Social Media and Marketing

IN-DEPTH: Interview with Justin Reid, head of Online Marketing, VisitBritain

Published: 30 Aug 2010

IN-DEPTH: Interview with Justin Reid, head of Online Marketing, VisitBritain

By Ritesh Gupta

UK national tourism agency VisitBritain considers its website, VisitBritain.com, to be its main platform for communicating with its customers, focusing on serving up dynamic and personalised content tailored to the country the visitor comes from and written in their language.

The site is a key part of VisitBritain’s digital strategy using social media, online content and mobiles to enthuse potential visitors to Britain.

In July this year, the agency unveiled its new website. According to the agency, with 95 percent user generated image content throughout, the engaging new version of visitbritain.com will provide an immersive, multilingual online experience, including the latest social media platforms and magazine-style travel features.

In order to know more about the new site and how social media is being made an integral part of the digital strategy, EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta spoke to Justin Reid, head of Online Marketing, VisitBritain. Excerpts:

VisitBritain recognises that social media has become crucial in the way families decide which holiday to go on, and so syndication and aggregation are enabled within the new site so that all content is available across a wide range of travel sites and blogs. How do you think social media features are being embraced today to fully tie together the inspirational and functional aspects of planning a holiday?

We have almost inverted our online pyramid, previously all our activity was aimed at driving all traffic to our website and ensuring it lay at the hearty of everything we did.

However, in-depth research showed us that long haul travellers primarily arrived at a National Tourist Board site after they had made the decision about where to travel. We therefore had to ensure two things:

1. Our website was aimed at converting interest into action
2. We had to start putting content into the online arenas further up the decision making process of the consumer. i.e. syndication via Yahoo! Travel and the like, and of course embracing the opportunities made available by social media. Where relevant we would bring these back into the website as feeds / teasers but only in a conversion capacity – i.e. best photos from Flickr etc.

The best social media outreach usually engages multiple departments within an organisation, ranging from marketing to product to engineering to editorial. How do you assess this approach towards nurturing a team and a culture?

First thing we did when starting our social media work was to set up a Global Working Group made up of all regions around the world and representatives from every department. This ensured we got not just buy in, but also covered all bases in terms of corporate and consumer thinking.

A key point was to get the CEO on board as well – luckily we have a progressive thinking CEO Sandie Dawe, who endorsed the project from the start, and we shot a short video that the whole company could view, giving them pointers as to what we were doing but also how they could help. De-mystifying the aura of social media and also removing the taboos of being active on those platforms. http://LoveUK.us/31

How can one ensure that when it comes to social media, the entire organisation is working off the same goals, language and to ensure focus and resourcing?

Involve everyone and share the goals out amongst the organisation. Social media is inherently fun, travel and tourism is inherently fun, we should thrive on combining the two.

Earlier this year, in an interview with EyeforTravel, Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau shared that as far as social media implementation is concerned, it has taken the team approach enlisting visitor services, advertising, interactive marketing, publicity, corporate communications and promotions to work together to maximise the medium. How do you assess this approach?

We are currently working under the guidelines that the main social media channels are an “inspiration” engine rather than a booking engine. As we build up trust with the online communities then they will in turn trust our more overt commercial messaging. But this can’t be rushed, trust must come first, then commercialism second. One key asset going forward though will be the harnessing of local pride and passion about tourism products, we need passionate ambassadors for the local UK products championing their regions / products in the social media arena.

Which is the best way to go about the transitioning phase? How should one go about actually implementing a social media strategy or the launch of various social media platforms, accounts or tools?

Don’t rush it. Think about your resources and goals and look for a balanced approach. If you can’t be all things to all people then focus where your strengths are and where you can have most cut through. Anyone who tells me “we’re waiting to find out what the next Facebook is before we jump in” is missing the point entirely. Facebook isn’t a passing fad, it’s a way of life.

How should one go about controlling the content, monitoring and feedback in case an organisation has multiple offices or divisions?

We went for one central account, globally fed but centrally led in each of the main social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and “blogging”. Have a rough content plan to guide you but be topical. Encourage debate and let the community guide you where you want to go in terms of future planning. Its no good have a 6 month content plan that focuses on “Cool Britannia” if your first 5 post generate no comments but you find that whenever you post about Cream Teas you get huge spikes of interest. Let the customer / fan / consumer guide the content, not try and force it the other way around.

Online Marketing and Social Media Strategies for Travel Summit Europe 2010

Justin Reid, head of Online Marketing, VisitBritain is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming two-day Online Marketing and Social Media Strategies for Travel Summit Europe 2010 (5-6, October) to be held in Prague.

For more information, click here

Or contact:
Gina Baillie
VP Global Marketing & Events
EyeforTravel
London, UK: +44 (0)207 375 7197
gina@eyefortravel.com