IN-DEPTH: InterGlobe Technologies’ internal studies confirm that for every 100 customer service calls, airlines will attract 96 conversations over social media. It is vital for travel companies to understand content consumption on social media sites and also find efficient ways of handing over the responsibility of social media to employees.

Listening to what customers are saying is key and can be a strong starting point for any social media initiative.

Once an entity is sure about its brand attributes then it is in a position to work out its social media strategy, which can reflect the values of a particular brand.

Moving on, how should one go about such initiative?

“Be yourself!” This is what marketers recommend. What has worked for travel companies is to make their social media presence a natural extension of what they stand for when they engage with their guests/ passengers. Experts in this arena say social media offers the opportunity to amplify voice and refine ability to listen to those that matter to companies most and at the same time remain personally connected one-to-one.

Employees are brand custodians and the face of a company, says Vipul Doshi‚ CEO‚ InterGlobe Technologies.

Doshi recommends that while handing over the responsibility of social media to your employees, three things should be kept in mind:

1.     Pre-defined extensive workflows and escalation points

2.     Training on conversation etiquettes and process workflows

3.     Communication and brand guidelines

“As every employee using the social channel is a brand ambassador, it is important to empower them to make the right decision. As a social media manager, you can only coach and guide them but effective implementation can happen only when you trust your employees,” Doshi told EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta in an interview.

Also, it is important to understand what’s being discussed and also produce content that is interesting, relevant and sharable. It is recommended that one can have a rough content plan for guidance but one needs to be topical. Encourage debate and let the community guide you where you want to go in terms of future planning. The savvy companies approach generating content or initiating conversations as a way of continuing the dialogue with their customers. 

Doshi spoke about content consumption on social media sites, influence and other relevant topics. Excerpts:

What do you make of content consumption when it comes to social media sites/ travel community sites? What is the behaviour pattern on such sites and how should airlines go about engaging audiences accordingly?

Social Media has always been an attractive avenue for travel brands. The prime reason is that travel is a very social experience both as a purchase as well as an activity. People consult their friends for travel recommendations and seek their advice for places they should visit, airlines they should prefer and hotels they should stay. Moreover, people travel with their friends, make new friends during trips and travelling together (at least for holidays and leisure) is always considered more exciting that travelling alone. Travel brands are trying to bring this social experience online for people to get travel recommendations, share their travel experiences and help make their customers’ travel better.

To answer your second question, the airline industry is all about forming communities. Many travellers are regulars, people who log countless hours in the skies for business or pleasure. The social web is a great place to interact with these frequent flyers, gather their feedback on where they are succeeding, and where they could stand to make some improvements. Customers appreciate the willingness to connect, and putting a customer service agent on the front line ensures you’ll be reacting to situations before they turn into bigger issues.

People are continuously using the social web to discuss your airline. They could be tweeting from an airport with questions on flight delays, or maybe using Facebook to celebrate their great experiences with your in-flight crew. Airlines should use the social web to reach out to passengers to ensure that they’re having the best experience possible each and every time they take to the skies.

How should companies go about nurturing brand personality through social media? What do you recommend when it comes to choosing the right tone/engagement strategy to suit a particular brand?

The social media space is blazing hot right now. While consumers realised very early that they could do a lot with it, now brands are realising this.

Till very recently, Facebook was the beginning and end of social media. Now I can safely say there are a lot of brands who are willing to experiment. This is the only medium so far that allows a two-way communication which brands were not familiar with earlier. They are realising that marketing is not the only takeaway and social media can also support other business functions like customer support, market research, lead generation, senior management, brand building and even hiring. In 2012 many more brands will go the social media way.

With context to the travel domain, people are using technology and social networks to tap into the wisdom of friends to make good travel decisions. From sharing travel experiences online, to planning vacations based on traveller-generated ratings, there has been a dramatic shift in consumer behaviour in the travel industry in recent times. The increasing use of various social networking channels for travel planning leaves no doubt that social media is an integral part of the travel business.

According to a 2011 Digital Travel Content and User Experience Survey, 72% of the 18-24 demographic said that they would share their travel experiences online via Facebook, twitter and travel blogs accounted for 27% and 26% of usage respectively. 93% of the respondents said that they would look online for information about their holiday destination ‘before deciding where to go.
How do consumers influence each other in social spaces?  What type of social content is the most influential?

From the success of social networking sites to the explosion in user-generated content, we have seen a dramatic shift in how consumers interact with the Internet and with each other. Social media have transformed the way people communicate, search for information, make decisions, socialise, learn, and share experiences.  This also applies to consumer behaviour in travel and tourism. 

Growing numbers of travellers search and consume travel information created by other travellers for their travel planning and then share their experiences when they return from their trips. Given the experiential nature of tourism, the information created by other travellers is even more important and influential in the search and decision-making process than when considering other types of purchases. 

Online travel reviews, such as the hotel reviews posted on TripAdvisor, are particularly popular sources of information and those who use them indicate that these traveller opinions greatly influence their accommodation choices. Activity choices and restaurant decisions are also increasingly affected by the opinions of review writers while decisions on where to travel are typically made before reviews are consulted. 

Other social media types such videos and podcasts are generally less influential, although gender and age differences come into play when looking at the influence of specific social media categories.

How do you foresee the combination of mobility and getting advice from friends growing?

The year 2012 will see aggressive consumer adoption of the mobile platform as a booking vehicle for travel. Almost nine out of 10 airlines are actively selling, or planning to sell, tickets on mobile phones by 2014. Google projects that 8% of mobile users will be booking travel from their smartphones by 2012. The travel industry believes that with the way bookings have migrated from offline to online over the years, one can expect to witness migration of a certain percentage of online travel bookings to move from desktop to mobile in the time to come.
Travellers are going to feel more empowered than ever as 2012 progresses. Google reports 300,000 new Android activations per day and eMarketer notes that 50% of all new internet connections worldwide are coming from mobile devices. The number of searches in the travel category via a mobile device continues to rise this year; the percentage of queries coming from mobile devices now makes up 19.5% of all hotel queries. Quite notably, people aren’t just searching with mobile; they are actually completing transactions from their devices. The number of mobile bookings in the travel space has accelerated from $20 million in 2008 to over $200 million in 2010 – 2011.