In-Depth: Word-of-mouth marketing, developing an integrated content strategy and driving conversions from social media investments are among the challenges facing marketers. EyeforTravel’s Pamela Whitby hears insights from two experts in the field.

Long considered the holy-grail of marketers, word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) is certainly not a new concept. In fact it is well recognised as one of the most effective forms of marketing. This is backed up by research, which indicates that 90% of consumers trust their peers versus just 33% who trust advertisements.

What is new, however, is that through social media, WOMM can be leveraged at massive scale and the results are far more measurable. “Brands should be shaping these conversations that are happening between people online by engaging with relevant influencers,” stresses Michael Tucci, Brand Partnerships at Klout, a firm which scores brands on how effective they are at engaging their audience across all social channels and then provides a metric for their ability to drive action on social. 

Tucci, who will be speaking at the Social Media & Mobile Strategies for Travel 2013 event in San Francisco (March 18-19)makes an interesting point: “Over 500 billion influence impressions are generated each year about brands, products, and services. Yet 80% of them are created by just 6% of users.” For this reason it is critical to “identify and activate” the right audience.

So how exactly in this new social world can brands make the most of WOMM? “First and foremost,” says Robert Patterson, Vice President of Social Media & Influencer Marketing at the travel marketing firm, MMGY global, “travel brands need to live up to their brand promise and then ‘wow’ their guests in accommodations, experiences and services.”

Word-of-mouth is, after all, organic, authentic and trusted because it is real. Against this backdrop, travel marketers need to understand that the most trusted source of information when making a travel planning decision comes from friends and family. “As travel marketers we need to leverage these relationships through reputation management, social media, email, paid media and through influencer outreach programmes,” says Patterson, who believes one of the biggest challenges facing marketers this year will be executing reputation management strategies to impact consumer perception, word-of-mouth and that all important revenue.

According to Tucci, the ‘consumer Klout score’ can help brands by enabling them to understand the potential impact of someone who is influential in the topic of travel, tourism, hotels and so on. “If someone has a high Klout score, a brand might want to know about her because when she talks about travel, people in her network listen, share, and engage with that content,” explains Tucci, adding that Klout data can also be used to identify a brand's top fans or followers both in terms of word-of-mouth or content created, rather than dollars spent. Additionally, Klout data can help brands identify new advocates.

Who will be king of content?

Another challenge and “amazing opportunity”, says Patterson, will to be to develop an integrated content strategy that utilises created, curated and paid content. “I believe this year will mark a watershed moment as the convergence of earned, paid and curated content as an integrated content marketing strategy is finally realised,” he says.

When it comes to online reviews, Patterson says in order to maximise their value, brands and agencies need to listen to what is being said, plan a comprehensive response strategy, execute against their strategy and, importantly, focus on more than just TripAdvisor. “Collectively we need to do a better job at closing the consumer feedback loop and incorporating the data we are collecting to make operational changes to better travel experiences and improve consumer satisfaction,” he says.

According to Patterson, the focus should be on both user-generated feedback and curated testimonials. After all, consumers use ten websites or more when planning their travel. So marketers need to have a firm understanding of the landscape, who is influencing online communities and how we can facilitate improvements both online and in real life. “We need to be everywhere the consumers are,” says Patterson.

Klout’s Tucci is also quick to stress the importance of brands being authentic and building genuine trust. That means taking the good with the bad. “Bad reviews should be an opportunity to create new advocates through exceptional customer service,” he says.

Building blocks with bloggers

Another growing trend in the travel content has been forging of relationships between brands and bloggers (see EyeforTravel Bagging the bloggers: Expedia’s content strategy pays off 20 June, 2012). Bloggers, no matter how big or small their audience, all have influence. But as Tucci points out, most people are aware that bloggers sometimes write ‘promoted’ posts or are given products and experiences so that they will write about a particular brand. This can appear unauthentic. The most effective way to drive the conversation (and ROI), he says, is through organic and genuine content. “Brands that can engage with bloggers and do not require anything in return might see the best results,” he says.

Of course, as a marketer you would be remiss to underestimate the influential power wielded by bloggers. But Patterson warns that brands should vet the bloggers they choose to work with closely to ensure they are representative of the brand, voice and consumer demographics. “As travel marketers we need to do more to reach out to this community and incorporate them into events such as hotel openings, relaunches or special events,” he says. So if it makes sense to invite traditional press to your property, then you probably should be inviting bloggers too. And perhaps, Patterson adds, more needs to be done to cater to the blogging audience and their media usage by holding non-traditional events such as tweet ups and Google+ hangouts.

Looking ahead and other challenges

In 2012, multiple studies concluded that consumers are connecting with brands on social media in order to receive exclusive offers, discounts and promotions. However, these studies also found that brands did not list providing special offers as one of the top reasons they utilise social media to connect with consumers. “Because social media is consumer driven, brands and agencies in 2013 need to cater to their audience's interest when connecting with them,” stresses Patterson. In doing so, they will benefit from stronger social media relationships and in-turn drive social commerce.

What excites Patterson is what Facebook will offer marketers when it rolls out its recently launched Search Graph. He has already seen “tremendous conversion success with Facebook Advertising and Facebook Offers” and still believes that Facebook offers the best social media opportunity for conversion because of the its size, diversity of users and the marketing data available for targeting. However, he is quick to stress that only once you have truly connected with social media users and provided them with something of value, can you convert them.

Aside from the challenges of developing and integrated content strategy and addressing the issues around reputation management and converting social media users, for Patterson other areas of focus should include:

1.     Planning a balanced marketing mix that allows for innovation and pivoting strategy as necessary.

2.     Customising product marketing to personalise products by audience. Why do we sell hotel rooms the same way for the Baby Boomer as we do for Generation X?

3.     Analysing the appropriate data and data correlations before making database marketing decisions.

To hear more insights from Michael Tucci Brand Partnerships, Klout and Robert Patterson, Vice President of Social Media & Influencer Marketing at MMGY Global join us at our San Francisco event: Social Media & Mobile Strategies for Travel 2013, March 18-19