Don Tapscott: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
David Weinberger: Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder
Seth Godin: All Marketers Are Liars : The Power of Telling Authentic Stories in a Low-Trust World
Christopher Locke: The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual
Seth Godin: Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
Seth Godin: Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
it's called 50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing by Chris Brogan. You can't go wrong trying to understand the subject and start using at least some, if not all, of these suggestions.
might be a future reality according to this Real Time column in WSJ.com by Jason Fry. He raises a number of interesting points that will indeed make this a general reality as it is already for a fast increasing number of people who can easily be found on the web today. In the networked world we live in today, where radical transparency is another fact of life I can imagine this scenario.
I found this quote by Curt Monash particularly poignant: "The Internet WILL tell stories about you, true or otherwise. Make sure your own version is out there too." It's a necessity for companies today and might become one for everybody in future, who knows.
One thing seems obvious to me, this new reality will have a profound impact on how to market products and services effectively.
reported in this latest survey revealing that Stressed Americans Leave 460 Million Vacation Days Unused. It used to be that the Japanese were the workaholics but now they seem to have been replaced by Americans. By international comparison the amount of vacation days in the U.S. is already very low and it seems many people don't even take those in full.
It's quite a loss to the travel industry as a whole when we imagine that at least a certain percentage of these people would spend their days away from home. Not a statistic of which we should be proud!
Technorati Tags: vacation, travel, tourism
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
This quote somehow reminds me how far we still are from making the travel planning - researching and buying process on the web truly an easy and enjoyable experience based on the technology understanding and correctly interpreting customer needs and preferences. It's certainly far from being magic!
of online travel, to find that Independent Hotels’ Online Presence Lagging according to this recent study by GuestCentric. The gap between the larger chains and smaller independent hotels is significant when it comes to an effective presence online and the use of web based marketing and distribution tools.
The web was supposed to have leveled the playing field for large and small players but it seems that hasn't entirely happened in the accommodation sector yet, although according to the latest PhoCusWright Consumer Travel Trends Survey Hotel stays were the most popular component with U.S. online leisure travel buyers in 2007.
This is proof of the growth opportunity for the accommodation sector and poses a challenge to those who haven't yet focused on how to best use the web as a key tool to assure their future success and do so fast or very likely continue to decline and eventually disappear. No supplier in the travel industry can any longer afford to stay on the sidelines when it comes to the effective use of the web.
Technorati Tags: hotels, accommodation,
that the old argument still brought up by some marketers that all this new web 2.0 stuff is only for kids no longer holds true, is presented in Step Away From The Computer, Kids: Baby Boomers Embrace Social Media an article in MediaPost Publications about a recent AARP study that covers web use by boomers. It shows some very high usage rates, like 70% of consumers age 50+ saying that their online community was "very" or "extremely" important to them. Again, it looks like the web behavior of this audience makes it a necessity to focus on effective, integrated marketing that makes smart use of the latest web tools available.
Technorati Tags: AARP, social media, marketing, boomers
The Opinion Research Corporation just published a report revealing some very important insight into how people research products and services online. 61% of respondents read "online reviews, blogs and other sources of online customer feedback before purchasing. More importantly, 83% said that online product evaluations and reviews had at least some level of influence on their purchasing decisions, although only 32% reported posting online feedback themselves.
A most revealing comment was made by Linda Shea, SVP and Global Managing Director of Customer Strategis for ORC:
“Businesses today exist in an era in which it’s nearly impossible to escape the likelihood of being
evaluated…there’s nowhere to hide. Companies must be extremely mindful of the power of proliferating online forums and their ability to shape consumer’s perceptions about brands. Even a single negative review, when posted in a very public forum, can have a significant impact on a prospective buyer’s decision to purchase.”
Social Influence Marketing: The New Way to Win Customers contains a number of very useful suggestions of how to be actively engaged in the conversation about your brand rather than just a passive bystander. While these ideas are certainly useful, I just wonder how many organizations have the right marketing structure in place to implement these activities. Looking at the large majority of travel sites out there, I haven't noticed anyone in particular being at the leading edge of what's called here social influence marketing. It will require a change in mindset that allows this happen and it can't come too soon.
Technorati Tags: chief marketer, social influence marketing, social media
Travel firms ignoring poor web performance is the title of an article in Internet Travel News about a recent Gomez study testing travel sites. It calls the experience poor and inconsistent, which might well be the true for a large number of travel sites. On the other hand, it's about much more than download speed in this phase of the web. My take is that a large number of travel site visitors are disappointed by the fact that they can't find the suitable product and to wade through all the "specials" and "deals" is just becoming more and more tedious.
What's true more and more is that travelers are not just looking for the cheapest fare any longer but for the perfect vacation and that is where the performance is still not up to the expectations of an increasingly web savvy and demanding audience. The total integration of the planning, shopping and buying experience is what's required and that goes way beyond page download speed.
Technorati Tags: site performance, gomez, travel 2.0
The Hyperconnected: Here They Come! is the name of a new IDC study of global communications habits commissioned by Nortel. They interviewed 2400 working adults in 17 countries. This will have implications on how business is being conducted as this group expands at a rapid pace and travel will certainly be affected. Their demands on the user experience will be higher than those of the less connected. They will also very likely be more willing to post their comments and reviews, good or bad, to their social network and beyond.
The study can be downloaded from the article page. Better get ready!
Technorati Tags: IDC, Nortel, communications, hyperconnected
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