I was following a very interesting conversation this week on Twitter.  It was from Veronica Stoddart, Managing Editor of USA Today Travel.  She was tweeting updates from the social media panel at the Adventure Travel World Summit.  There were a lot of interesting comments from adventure travel companies, so I thought I’d take a moment and add in my thoughts and opinions here.  Travel has huge potential online, and adventure travel even more so, so I couldn’t help but put out my opinion on these.

(Side note:  If you’d like to follow Veronica on Twitter, her profile is @Wanderluster13.  And if you want to see tweets from the Adventure Travel World Summit, search for the keyword #atws09.)

Mount Fitzroy in Patagonia…a formidable climb for many travellers.  It sounds like many adventure travel firms also find social media a formidable climb.

Getting Started without Being Overwhelmed

From the panel discussion:

Social media conversation can be overwhelming for newcomer….  There’s either fear or excitement or both.

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Small travel companies are overwhelmed with too many choices in social media. They’re exhausted and overwhelmed, & don’t know where to focus.

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Social media requires strategy and small travel companies need help w that. Not enough to just throw up random content

First of all, I’d like to applaud the fact that folk realise a strategy is required.  You don’t market offline without a strategy, in fact you shouldn’t do most things in business without a strategy, so why use social media without a plan?

Our Do-It-Yourself DIY Guide TOP Secrets:  7 Common Mistakes Brands Make When Going Online (free with our newsletter subscription) is a great place to start, especially because it offers tips and suggestions for getting your feet wet without drowning.   Some of the main tips:

• Shut out the noise and focus on connecting what you have to offer with your ideal customer.
• Don’t feel compelled to signup for every network, forum, platform, or service.
• Spend time researching and planning.

Lastly, DO something.  Social media might just be the perfect tool for your small business – so why miss out?  Check things out and give it a go.  Your ideal customers are waiting.

Learn More

Speaking of research and planning, I must point out: “Exhausted & Overwhelmed” doesn’t do anybody favours.  So stop spinning your wheels with our two TOP resources that can help:

• build a comprehensive online strategy with our one-on-one strategy package
• do it yourself with our excellent DIY resources

Knowing What It’s All About

Comment from the panel:

Social media isn’t to make profit but to engage, communicate, dialogue, build brand

Ok, this is where I get a little controversial, but I disagree with the above statement.  Since when does building your brand not contribute to the bottom line? Everything you do for your business should be about the bottom line, whether directly or indirectly. That goes for social media too.  (Ok – almost everything – a philanthropic donation, for example, isn’t about the bottom line…. but you get my drift.)

Just because something’s hard to measure (fluffy things like ‘brand awareness’ or ’social presence’ ) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to connect it back to profits.

Sure, I totally agree:  social media IS about engagement, communication, dialogue.  Absolutely – it’s opened up new ways of interaction that just weren’t possible before for small businesses with small budgets.   It’s about relationships first, business second.

But don’t leave the second item behind.  At the end of the day, are you engaging with a customer to obtain feedback about your products and services?  Communicating with them in order to build your brand awareness and reputation?  Opening a dialogue about how your business might be a solution they’re interested in?

Measuring Your Return on Investment

How do tour operators measure customer engagement thru social media? They’re struggling for tools. Relevancy vs. frequency.

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Time and Return on Investment are the biggest challenges for small travel companies using social media. How to evaluate the effort they put in?

This one is probably the most difficult of all the online problems small businesses faced, and I’m afraid to say we still don’t have great tools to really monitor and evaluate this properly.

Many fall into the fallacy that Twitter Followers, Facebook Fans, Email Newsletter subscribers, and Web Site statistics are your measurements, but I find that these fall short of the mark.  You can have folk showing up on all of these marketing channels yet never become a buyer nor refer you to anyone.  I’m  not saying don’t track them, but don’t rely on them for the full picture.

What I like to recommend is to integrate your social media presence into your customer feedback process.  (You DO ask for customer feedback, right?)  Ask customers how they found you, what social media profiles are they aware of/use.  And ask your followers/fans/subscribers/readers what they think of your content.

As with all feedback loops, you’ll find it hard to get lots of responses.  However what you do get back will be full of gems so be sure you’re asking and listening.

Finding the Time

Once tour operators engage with social media, they find it hard to drive traffic back to their websites, which defeats the whole point.

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As tour operators focus more on Facebook and Twitter, they let their blogs go more. Limited resources.

Hmmm.  I’d love to know what kinds of information the panelists are sharing on their Facebook and Twitter profiles, because why not link back to your own content?  (Unless the problem is that your own content isn’t good enough, which is a whole different problem!)

Your website, with or without a blog, is your home base and you must give it your priority.  If you’re spending time Tweeting and sending out Facebook updates, and then your followers/fans click and find a lacklustre web presence, they’ll just move on to something else more interesting.  So don’t waste your time with promotion until you’ve got rock-star content.

Keep in mind that content doesn’t have to be long, lengthy blog posts.  What about:

• Feature stories / testimonials from customers
• Have your guides share adventures, tales, information ‘from the road’
• Do a photo essay showing off some unique, unusual, or interesting photos

Think out of the box.  As mentioned above, ask people what they want.  What are your competitors doing?  Do it better, or different.

Also – track your time!  It’s easy to spend an hour on Twitter and wonder where the time went.  Keep an eye on things so you can compare them with your feedback loop to see what’s working and what needs refined.

Learn More

Many customers  have found our online audit package which  a useful tool for feedback on their current activities.  We can also help with brainstorming better content for your brand as well as helping you write more persuasive content.

Sharing Information & Experiences

How do small travel companies share info & best practices so they can learn the best? They can feel like they’re in a vacuum.

By joining the TOP community here at Travel Online Partners, of course!  Ok – we have a little secret… we’ve been planning on launching a forum for small businesses to not feel alone but feel like they have a safe, informal environment to discuss their online issues.  It sounds like we need to get this going ASAP, so I’ll update our to do lists!  If this is something you’d be interested in, please comment below on this article.

Photo by Phillie Casablanca.

Note:  I’ve slightly modified Veronica tweet’s to remove acronyms, fix grammar, and make them slightly more readable but I haven’t changed the context.