At InterCoastal Net Designs, we talk to new clients all the time about growing their social media presence the right way.  Focusing on a strong and consistent posting strategy is the best way to engage users and develop these client relationships; but how do you get them there in the first place?  While there are a number of different strategies, one of the most successful is running a contest.

Elements to a Successful Facebook Contest

1. Obey the Rules - There are so many little rules that most people don't know about. The fine print can result in your Facebook page being deleted - consult the ICND experts!
2. Make it Easy to Enter - Sometimes contests can be confusing!  How do I enter? How do I vote? How do I increase my chances of winning? How do I share it? - These should all be very easy to understand and made simple to maximize results.
3. Make the Contest Mobile Friendly - Here at InterCoastal Net Designs, we've seen as much as 70% of new fans come from a mobile device during a contest.  That's a big chunk of the pie to miss out on.  Don't use one of the generic Facebook apps that are on a tab on Facebook, while they are mobile friendly, they do not see near the results as building out a mobile specific page.
4. Use Effective Posting Strategies - This is key to getting your contest to go viral. Take notice of what time you are posting, including a link to the contest, encourage sharing, tagging your page, and using an image.
5. Get a Big Prize - This is a no brainer, the bigger the prize the more people will be enticed to share your contest.
6. Encourage Sharing - You must encourage fans to "LIKE" & "SHARE" - Don't require it (that's against Facebook terms) but no one says you can't encourage it!
7. When in doubt, Call InterCoastal Net Designs - We've had some tremendous success with contests targeting quality fans that are interested in what our clients are offering growing over 50k fans in 3 weeks.  If you want to experience the best results when running a Facebook contest, let's talk!

We're excited to be launching so many successful contests for our clients and we'd love to help you grow customers, outreach and succesfull campaigns through Facebook contests. 
 

Can you guess when we took over this client's Social Media?

The InterCoastal Net Designs Social Media team recently took over the social media account for a company in Myrtle Beach South Carolina in the vacation rental industry.  After working with the client to put together a contest and content strategy, we were able to put together an incredible contest that reached over 1 million people, gained over 10,000 fans and generated a significant amount of revenue in just 1 week.

More details to come on this exciting contest and what exactly it produced for the client, but I think it's easy to say that it has been a successful contest with very good ROI!

If you're struggling to find the benefits in social media and want the ICND Social Media team to produce ROI like this for you, contact our team today to see how we can help!

How would you like to convert sales on Facebook at 40% less costs? - No brainer, right?  Well let us introduce you to a brand new option introduced by Facebook last week and how ICND can leverage this for you RIGHT NOW!

One of the crucial pieces in advertising is tracking what is working and measuring the effectiveness of each piece.  Until now, so many brands have questioned the benefits of social media and if it actually leads to an increase in sales.  This new conversion tracking on Facebook (OCPM) has been available to some of the big brands for a while now but it has just been opened to everyone.  Beta tests have shown a decrease in conversion costs by 40% when using this new OCPM method versus what almost everyone uses now on Facebook. (The CPC method)

How does it work?

ICND can create a conversion tracking pixel for your Facebook ads.  This needs to be placed on your website on your designated "conversion page".  Once the pixel is set, we are able to go back into the Facebook ads manager to set a budget and create ads using this optimized CPM method.

Cross Device ROI Measurement with (OCPM) on Facebook

One of the really exciting things about this new pixel tracking with Facebook is the fact that it's the ONLY solution available that can track when users view ads on one device (like a mobile phone) but then convert on another computer.  This is incredibly powerful for a cross-platform ad campaign!  Further, OCPM conversion tracking works with all Facebook ads and sponsored stories along with all of the powerful targeting options.

Interested?

Schedule a time to learn more or get started with the ICND Social Media team to leverage this brand new tool for your business today!

The highly anticipated event from Facebook and the long overdue announcement has arrived - Facebook is launching a search engine!  In this blog, we're going to uncover exactly what it is and how your business can find it useful.

So what exactly is "Graph Search"?

Think about it as more of a structured search that relates to us as individuals than just a keyword that you would typically search on Google.  Graph search is built in a way that it will encourage us to get recommendations from friends and friends of friends, and to find people within Facebook who share your interests. This connection is a strong endorsement style, personalized result, unlike anything else you can find on the web right now.

If you've worked in-depth with Facebook ads, you already see the incredibly valuable data that this social network holds.  The precise interest targeting you're able to leverage is absolutely incredible and and it's important to note the value in this data when it comes to the new Graph Search.  Marketers that know their clients best will be rewarded!

What information is used in "Graph Search"?

The type of information that you will be able to use to enhance your search on Facebook includes: Interests, Photos, Checkins and Likes.  Think of the power this holds when you consider the value of a referral!

What do businesses need to keep in mind?

Engagement is STILL key - Your page's social graph will determine visibility in search.  So businesses that can successfully engage with fans to create more likes, comments and shares will benefit the most and come up in the most search results.  Optimize your edgerank and news feed optimization to increase engagement and the number of "people talking about" your page.

What else is new?

Integrated Bing search results.  Bing already owns approximately 16% of the search marketshare - this further integration of Bing with the social giant could be a big opportunity for growth.  There are 4 sponsored results that come at the top and 2 sponsored results at the bottom (Bing search is used when the placing a "web search" within the new Facebook Graph Search. The organic listings seem to take social signals into account such as people who have liked and shared the page.  Pages with more likes, engagement and "people talking about" the page seem to have higher ranking in this Bing web search - reasonably so!

What does Facebook Graph Search NOT do?

Graph Search does not search for status updates or posts at this time, although it is on the future plans according to Facebook. It will only pull personalized results for your friends and "friends of friends" as well as broad search results for everyone - you cannot opt out at this time although you can significantly increase privacy.

Summary:

1. Likes are valuable - Run contests, engage fans, encourage sharing of your page and continue to integrate social with your other marketing efforts.
2. Content is King on Search - Build up more content on your page and optimize it for search. Graph Search is still very new so begin testing and learn what "works".
3. Engagement is key - It always has been with Social Media and always will be.  Your post frequency, timing and optimization will increase this significantly so stay focused on engagement and the number of "people talking about" your page.

If you would like to work with the ICND team to leverage the new Facebook Graph search, manage your social media presence or utilize some of the extremely powerful advertising options available, contact your account rep or get in touch with the ICND Social Media team today!

InterCoastal Net Designs partnered with long-time client, Sloane Realty Vacations to design and implement a tab on Sloane's Facebook. This is a new app that ICND published which will allow Facebook fans to book properties directly from the Sloane Vacations Facebook page.

This new app is highly recommended for our vacation rental clients, as it provides the customer with an incredibly easy booking experience. The tab even includes several links to the website and mirrors the Sloane Realty Vacations brand. However, this type of app can be used for any of our clients for marketing purposes. Restaurant - why not allow fans to make reservations? Golf Course - let clients set a tee time online. The possibilites are endless.

What we did was took the booking page already created from their new site, adjusted the width of the page to size with Facebook. To make it appear correctly without scrollbars or anything, we created a new app for Sloane - this is not using a free generic Static HTML app.

This is a perfect example of how creativity, programming expertise and tailored marketing efforts are just three goals that ICND strives for with its clients. Contact your Account Manager today and ask what we can do for you social media presence.

We have just launched a new contest for a client and we wanted to share some of the results that it is showing. 

The concept is simple:
1)    Offering a sizable Prize
2)    Make it Easy to share
3)    Promote it Effectively (without spamming!)

 
There are a few other very important aspects of the contest that truly make it viral and encourage sharing that ICND can help with! 

•    First and foremost, you must follow all of Facebook’s guidelines and rules.  These are spelled out for you in their terms but it is crucial to follow these or your page is in jeopardy of being shut down.

•    Secondly, you need to make it extremely easy for fans and visitors to “SHARE” your contest with friends!

•    Third, you must convert visitors to actually “LIKE” your page.

•    Lastly, you need to promote your contest effectively and without spamming your current fans.

It’s a very simple concept but much harder to actually take on yourself if you’re not in familiar territory.  We have had extreme success in helping our clients launch contests to increase their fan base and exposure through social media and we’d love to do the same for you! Please contact our team to show you just how we can get started!  Call: 910-575-6095 or email us at info@icoastalnet.com

 

Facebook released its new “Offers” system this week to help local businesses promote specials.  We first learned about these offers back in March during the Facebook Marketing Conference and are excited to see that they are now launched for all businesses.  Take a look at the video below from Facebook and our tips below.


These offers are perfect for local businesses and any business where you have walk-in traffic.  Leveraging this power-house platform of over 900 million people in a “Groupon” like fashion is an amazing new way to convert those Facebook fans to actual customers.  Some of the great things about Facebook Offers are:

• It’s Free
• Very Simple to Create
• Shared in Newsfeed
• Simple to Redeem
• Mobile Friendly
• Customizable

Offers are really easy to create!  Once you click on the Offer tab in your status box, you’re given the opportunity to:  Upload a thumbnail, write your promotion, set an expiration date and add your terms and conditions.  This will be posted to your timeline and in the newsfeed of your fans.  If one of your fans “Claims” the offer, they will receive an email to show your employees when they come in your business and it will automatically be shared in their friends newsfeeds.  I like to call this “Exponential Word of Mouth”

Do you need help putting together an effective Facebook Offer Campaign?  We could help you in determining an offer that will be ideal for the Facebook user, help you market it and put all of the pieces together!  Call us today to set-up your free social media audit and get more information how to get started:  910-575-6095.

Facebook ROI is often one of the biggest struggles to obtain.  With over 900 million people on this social network, we know the need for us to have a presence but measuring it’s success is also extremely important.  I’m going to go through a recent success story of one of Intercoastal Net Design’s Social Media efforts.

Google Analytics is a great tool for measuring traffic to your site so most marketers look to see how much traffic Facebook is generating to their site.  That’s a good first step, but by adding an ecommerce conversion tracking code to your website, you can measure the effectiveness of your Facebook efforts in a real measurable factor; REVENUE!

The chart above represents the ecommerce conversion tracking within Google Analytics for a 5 week period between February 7th and March 13th 2012.  The Facebook page for this client generated $18,705 in sales during this 5 week period. Given their profit margin and the costs involved with managing their Facebook page, their ROI for this period was 674%!

Other ways that you can measure the success of your Facebook page and the posts you are leaving is by the interaction you receive and the number of fans you are growing.  Of course, you are looking for good quality targeted fans, not just any person who is willing to click a button on your page.  A strong social media strategy will effectively post visual content at key times of the day and target users in your target market.  In the end, all of this top of mind advertising leads to one thing, conversion which is the result we’re showing our clients.

If you’re interested in similar results from your social media presence, call the ICND Team today to set up your free business social media audit:  910-575-6095

Far too often people will create a Facebook presence for their business without any regard for search engine optimization. Google indexes Facebook Pages on a regular basis just like it does any other website so it’s important to use whatever way you can to boost SEO on these pages. Everything that is necessary when optimizing your website is just as important on your Facebook Pages.

Here are 7 ways to boost SEO of your Facebook Pages:

1. Keep in mind that any gated pages you have (ie, pages requiring a “Like” or “invite” in order to gain access) will not be indexed by Google.

2. Often and consistently use your brand or business name in headings and page tabs.

3. While wall posts are indexed, it’s custom tab titles and “Likes” that hold the most weight and will give you the greatest return.

4. Links from multiple sources help a lot with SEO. Links to custom tabs on your business page will be weighted heavily if they’re from popular and recognized sources.

5. Multimedia posted on your Facebook Pages are an excellent opportunity for SEO enriched titles, descriptions and alt tags.

6. Be sure to put your SEO-rich text where the search engines can see and index it. Keep in mind that any text embedded in an image will not get indexed.

7. Nothing beats well-managed pages. Keep your content fresh, interesting, and engaging to get the most fans and keep search engines coming back.

As if Social Media isn't new and exciting enough, there's lots of things going on recenetly and soon in the social media world.  Not only will it shed some light on your efforts, but also integrating more and more with your other marketing mediums especially, Search Engine Optimization.

Facebook just announced that their new insights/analytics is being released for Facebook pages tomorrow, October 6th, 2011.  For our clients, we'll be reviewing your insights more this month and providing you some more detailed information about our successes with our new Social Media Specialist, David Hutnik.

If you haven't seen anything about the new Facebook insights, here's a quick blog on it:  http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/10/03/people-talking-about-this-page-insights/

Impacts on SEO
Squidoo is launching magazines.  We use Squidoo for our SEO efforts to build content supporting your popular keyword phrases we're targeting on your site.  Just recently, they've become #73 in the top websites surpassign Hulu, NBC, or Digg. 

By launching online magazines, Squidoo will give us more power to publish our online content supporting your site and should have a great impact on supportive PR for SEO purposes.

Google+ button is a pretty huge success - A couple Key Announcements:

 "Since introducing the +1 button earlier this year, we now have more than 5 billion impressions on publisher sites a day." Nick Fox, VP of Product Management at Google

And on the enhanced search ads marketing website, the company claims: Our +1 button is being served 2.3 billion times a day all over the web.

That's incredible impressions of the new Google +1 button.  It is so important you jump in the game now and get this implemented on your site.  Give us a call if you still don't have it.  If we just put it in your header we can implement it in less than an hour.

Last but not least - Facebook is launching the new "timeline" profile, which I'm sure you've heard about.  Facebook is testing it out on some profiles so you may already see it,  but it should be rolling out to everyone soon.  It was pushed by a week by the court as there is a potential issue with the "timeline" name and a small Chicago based company.

Also, Facebook is launching their new “Gestures” which means that developers can turn any verb into a button.  Instead of "liking" something, we will start to see "booking", "watching", "listening", etc...  We'll be leveraging this for our customers as well.

Couple new Facebook Stats:
1)  Facebook has now hit 800 Million users adding about 50 million since July; and most are considered active.
2)  Facebook just saw a new record for the most visitors in one day: a ridiculous 500 million!!

If you haven't taken advantage of our Social Media services, now's the time.  Give us a call or contact your account manager for further details!
 

Are you the ultimate football fan?  If you are, like our Facebook page - www.facebook.com/intercoastalnetdesigns and upload a picture of you being the ultimate football fan to our facebook wall or email contests@icoastalnet.com and be entered to win a $100 gift card.

Today is the last day to enter your photo.  It can be a person, a sports room, your pet.  Once you post or send it in, we'll post all of them in our gallery.  Then, you'll get your friends to vote for you.  The picture with the most votes will win $100 visa giftcard.  Follow us on Facebook for more information!

We live in a world where people want immediate gratification and MUST see their revenue directly related to social media or their not buying in to the fact that there IS a strong return coming from a social media investment. I'm going to take you through a few reasons why social media has never been so important to your business.

•    25% of ALL US traffic is Facebook
•    More time is spent on Facebook than: Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing & YouTube; COMBINED
•    YouTube receives over 2 billion viewers per day and is the 2nd most popular search engine
•    Over 750 MILLION users are now on Facebook!

Now that you know your brand MUST be involved in social media, let me show you 5 other ways to effectively measure the success of your efforts and the return on your investment.

Customer feedback and sentiment
Whether you like it or not, customers will have both good and bad experiences throughout the life of your company (hopefully more good), and they need a way to share it. Before anyone thinks about going to an actual review site, many of them choose to post at a place where over 750 Million other people are and where over 25% of all time spent online is; Facebook. Good experiences shared here are automatically shared with all of their connections on Facebook and bad experiences give you a chance to publicly make them better.
→ If you could identify all of the bad experiences from customers and make them better before they will inevitably share that experience with 100+ friends, would you?
→ If you could take every person that had a good experience and turn it into a personal endorsement to all of their friends, would you? (avg. facebook user has 130 “friends” on Facebook)

Social media customers are more valuable
A case study from CareOne <http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-customer-value/> shows you just how much more valuable your social media clients are likely to be over your clients that aren't involved with your social media.

Top of mind advertising
As people engage with your social media channels and “Like”/ “Follow” your brand, they will be noticing your posts and looking at your logo.  This keeps your business on the top of their mind next time they go to purchase a product or service that you offer.

How much are impressions and traffic worth?
I manage a brand that receives roughly 200,000 page views a month, but yields over 1 million impressions on Facebook alone each month.  Facebook and Twitter are consistently 2 of the top 10 referrers of traffic.

Control the search engine
When you Google your business name, what comes up?  Likely, many of your potential customer will perform this action, what will they see?  If you have anything negative or potentially negative, possibly a competitor comes up, you can control this by allowing social networks to dominate this placement.

I too am a bottom-line, metric driven individual that needs to tie every marketing effort to the bottom-line.  I encourage you to be a little more open minded about what you are measuring and where you find the value in your social media efforts.  It's not all about immediate sales, or even traffic; you could be measuring brand mentions within social media, impressions within social media, overall targeted fan/follower acquisition (which is truly more than just a number), number of messages sent to your social media followers, and more!  Let us help you understand what your social media objectives are and how we can accomplish them!

Jumping into Social Media is all about cultivating and building new and existing relationships.  Is it important?  -Some experts say that Social Media will be more valuable and widely used than search engines within the next 3 years!  With Intercoastal Net Designs, you WILL see increased traffic to your website, search engine placement, new relationships, sales and MUCH MORE…
 
Building Relationships
Social Media is all about building new relationships and cultivating existing ones.  By encouraging interaction, facilitating a platform for questions and activity, and networking with individuals on a more personal level; we will build these relationships, develop your connections and gain trust from clients and partners.

Managing the Conversation
Whether you like it or not, people are going to talk about your company and brand.  We are providing a platform for people to speak so that you can control the conversations and leverage them to your advantage.

Maintaining a platform for questions
Potential clients often need a place to ask their questions, whether they are intended for you or other clients.  We will encourage this activity and facilitate the questions that are asked.  A relatively quick response time can be very important to retain an active page.  With questions that require specific knowledge, we will notify you to either answer the questions or direct Intercoastal Net Designs how to correctly answer these questions.

Brand Recognition
The number of users that will see your brand, your logo, and your name on a daily basis will increase drastically.  Because of the nature of how Facebook was created with News feeds, viral marketing tactics to increase brand recognition is a great advantage of using Facebook for business.  Every time that there is an update given on one of your Facebook pages, all of your friends see this on their “News Feed” when they log in.  Further, every time one of your friends interact on your page by leaving a comment or doing a number of other interactions, a message is posted on all of their friends news feeds!  This puts a great deal of value attached to each additional fan.

More Interaction by Fans = Greater Brand Recognition

Creating Brand Loyalty
This increased brand recognition will develop into brand loyalty.  You don’t want to just sell a product or service; you sell an experience that brings them back time and time again.  Further, this experience makes them want to refer you to their friends and family.  By building relationships and increasing brand recognition, you will be cultivating this brand loyalty through-out Facebook and encourage users to come back to company again and again.

Top of Mind Advertising
The Facebook News feed is a powerful tool that keeps your brand and name in front of users on a daily basis.  Like any advertisement, you want your name to stick in a client’s head.  As we post more content within the fan pages and users interact as well, News Feeds will be filled with content to keep your name on the top of a clients mind for the next time they are looking for a home or asked for advice on home buying from a friend.

Create referrals through personal connections
A personal referral is much stronger than a random advertisement that you see online or on television.  By having a Facebook presence, you are giving users the opportunity to “Suggest to Friends” the pages and brands they enjoy.  Additionally, the interaction on a page suggests to their friends satisfaction with a company and entices them to come and look at a page as well.

Utilize viral marketing
Viral Marketing is all about encouraging clients and brand supporters to share content with their sphere of influence.  Both Facebook and Twitter are two of the most widely used forms of viral marketing as it is easy to do and many of their connections are already on these social networks.  On Twitter, you can simply “Retweet” a comment to all of your followers to share content that you thing they will enjoy or find interest in.  Further, you can give credit to someone on Twitter by “Mentioning” them which will link back to their profile. 

On Facebook, viral marketing is done through a news feed with every action you take place.  Although there are security settings that you can use to restrict the content that is shared, most users do not restrict this content.  Fans can “Like” posts as well as comment on each post, both of which are generally shared in all of their connections news feeds.  Further, they can leave a new post on your pages which will also be shared in the news feeds of their connections.
We want to turn “Fans” into fanatics that enjoy sharing content and news from your company to fully take advantage of this very powerful viral marketing strategy.

The Human Side
Advertising with Social Media has turned the old way of marketing from a “1 to many broadcast” (Television Commercial) to a “1 to 1 conversation”.  Users don’t want to think of themselves as 1 in a crowd that is bunched in your target market.  They want to feel noticed and have more of a connection with companies that they deal with.  By putting a face and a name to a business, you are showing off the human side to your company.  You are creating relationships and showing the average user that you care about each individual.  Through social networks, we are going to show off the human side of your business.

Gather Feedback & Listen
It is great to think that every little effort is going toward bringing in new clients, but sometimes you need to stop and ask about the customer’s needs.  This is why you often research with surveys and questionnaires.  Through Facebook, you can retrieve immediate feedback from the “Fans” that care the most.  By asking the users on Facebook and Twitter what they think, you get real feedback on ideas while showing them that you genuinely care.

Give advice and become an industry resource
By giving advice on industry news, giving tips, and sharing your industry thoughts; you are opening up to the type of people that will come to your fan pages and share your brand.  Becoming a resource in the industry lets people know your stance and that you are here to help them.
Joining industry groups

Again, opening up your target market and bringing more users into your social circle to share your name is a major point of emphasis.  As you join industry groups and connect with big industry players, you will find that they have a larger network to share your content with.  We want to build strong relationships with these influential socialites and encourage them to spread your company’s brand.

Becoming friends with industry professionals
Industry professionals can be very influential and have a strong following on both Facebook and Twitter.  We want to connect with their existing fan pages to reach out to a larger crowd.  Also, these industry professionals have a strong network of personal connections that we would like to tap into.  Leveraging these partners and taping into the connections through a personal referral will be a key strategy to build a fan base and following.

Hosting fun competitions with giveaways
Once we are able to build strong social networks, we want to keep them active and coming back.  We would like to host competitions and have giveaways enticing them to share your company with their networks.  This will grow your social networks in numbers and in loyalty.  The bigger the giveaway, the more effective this competition will be.

Follow like-minded users on Twitter
As we tap into the industry professionals on Facebook, we will be doing the same on Twitter.  Sharing their content and building relationships with existing influential Twitter users will aid in the growth of this network so that when we have a message to get out, we will have more targeted followers to receive this message.

Making the Connection
Creating links between all of the social networks and cross connecting them with your corporate website and blog are vitally important.  This is where we turn your typical interactive fans to closed sales.  Don’t worry about how to set these up, where they go or how to implement the process; we take care of it all.
Utilize the highly targeted “Facebook Ads”

Facebook ads are some of the most effective online advertising as they allow you to target a very specific group based on information provided in a users profile.  We can leverage this information that is provided by Facebook users to find potential clients and bring them to your company’s Facebook Fan Page.

Cultivate Targeted Followers
We will be using “Tweet Adder” to find targeted Twitter users.  This is software that allows you to search for users who might be interested in your service based on things that they mention and people they follow.  This will allow us to grow a following base of users on Twitter and bring your company potential clients.

Staying Current
In an industry that is evolving so quickly like Social Media, it takes many hours a week to stay up to date with the newest trends, strategies, and techniques to become successful.  If you look at the evolution and impact of Social Media in the last:  1 year, 3 years, 6 years (Facebook Launched); it’s mind-blowing the ongoing change that has occurred.  Many predict that Social Media Optimization will be more important and valuable to a company than Search Engine Optimization in less than 3 years!

CONTACT US TODAY TO LEARN MORE!

Question:

How is our Facebook monitored?  I do not use now for myself... on a business Facebook, can we view before allowing comments to show?  As you know, there are a few ugly people in the world who like to put themselves out there...

Answer:

While there is no way to "moderate" comments on Facebook, there are a few tricks so that you can keep watch.  When you make a post, go in and like that post that way anytime someone would make a comment you will be notified.  If you are finding you are having more negative reviews and comments then positive, the most important thing is how you handle those negative posts.  Many times your followers will stick up for you before even having to respond, but if you do, make sure you are proactive and using the customer service skills to turn that customer around.

If you want to go a super conservative approach, you can turn off wall posting in your "wall settings" area of your page.  I don’t recommend this because you want to have all the positive feedback from your followers.  ICND also offers a Social Media plan for a monthly amount.  We help monitor all your posts, get you set up with feeds so everything is posting on FB, Twitter, your blog, etc., help you out with setting up Facebook Tabs, Sweepstakes, Follower generation and incorporating the benefits of social media into your SEO plan.  Plans start at 3 hours per month and go up depending on how many projects we get into.  We do require that you have someone on your end who can be quick to respond to negative postings should they happen.
 

Please contact me if you should have some more questions or like to know more about our Social Media Plan.

Vanessa Humes

Sales & Marketing Director

InterCoastal Net Designs
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PO Box 7633
Ocean Isle Beach, NC 28469
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Phone: 910-575-6095 x2
Fax: 910-575-1095

What to expect and what to see in 2011...

Hotels

In the first quarter of 2010, RevPAR increased around the world with the America's being up 5.3% according to Smith Travel Research (STR).  In 2011, the growth is on trend to continue across the globe. It's obvious that, although today’s bookings aren't quite where they were at during the pre-recession days, the industry is slowly managing to crawl out of its slump.  Which is good news for all of us!

Travel Industry:

With so much inventory on the market for rentals, competition remains strong and customers are becoming increasingly selective as they can.  In order to take advantage of the upward trend, travel operators will need to be increasingly flexible in not only marketing their rooms, but determining what price their customers are willing to pay.  Vacationers have a wealth of comparative pricing information at their fingertips with portal sites, ensuring that they won’t book if a hotel or vacation rental's pricing is too high. More and more, even a few dollars can make the difference between a customer booking and not booking with a property or company.

This year it will be more important to stay on top of your game in the online marketing arena and companies who do so and put their budgets into online marketing will reap the rewards in 2011 more so than any other year we've seen thus far.  Gone are the days we'll be able to rely on direct mailings and a few postcards and we'll need to take every avenue to stay on top of the trends in online marketing.

Think about how Google's $700 million takeover of ITA Software, which will not only make the internet powerhouse a serious operator in the travel business, it will also rewrite the rules for bookings. As Google keeps its hooks in every inch of the internet, it will seed its travel offerings throughout the online space. It's very possible that starting as early as this year, web surfers logged into Gmail will be able to plan and book their entire vacation with a few mouse clicks inside the Google web ecosystem, making it much easier to do from anywhere, while on the go.

Mobile will also take a bigger role in 2011 than in 2010.  Check your Google Analytics and pull last years data with mobile users compared to 2010.  2011 will be even stronger.  Customers, particularly, business travelers, will make even more booking while on the road or in the air and as close as while sitting on the boardwalk outside of the hotel while sipping on a tropical cocktail.  They have the chance to wait until the very last opportunity to grab the last minute deals in an arena where there's tons of inventory left and we're fighting for every dollar.

To top it all off, vacationers will be using more and better smartphone apps to sniff out available rooms and, crucially, the best prices on those rooms and rentals. According to Priceline, 58% of customers with mobile devices made their booking within 20 miles of their hotel where they ended up staying. More impressively, 35% of those polled were within one mile when they clicked on the “reserve this room” button.


Consumers have the power

We've been preaching it for years, but the recent boom in rooms and houses available to rent, along with the advanced OTA's and their ability to dominate the search engines, topped with the technology of smart phones and on-the-go research sets up an interesting arena for 2011.  Driving your customer loyalty with programs and customer relationship marketing strategies will play a crucial role in this years marketing.  A huge development just taking place has been American Airlines pulling form Orbitz and subsequently being dropped by Travelocity.  American Airlines now relies on their own website to deliver the marketing message that they will find the best deals with AA.  Even though they are driving down prices, they avoid the costs of placement and fees with the OTA's.  Travel leaders will need to find their own solution to optimizing their bookings OTA's as well as their own websites.   Increase customer loyalty through programs and interacting with social media.


Social Media

With Facebook taking the lead over Google and other powerhouse websites at the end of 2010, we'll see a huge shift in the involvement of Social Media in your overall marketing mix.  Sooner rather than later,  the travel industry will find a way to book within Facebook and need to plan accordingly, before they lose out on valuable social media bookings.