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Archive for July, 2010

Crafting High-Performing Promos for Email and Social Media Channels

Friday, July 30th, 2010

You’ve got your OTA offers out, your auction site offers, your email offers and now your Twitter and Facebook offers. Do you know what promotions are returning the best bang for your buck? Chances are if you are offering the same thing through all the different channels you aren’t targeting users enough and could be missing out on revenue and engagement opportunities.

If the saying that no two guests are alike is true, then it also rings true that no two marketing channels are alike – especially when it comes to social media and email. The good news is that there can be overlap.

According to a recent ExactTarget report shared with eMarketer, while email subscribers still make up a majority of engaged followers, there is actually a little overlap in email, Twitter and Facebook fans. This highly-engaged four percent of users are every marketers dream, but how do you increase that number for your brand and continue to keep fans of individual channels happy? Get back to the basics, know your audience and diversify your offers.

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Get More out of TripAdvisor

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

Last month TripAdvisor launched yet another feature that is sure to broaden hotel exposure – Trip Friends, an interface that ties into Facebook. Now travelers can tap into their network of friends and see a list of who has been to that location. In addition, they can direct message those friends or post a message to a group of friends – taking the search for helpful travel info a step past reviews from strangers to first hand experiences from trusted contacts.

This foray into more focused social media isn’t the only new feature TripAdvisor has launched recently that could aid properties. The new business listings are streamlined way for hotels to list direct booking info that wasn’t previously available. This is not a free service of course, but for a fee your property can have increased visibility with a phone number, URL and email address – all valuable info for travelers and even more valuable to those looking to channel online bookers directly. (more…)