Tourism: A Social Media Butterfly?

As promised, here's the Applecore article that ran in the June 2009 issue of the St. John’s Board of Trade Business News Magazine. The theme of the month was Tourism, and since that's a subject which we know well, we just had to weigh in!

Tourism: A Social Media Butterfly?

Social media – it’s a phrase that people are beginning to recognize! In fact, many people use social media every day, though they may not call it that. Social media is an umbrella term for all the technologies that allow social interaction online. In other words, it’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs, and it may just be the best way to talk to consumers.

Social media has been an area of marketing many businesses have been more reluctant to adopt, for lots of reasons: they worry about losing control, about getting caught up, about taking on too much too fast. But it’s getting easier and more essential than ever to get involved. Otherwise, as consumers demand that companies engage in more direct interaction, we risk being left behind. A new business model is developing that gives more power to the consumer.

But it’s nothing to be afraid of! For industries like Tourism, which is not only the world’s largest industry but also a top online sector, learning how to have these conversations with travellers is crucial. The statistics are compelling: 3,000,000 messages are sent over Twitter every day, Facebook is used in over 170 countries, blogs have 346,000,000 daily readers and YouTube boasts over 100,000,000 videos. In most cases, start-up costs are minimal. With all this potential for consumer/company interaction, social media is becoming the natural, low cost platform for marketing a destination in a way that is honest, informative and transparent.

NewfoundlandLabrador.com is a great example of a tourism destination using social media. The province’s online tourism destination marketing has grown to include social media distribution channels like a YouTube channel, a Facebook page with almost 5,000 fans, a custom Twitter account, Travel Blog, a Virtual Scrapbook that features user-uploaded photos and comments/ratings.

Think of how far a good review can go when it comes to social media and trip planning! Online features like user reviews, peer to peer communication and fan comments hold a powerful influence over the average traveller. For example, a Jupiter Research study says 58% of potential travellers trust content from users, like consumer ratings or traveller reviews, for trip planning. The same study also said 36% named this user content as an influence in the final decision-making process, ahead of factors like brand awareness (21%) or even a friend’s recommendation (14%).

Beware of the “island effect”—or, letting social media platforms stand on their own with no interaction. Using social media right means connecting each channel – embedding your uploaded YouTube videos into your Facebook page, posting links to your blog on Twitter, redirecting from YouTube to your website. Each bridge you build between your “islands” makes it easier for the user to experience all your business has to offer.

So dive in—just take your social media in steps. You don’t have to master every platform at once. When it comes to social media, getting started is the hard part— riding the learning curve is fun and exciting. Remember--social media is a powerful marketing engine, but one that needs regular fuel and a willingness to learn.

Originally published in the St. John's Board of Trade's Business News Magazine, June 2009. All rights reserved.

Learn more about the St. John's Board of Trade.

June 1-7: Tourism Awareness Week!

This past week has been something that naturally catches our eye: June 1st - 7th is Tourism Awareness Week, sponsored by Hospitality Newfoundland & Labrador. Tourism is such a huge industry—not only internationally, but online as well. Not to mention that it’s always been such a vivid factor in the economy of Newfoundland & Labrador.

The week was host to many talks and seminars about the direction that the tourism industry is moving in, capped off with a luncheon on the 3rd attended by the Honourable Clyde Jackman, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation. Spreading tourism awareness is an exciting topic, especially since there’s never been a better time to spark conversations about the future. The industry has been taking huge steps online, embracing social media and interactive communities.

Of course, Applecore had to get in on the action as well. We were so inspired that we've written an article on that very subject, to be published in the St. John’s Board of Trade Business News Magazine. We decided to tackle the subject of social media and why it works so well withtourism, since it’s a topic we’re exploring every day. Social media—things like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and peer reviews—are making amazing leaps in the industry and shaping the future of how people travel.

Check back next month for full details, but here’s a teaser for now: the future of social media and tourism relies on being flexible, transparent and ready to have a conversation with potential travelers. How can you prepare?

To be continued…!

Understanding Bounce Rates

by Greg Pike, Applecore Web Developer

Bounce rate. It's one of the top Google Analytics metrics and yet many people are still confused by it. What does it mean next to exit rates? What's the difference?

 A “bounce” is when a user has shown little interest in your website. In other words, when a user hits your website only to leave or ignore it immediately.

 The bounce rate is therefore the percentage of users who bounce. If four out of every ten users bounce, your bounce rate is 40%. This says four out of every ten users came to your site, didn't find what they were looking for, and left.

 Bounce rate: "I came. I puked. I left." - Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Analytics Evangelist and author of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day.

Average Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is a performance measure for a website, particularly websites keen on converting users into customers like e-commerce websites. Most bounce rates will be somewhere between 35% and 60%. It's good practice to strive to reach the lowest possible bounce rate you can for a website.

Causes of High Bounce Rates

High bounce rates can be caused by a number of factors.

• Poor content. Users are nosy and want to learn more, but if your content isn't useful or not relevant they will not waste their time.
• Misplaced links, buttons, graphics or ads. Web users are very impatient and if they don't see what they want right away, they'll simply leave. Review how you're communicating to your users or redesign your website to draw them in. Google’s Website Optimizator will allow you to compare visitor metrics for multiple versions of the same page. Try creating several versions of a page to determine what will perform better.
• Abbreviated domain name. Many organizations share abbreviated names. For example, MWI is both the name of a search engine marketing company (mwi.com) and conflict mediation company (mwi.org).
• Start pages. Any user that has your website set as their start page will hit your website every time they open their web browser.
• Information pages. Users can be quick to jump around to find the information they desire. Information pages tend to have high bounce rates because users hit them to learn something specific, and when they acquire that knowledge they return to where they came from or move on.

There are some websites that will have high bounce rates and there's very little that can be done to change it. For the other websites that want to take action and lower their bounce rate, there isn't really one solitary solution. Every website has different content, different audiences and many other distinctive factors that make it unique-- which means improving bounce rate can only be taken on a case by case basis. That magic word or one-step process to give you a better bounce rate? It doesn't exist. 

Bounce Rate and Exit Rate

At first glance, it might be difficult to see a difference between bounce and exit rate. Exit rate is similar to bounce rate, but differs in that it calculates the percentage of users that "exit" the site from any particular page. For example, a user hits the default landing page and navigates to a news article. There is no bounce because the user stayed on the website. Then the user goes to google.com and searches for something. This is an exit. Exit rate is the percentage of users that leave the site from a given page divided by the total number of users that visit that same page.

 Let's break it down.

Ten users visit the Applecore Games page.

Two users hit this page from a search query and the other eight all get there from the site navigation (meaning they were already on the Applecore site before going to the games).

One of those two users (from the search engine) leaves the page and goes back to their search results and the other one clicks a link and plays one of the games.

Of the other eight, three users leave the website and go to eBay to buy books on the definition of Exit Rates.

The other five click on links and also play the games.

Bounce Rate: 1 / 10 - 10%
Exit Rate: 3 / 10 - 30%

 

Exit rate is not necessarily a bad thing. Users cannot stay on your website forever. It does, however, give you insight as to what pages leave your visitors feeling the need to move on.

Google Earth brings virtual tourism to iPhone

SAN FRANCISCO--Google already has customized some of its Web sites for display on the iPhone, but now the company also dived headlong onto Apple's highly regarded mobile phone with a full-fledge application, a handheld version of its Google Earth geographical software.

Google Earth lets people virtually fly around a 3D view of the world made from satellite and aerial imagery mapped onto the planet's mountains and valleys. The iPhone version reproduces this core experience, downloading imagery from Google's servers as the perspective shifts and dotting the map with landmarks, photos, and other information.

"The idea of having Earth on a mobile device is something people dreamed of back to the Keyhole days and before," said Peter Birch, Google Earth's product manager, referring to the satellite imagery company Google acquired in 2004. "This is the first opportunity we've had to be able to deliver a great experience."

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