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Wat zijn de belangrijkste social media trends. Dit was de opdracht voor een panel van experts: Darren Cronian, Travel-Rants; Klaus Hildebrant, fvw.de/blog; Kevin May, Travolution; Martin Schobert, www.blog.austria.info; Vasco Sommer Nunes, mokono.blog.de

Top trends to watch;
Darren: 1. mobile; bijna iedereen upload foto’s, ook hij bijv. (www.twitpic.com/photes/travelrants) 2. twitter; bijvoorbeeld www.twitter.com/southwestair; beter voorbeeld is http://twitter.com/jetblue; meer dan 150.000 followers!!! 3. Travel companies getting social by using social emerging technologies;
Klaus: 1. split between suppliers and web2.0 companies : two worlds 2. biggest outbound market is Germany, bloggers are not that well known as in other countries 3. changes in marketing communication; should be supported by the top as well, top says we have specialists for it, change should come from the top 4. large companies have a problem, lagging; size not helpful 5. journalists are better bloggers

Kevin: 1. twitter, hitwise 974% traffic increase to twitter in UK, twitter is easier to do (but what about conversion….) , now hundreds of companies using twitter, another part of distribution channel 2. PR agencies understanding social media, bring in  different media to fire up; 3. crowdsourcing; Touchgraph, tool on facebook, how different people are connected, for travel companies to see how are connected; understanding the network around them 4. companies are getting more carefull about their transparency,   5. hyperlocal, everyone can create content, while companies create for the masses, create for local group, for particular street; delivering content to niche markets
Martin: 1. feedback 2.0 bijvoorbeeld www.twitter.com/austriatourism; companies are not used to deal with social web 2. maps will be the new interface, not just textual info, also audio and video; maps.google.com; all the information you need; maptheq, works together with Qype (ugc platform about things in the neighbourhood).  3. context – the right content to the right person at the right time; saving time for consumer 4. looking at the strategy first and then the tools

Vasco: 
1. Volume of mentions will become part of a greater measurement metrix, such as “share of voice”, to determine success in social media: 80% of the content at the end of 2010 will be UGC
2. Personal publishing on the web will continue to increase, thereby increasing the share of user generated content. 
3. Companies will react and hire a social media guy to listen, help and educate users
4. Cross publishing will become stronger, i.e. publishing into several communities from one web site or mobile phone. Twitter feed in facebook status.
5. The travel industry will embrace social media even more than other industries, because people love to talk about their vacation and show others where they´ve been!
www.mokono.com 
Visual search could be interesting trend: photosynth 
Top trends: 1. change in philosophy 2. twitter 3. PR using more channels 4. social media guy = ROI 

Het was twitter, twitter en nog eens twitter tijdens de bloggersummit. Nog een voorbeeld: http://twitter.com/twitchhiker. Tekst op deze twitterpagina: “On 1st March, I’ll travel as far as I can in 30 days, relying only on the goodwill of Twitterers. Please sponsor the trip; every penny goes to charity: water.” Maar liefst 6.500 followers. 

Echter, leuk dat twitter, maar hoe zit het met Facebook. Er was iemand aanwezig die werkte bij een keten van internetcafe’s over de wereld. Zij zien dat 80% van hun bezoekers (18-30 jaar) op Facebook zit en maar 5% op twitter. Twitter wordt gezien als makkelijker en daarnaast integreren de functionaliteiten steeds meer, veel mensen integreren hun tweets in Facebook. 

Zijn social media tools winstgevend? Voorbeeld van Marriot: Bill Marriott’s blog has generated over US$5 million in additional revenue: http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/
Ander voorbeeld van goede inzet van social media is de campagne rond ”best job in the world” van Tourism Queensland. Ook TravelPortland is actief met social media. Tripadvisor schijnt goed geld te verdienen via een Facebook app.
Hoe meet je succes dmv metrics: traffic, amount of time, conversion
In het algemeen geldt: You can not control the conversation, you should join it. 

Het was mooi om te zien hoe iedereen al twitterend, bloggend, sms’ end en ook nog pratend over alle ontwikkelingen in de online travel markt bezig was. Een geslaagd event.

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