Mashup
http://bit.ly/GqWWF
How To Make Your Own
Web Mashup
http://bit.ly/KFFuQ
Podcasting in Plain English
http://bit.ly/21qbb
How To Create A Podcast
http://bit.ly/Sobz
Mashups provide
new types of
valuable
information e.g.
customer
reviews,
multimedia and
business listings
by geo-location.
Podcasts are a
low cost and
efficient way to
access almost any
conceivable
subject on the
move.
Customers are
using Mashups
to post
comments -
good and bad. It
is important to
review these.
Podcasts can be
a good way to
engage with
your customers
or tribe - like a
serialisation for
your business or
destination.
Mashups create
new value for
customers – a
richer internet
experience with
video, images
and even access
maps or reviews
from other
sites; makes it
easy for them.
Podcasts put
the customer in
charge in terms
of when they
want to
consume
information. It
provides an
extension to the
visitor
experience - be
here without
being here.
Mashups add
new value and
generate brand
awareness as a
result.
Podcasts are a
good way to
build brand and
reach out to a
wider potential
audience. They
can create viral
impact. They
also create
brand loyalty
which converts
to sales.
Podcasts can
support corporate
communications, e-
learning and staff
training. They are a
good means for
everyone in the
organisation to get
valuable
information in a
time and place that
suits them.
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 38
Overview Further Learning Knowledge and
Insight
Engagement
and Reputation
Management
Enhanced
Customer
Experience
Sales and
Marketing
Operations/
Internal Processes
Social
Bookmarking
Social bookmarking sites
like Delicious,
Stumbleupon, Digg,
Diigo and Reddit allow
users to collectively
categorise interesting
web content (urls)
through notes and tags
(keywords) and even
vote on whether it is
good or not. What
emerges is a great way
of finding and sharing
the most relevant
content whilst
identifying users that can
become your knowledge
base.
Social Bookmarking in
plain english
http://bit.ly/9HzOyy
Social Bookmarking:
Delicious tutorial
http://bit.ly/bWmig
Social Bookmarking
Tutorial 2
http://bit.ly/wdmCK
Social Bookmarking:
PageRank
http://bit.ly/12Tvah
Social
bookmarking sites
are an alternative
means of finding
valuable
knowledge and
insight. Through
connecting with
users you can
create a
knowledge base
of individuals that
will turn up niche
content on a
regular basis.
The sites allow
users to tag
content, usually
this is at two
extremes e.g. a
terrible example
or a great piece
of content.
Monitoring
which of your
content is being
tagged can
indicate
reputation
issues.
Social
bookmarking is
not for
everyone but
some customers
expect to be
able to easily
bookmark your
content. Make
it easy for them
through
providing a
button on each
web page.
These are easy
to install.
Perhaps the
biggest single
benefit for an
organisation to
promote the
use of social
bookmarking is
the positive
effect on page
rank. Social
bookmarking
can create
valuable
backlinks into
your site and
increase your
ranking on the
search engines.
Social bookmarking
sites should be
considered
knowledge
resources and can
be a good way for
staff to quickly and
easily build and
share a company
knowledge base on
almost any subject
or discipline.
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 39
Overview Further Learning Knowledge and
Insight
Engagement
and Reputation
Management
Enhanced
Customer
Experience
Sales and
Marketing
Operations/
Internal Processes
Mobile &
Internet
Telephony
The use of Web 2.0 and
Social Media is having a
radical effect on the way
we communicate. An
increasing number of
mobile phones
(smartphones) now
regularly access the
Internet. This access has
additional components:
geo-location and always
on.
Internet telephony or
Voice over IP has been
around for a number of
years and provides
substantial cost savings
over the use of
traditional telecom
networks. VoIP services
include Skype and
Google Voice amongst
others.
Mobile Web
http://bit.ly/263IaC
How VoIP Works
http://bit.ly/CyWLD
The Mobile Web
and mobile
applications can
be used to
enhance
knowledge of
where customers
are in terms of
geographic
location as well as
what they need
and want.
Another level of
insight.
Mobile Web
and
Applications
allow you to
engage and
interact with
customers in
sometimes new
and innovative
ways e.g. geo-
tags on twitter
will tell you
where someone
has tweeted
from (nearby).
Mobile users
expect sites to
be "optimised"
for Mobile.
Applications
such as
Latitude, Layar
and Wikitude
provide
different types
of information
dependent
upon where you
are. This
"Augmented
Reality" is great
for exploring
destinations.
To remain
relevant,
companies need
to consider
their use of geo-
tagged listings.
They should
also consider
providing
mobile
optimised
information.
Customers
expect Hotels to
have a Skype
address, (See
‘Voice Over
Hotel’ site).
Mobile applications
can transform the
smart phone into
an order taker or a
reservation system.
All with potential
cost savings.
VoIP has huge
benefits in reducing
existing telecoms
bills. It also adds a
value service for
customers for
example, the
Charles Hotel in
Boston offers Skype
for their customers.
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
Scottish Tourism and Hospitality Page 40
Overview Further Learning Knowledge and
Insight
Engagement
and Reputation
Management
Enhanced
Customer
Experience
Sales and
Marketing
Operations/
Internal Processes
OpenSource &
Free Hosted
Applications
Over 10,000 Open
Source (OS) projects.
This includes Linux and
OpenOffice.org -
competitors to Microsoft
Windows and Microsoft
Office. These
alternatives to licensed
software are supported
by communities of users
and developers in the
high millions. The
community uses,
develops and improves.
There are also a range of
free-hosted solutions
(fremium versions) that
for many companies are
good enough. Both
provide new ways to
interact with customers,
suppliers and staff and
new ways to rationalise
processes.
Free/Open Source
software
http://bit.ly/4rbRkZ
Open-source software
http://bit.ly/19Xq7E
Source Forge: Find and
Develop Open Source
Software
http://bit.ly/WyHt
Web2Scape Wiki
http://bit.ly/aXLuUD
A range of Open
Source or Free
Hosted Tools can
improve your
knowledge
management and
insight, including:
Google Analytics,
Wikispaces,
Wikimedia,
Google Docs,
SugarCRM, vTiger
and Zoho.
Most of the
tools and
applications
described are
Open Source or
free hosted
applications.
Consider also
Joomla, Drupal,
Wordpress and
Alfresco as
alternative
website
software
applications.
These tools add
to the Customer
Experience.
Consider
Google Groups
and Ning for
creating Forums
and Networks.
Get Satisfaction,
Facebook or
Twitter for
customer
support; and
Google Talk,
Skype or MSN
for chat.
OS and Free
hosted tools can
enhance your
Sales and
Marketing
efforts.
Consider
eMagento or
eBay for e-
commerce;
Eventbrite for
Event
Management;
and
SurveyMonkey
to run customer
polls or surveys.
Don't forget the
other tools
mentioned.
Too many to
mention: try
openoffice.org and
for collaboration
look at Zoho Suite,
Google Docs or
Basecamp; for
video production
see Animoto; look
at Google Apps for
Calendaring and
Email; try Doodle
for meeting
scheduling.
Source: The Authors
Guide to Social Media Strategy Development
A Strategic Guide to Social Media Page 41
About the Authors
Dr. Jim Hamill and Alan Stevenson are acknowledged experts in Web 2.0/Social Media having
successfully delivered on a wide range of consultancy projects in both the UK and
internationally. They own and manage two very successful online communities – the tourism
industry professional networking community ‘Tourism 2.0’ (www.tourism2-0.co.uk); and the
‘crowd sourced’ Web 2.0/Social Media e-Learning Community www.web2-0cpd.com.
Dr. Jim Hamill
Alan Stevenson
w: www.linkedin.com/in/jimh7171
w: www.linkedin.com/in/asbusinesssolutions