Gregg was good enough to answer a few of my questions about his new position:

PW: Is this position a first of it’s kind within Flight centre?

Gregg: It’s the first of its kind Globally, yes, but I’ve been doing the role for Canada for the past year and a bit. That said, Social Media really is global so we were speaking on behalf of the company globally (from Canada).

PW: Does this signal a change towards social media within the industry?

Gregg: That’s an interesting question. We are starting to see more and more companies participating with campaigns and/or being on social sites like Twitter and Facebook. I think it will be quite the year to see which companies put efforts towards Social Media and to what extent.

PW: This might not be something you can talk about just yet, but this kind of role is very new; what do you see falling under your “Jurisdiction”?

Gregg: It’s a bit early to answer that but we will be looking at what’s working across our various brands and regions and leveraging those successful strategies for the other areas.

PW: Finally, do you have any advice to people in smaller organizations that are thinking of taking social media for business seriously?

Gregg:I think that leveraging Social Media is an amazing way for organizations to know what customers and prospects are saying (about travel in general and about their business). There are a bunch of tools available (many free) that make it real easy to monitor and participate. I think it important to first determine what channels your customers and prospects are on, pick a few to focus on, and once successful start to grow out other channels.

A big congratulations to Gregg from Project Wander, I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

While running searches for various travel related keywords on Twitter, something really annoying kept popping up time and time again. @ messages to anyone who happened to mention any city name with an offer of cheap rates on travel sites. It wasn’t specific to any one brand, it seemed to be happening for all of the major players.

After analyzing some of the major offenders, I have put together a very short list of tips for anyone looking to use Twitter to drive sales on a travel site affiliate program. I think it’s worth mentioning I that I do not profess to be an affiliate marketing pro, I am simply an opinionated Twitter user who knows what will and will not work. Please try to experiment with these tips and mix in some of your own ideas as you go, this is by no means a science.

Twitter and real life = the same thing- It may be a new and exciting online world, but try not to over think things too much. Real life social rules still apply, they’ve just been slightly modified. Picture this scene: Two people are discussing their favorite North American ski resorts in public while on the way to work. Suddenly, a stranger interrupts and suggests they visit their travel agency for cheap deals on skiing and/or snowboarding packages. I’m not saying don’t message people on Twitter, but consider your approach before-hand.

Full profiles- Not having a bio, link and picture is a really great way to get ignored or reported as spam. It’s hard to find a non Twitter parallel for this one- the closest I could think of was cold calling someone without even telling them who you are. So fill it out, it only takes a few minutes and it’ll make you look 100 times more credible.

Be an expert- Pick a specific niche’ to focus on and engage local experts. For example, someone who focuses on selling Thailand could follow bloggers who specialize on the area, and then retweet their posts their own followers. This is really important as the people you’re selling to will check your profile before they click your link or follow you. If they see the same spamish message repeated over and over again, they’ll be less likely to trust you (give you money).

Be manual- Don’t be automatic! It may sound like a great idea to use a program that picks up pre-defined keywords and sends a link to those users, but it’s not. There is nothing less personal or more annoying that some auto-generated spam message interrupting your Twitter stream. Take the time to manually read your Twitter searches and reply with a considered, helpful comment. It may be more work, but it will pay off- picture laser vs. shotgun.

So that’s it for now. Those are four pretty simple tips, but they may be the difference between doing just okay selling on Twitter and blowing away the competition. If anyone has any extra tips, I’d love to hear from you.

Of course you heard, the entire travel industry has talked about nothing else since it happened. You might be wondering why I’m writing something about this now, so long after the fact. Well, I wanted to wait and come up with something original, not just a re-write of the same old commentary. To be honest, I was going to leave it up to the pros, but a few of you contacted me asking for my thoughts- I will try to be brief.

This was no surprise, in fact it would have been surprising had Google NOT bought ITA. As I showed about a month ago, when Google couldn’t buy its way in to the travel industry via Kayak (rumor) it declared them a competitor and then proceeded to purchase the company that powered it’s flight search, ITA. To be totally honest, flight stuff isn’t really my forte’ and others have already discussed the technical aspects to death, so I’d rather look at the psychology behind the purchase and the reactions of the industry.

Above all else, Google as one goal: To be the best in search. In the beginning this was limited to just website search, but as time went on and the online market matured, opportunities started to present themselves. Job search, online video search and real-estate search to name a few, but the biggest cash cow of them all was always travel. What Google would have found out, (probably quite quickly) was that online travel not only has some well established players, but some seriously ancient technology that’s being held in some kind of of gate-keeper-esque fashion by a few powerful brands. Any moves to buy or infiltrate their way in to these organizations would have been expensive, and more importantly, very obvious.

To get around this set-back, Google tried to play it smart by (again, rumored) buying an up and coming player in travel search, Kayak.com. Kayak were relatively new on the scene but were not receptive to the offer, allegedly asking for far too much cash. Annoyed but not discouraged, Google went on to integrate hotel aggregation in to map searches and has now purchasing ITA to seal the deal.

It’s almost like a soap opera!

I will be the first to admit that Google’s influence has gotten unimaginably huge. It’s so huge, that they enter a market and have the power change it forever (Video, Maps, email etc.,). The online travel industry is right to be nervous, because lets be honest, we’ve had it easy for long time. Companies have survived using traditional thinking and old technology for so long that the thought of someone like Google throwing their hat in the ring is game changing. And finally I get to my point: I think in the long run, it’s a good thing.

There will be casualties, but Google will force everyone to step up their game. No one will get away with half-baked solutions; what was good enough before needs to be great now. In the past, there was no reason for businesses to run when the competition was only walking, but Google will hit the ground sprinting.

In conclusion, I see this as a potential catalyst for positive change within the travel industry, with consumers seeing some serious benefit. Over next few years we will could have a one horse race or a renaissance within online travel with brands reaching new levels of innovation and success or disappearing in to travel history- either way it’s going to get interesting.

What I’d really like to hear is what you think. What will Google do to travel? Will it be positive or negative? Join the debate in the comments below.

Simpliflying.com, the highly acclaimed aviation branding and technology blog by Shashank Nigam, has impressed me again. Shashank has come up with the monthly award, “Simpliflying Heroes” to celebrate those within the aviation industry who have performed above and beyond their duties using social media. The criteria looks like this:

Did the individual:

• help change the status quo with regards to social media in the organization?
• bring on-board other team members and senior management before executing?
• lead by example when it came to interacting with customers?
• actions result in the organization achieve its business objectives better?
• demonstrate leadership in the situation?

I had the chance to send some questions Shashank’s way about the award, and this is what he said:

PW: What inspired you to start the Simpliflying Heroes award?

Shashank: As airlines struggle to grasp the realities of interacting with customers through emerging technologies, it is almost always an individual within the organization who acts as a catalyst for adapting to new ways of doing business. And it’s important to hightlight the efforts of these individuals, like Aurelie Valtat of EuroControl – our first winner!

PW: What sort of effect do you hope this will have on your sector of the industry?

Shashank: The goal is by highlighting efforts of one individual each month, we will inspire many more people in airlines around the world who can relate to the story, and pick up the baton at their own airline. Hence, forming a tribe of SimpliFlying Heroes, who are harbingering a new era of customer interaction and doing business in airlines. After all, they haven’t been consistently profitable for the last 50 years by doing the same old things. Might as well try something new.

As Shashank mentioned, Simpliflying already have a winner for this month- Aurelie Valtat from Eurocontrol. I’m a big fan of Simpliflying.com and I think Simpliflying Heroes is a great idea, so head over and cast your vote for the month!

Ready for this? The Travelport Universal Desktop in all it’s glory! Found on Facebook page for Clutch Interactive, the pictures show a lot more than we have seen in the past. I think it’s safe to assume this won’t stay up for too much longer.

Most seem to be still in the design phase, but a couple show some of the functionality we might expect to see in the final product. I won’t keep you waiting, enjoy.

(Click thumbnails for full-size images)

The campaign doesn’t actually have anything to do with the ashcloud, but with all the attention being given to Iceland (Positive or negative) the timing couldn’t be better. The concept is fairly simple, let the 350 000 Icelanders tell the world why it’s such a great place to visit through pictures, video and text.

This may sound very similar to Australia’s “Nothing like it” campaign, but the delivery is quite different. The celebrity endorsement videos are actually entertaining, each one painting a different picture of the country, something I feel “Nothing like it” failed to do. It’s not just icy mountains and rolling plaines, there’s art, music and modern culture.

Have a look and compare the two yourself:

Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo.

This matchup is a real classic; Australia with it’s perfect beaches and unique wildlife vs. Iceland with mountains and cold tundras. When you don’t have the looks, you have to be interesting and Iceland have done a fantastic job showing the world how interesting they are. I don’t know about you, but it definitely worked for me- I’m planning a trip to Iceland!

Brett Keller created some serious controversy with comments that seemed to smack of the old-school. From social media to price vs. value, nothing was safe. I puposley waited a few days before writing this post, I felt it would give a bit more objectivity before I jumped in with my two cents. For a really good breakdown from someone who was there, click here to read this post from Robert Cole.

Facebook ads VS Google and Tripadvisor ads- This was one of the points that totally caught me off gaurd, it’s apples to oranges in a BIG WAY. Facebook ads are presented at a totally different time in the booking search process than Google, before it even starts. Ads on Facebook have the challenge  of actually capturing the attention of those seeing the ad and then convincing them to make a booking, where as Google ads are presented after the user actually makes a relevant search. A good offline comparison would be randomly handing someone a flyer for a lawnmower repair specialist in the street vs giving the same flyer to someone in a gardening shop. Luckily, Facebook lets you put yourself in the gardening shop, it just takes a little more research.

As I showed in my Facebook ad test, Google ad tactics do not work with Facebook advertising- the bigger the target, the more money you waste. With a little research, a person would see that middle-aged, high-school educated Canadians tend to vacation in Mexico during winter (For example). That is where Facebook advertising is effective and relevant, not by sending that same ad to 200 million people just because you can but by only picking those who can actually benefit from what you are selling. The alternative is just too expensive.

To compare Facebook advertising to TripAdvisor advertising goes even further in to the absurd. Users of TripAdvisor have already made up their minds- they’re traveling, it’s just about where and using who.

Price drives conversion- This comment caused some a lot of talk over Twitter, most of which was disagreement. I feel this is true for brands that advertise themselves as a budget alternative, but there are a few factors here that are not being considered. Mostly, value of money and it’s effect on the buyers perception cost. Cost, price and value are three totally seperate things.

• For my example, price is a numerical value put on the product, cost is what it takes to actually get product (effort to earn the money, time to navigate the site etc.,) and value is non monetary benefit to using/choosing the product -

Two people are booking a holiday, person A and person B. Person A makes 50,000 dollars a year and person B makes 500,000 dollars a year. If Person A plays 5000 dollars, it stands to reason person B could afford up to 50,000 seeing as it is the same percentage of yearly income.

These two people have different perceptions of the cost of these two holidays. Person A sees person B’s holiday as one year of work, but person B can justify the value that comes with this level of holiday.

I apologise for the long winded example, but I think it’s important to point out that not everyone feels the need to get the rock bottom price. Personally, I value my time too much to spend hours hunting for something that’s 10 dollars less than somewhere else, I could use that time in better ways. If we’re only competing on price and not value, then it’s about who is the cheapest and that comes from cutting costs and buying in bulk. What ever happened to the value of brand?

“I can’t get excited about Twitter”- Fair enough, Not everyone has to be excited about Twitter. I’m not that excited about a lot of things, so I can totally get that. The only problem with that comment is that a lot of people DO get Twitter and a fair chunk of those people are customers of Priceline. I would even go so far as to say that Keller’s model of Price=Value would have more relevance to Twitter users than it does to users of other mediums and I will prove it.

A paper from Pew Research Center shows the top Twitter demographics:

18 to 29 has the highest percentage and it’s still rising. Now if we put that up against some Hitwise data that was presented at the No Vacancy conference in Sydney a few months ago, 18-29′s are making the most online bookings and it’s also rising. Now this is total speculation, but I believe the computer savvy 18-25 market will respond best to Pricelines low price model.

The bottom line- It seems like Priceline have decided to totally ignore the demographic that could possibly score them the most revenue. This demographic isn’t solely dependant Google as much as they used to be, they’re searching using Facebook and crowdsourcing their friends via Twitter (and the new TripAdvisor Facebook tool). They’re asking for help on Twitter, rather than waiting in a phone queue for half an hour or sending an email. They aren’t seeing William Shatner in Priceline ads because they don’t watch TV, they watch Hulu. The new breed of customer will respond to “I can’t get excited about Twitter” with “We can’t get excited about your brand”.

“What the social media hucksters won’t tell you is that the social media is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don’t know what to ignore and what’s worth reading.”

Wow, very harsh stuff! I even found a thesis on the danger social media poses on society itself:

“This negative thesis emphasizes the fact that people have steadily replaced personal contact with social media. Contact can be made across wider spaces and more frequently but they are less personal and increasingly shallow. Dispersed shallow sociability also leads to the possibility of the devaluation of the physical public spaces which were more important for traditional “Face-to-face” forms of communication. Rather than visit friends and family in person, a quick “emotionally superficial” tweet can be sent. Families have less incentive to live in physical proximity because they can still keep in some form of contact across growing suburban sprawls.”

Too bad neither of these quotes originally had anything to do with social media and one is over 50 years old.

The first was a quote from a Newsweek article back in 1995 entitled “The Internet will never catch on” where I switched the word internet for social media. The second example was an excerpt from The telephone: the life story of a technology By David Mercer, David Mercer (Ph.D.) and I substitued “Telephone” for “social media and “phone call” for “tweet’. I wouldn’t normally lead readers of Project Wander on like that, but I am trying to prove a point. It’s easy to sit back and take pot-shots at something new that’s still in it’s infancy. Just like the telephone or even the internet itself, all new mediums have their pros and cons, but the brilliant companies don’t pay attention to the nay-sayers. Brilliant companies see an opportunity to put their brand where the conversation is happening, even if that means taking a few chances.

In a totally unrelated note, Sabre has unveiled it’s new platform, Sabre Red Workspace, as well as a new blog and Twitter account to back it up. You can read about it on Tnooz.

This years line-up looks like this:

• Justin Baird, Innovationist, Google Australia
• Shelley Beasley, Managing Director Pacific, Travelport
• Jeremy Bellinghausen, President, HotelClub.com
• John Bolakis, Director,SEO.com
• Chris Chambers, Director – Digital Marketing, Tourism Queensland
• Ian Cumming, Founder, Travellr.com
• Barney Harford, President and CEO, Orbitz
• Mark Higginson, Director of Analytics, Nielsen Online
• Martin Kelly, Director, Travel Trends
• Kevin Lippy, co-Founder, Brokepacker.com
• Alan Long, Research Director, Experian Hitwise Asia Pacific
• Dan Lynn, Managing Director, Expedia Asia Pacific
• Rohan Lund, CEO, Yahoo!7
• Warren Livingstone, Founder, TheFanatics.com
• Andy Owen-Jones, CEO, TravelTainment, Amadeus Leisure Group

There are some really big names in there, not to mention both Kevin Lippy and Ian Cumming are members of the Sydney Travel Tribe. I will also be attending and would love the chance to meet up with any Project Wander readers.

I have taken the time to add links to the speakers Twitter accounts that I could find, if I have missed any, please let me know and the list will get updated. I suggest heading over to TravelTrends for the early-bird special while it’s still on and tell them Project Wander sent ya’- you won’t get anything extra, but you’ll look pretty cool!