Social Media for Events, How to Do it & Do it Well

If used correctly, social media networks help event planners to better understand their target makets as well as to engage attendees prior, during and after the event.  Through this excitement and the buzz around the event can be prolonged.

However, different strategies have to applied pre, during and post to the happening.

Identify your audience

It is vital to know who will be attending your event. Different social media channels are more appropriate than others in order to reach your audience. As can be seen in the chart below Twitter is seen as the best ways to reach attendees that come from around the globe e.g tradeshows. Facebook is a great way to engage attendees when organizing a B2C ever.

Monitoring tools

Updating and monitoring your social media networks might be very time consuming. Therefore, it is a must to use tools such TweetDeck, Hootsuite and Commun.it to automate processes, schedule posts and follow your hastags.

Content of your posts

Do not abuse online networks to spam your followers with information about your own event. Provide an added value to your audience by including posts about industry news, publications of key leaders, tips etc.

During the event

This is the time when online activity will be most active. As an event organizer you have to make sure that someone is dedicated to post updates and react to both positive and negative comments. Immediate feedback from attendees can help to not only improve the event in the future but also to adapt the current program.

After the event

By keeping content alive people who could not attend the congress are able to be informed about what was going on. Posts can include interviews, photos, conference proceedings and the like.

Measurement

Doing all this however makes only sense if ROI is measured afterwards. Analytics regarding follower growths, number of shares, engagement rates and influencers are only some of the tools that can be used.

To conclude, it is vital to plan social media and use it to nourish your audience with content that is relevant to them.

Source:

Carvalho. (April, 2014). Social media for events, how to do it & do it well. Retrieved April 11, 2014 from http://evvnt.com/2014/04/social-media-events-well/

Pictures: 

http://evvnt.com/2014/04/social-media-events-well/

By Agathe Domenach and Anja Gunz

“My Flightpath” launched by British Airways !

Today, technology is everywhere, even in the sky !

A new online tool has been launched by the airline company British Airways: « My Flightpath ».  The company wanted to create a new tool, which will offer fun and interactivity to its customers.

This new application will allow passengers to make their personal blog about their own travels. The condition is to be a member of the British Airways Executive Club. But the good news is that each passenger can become a member of this club without extra charge, only by booking flights with this company.

Principle:

This website will be presented as a timeline (like the famous social network Facebook) with the various data presented through charts and graphs. 

On this page, passengers will record all their flights and the different destinations they went to and visited; which at the end will allow them to enjoy their personal travel map. It will be like a private logbook. Furthermore, they will also be able to check the number of miles they collected being member of British Airways Executive Club.

Furthermore, another function will be available on this website: “My Passport”. Through this platform, British Airlines will offer stamps to its customers, according to the number of miles obtained at each flight by them.

In order to create interactivity and favour networking, passengers will also have the possibility to share information and opinion on different social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

The objective of this online tool is to give the opportunity to all passengers to enjoy their flights and follow their travels, but also to make the flight attractive and encourage people to continue to travel with this company.

Testimony of the director of customer engagement Ian Romanis:  “We wanted to give customers something that would help them to capture the magic of flying and we’re sure they will enjoy sharing their travelling milestones with their friends.”

We decided to talk about this new feature because we think that it is a good way of differentiation for British Airways. It will also improve customer experience and it represents a real added value for the relationships between the company and its customers.

Article source:

http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/news/article/my-flightpath-brings-travel-history-to-life/

Picture source :

http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Cloud Computing for Hotelier

We based our third article on an interview of Anthony Lee, partner at Flatgate LLP. 
This interview, published by Hotel-industry.co.uk, is useful to understand why some hoteliers remain sceptical about cloud computing technology.

Please find below the reference of the article we chose: 

"Cloud Computing for Hoteliers", published on April 2012 and retrieved from http://www.hotel-industry.co.uk/2012/04/cloud-computing-for-hoteliers

1. A technological breakthrough benefiting the hospitality industry.

As a major innovation, the global could-computing market will generate more than 150 billion dollars in 2014.  Anthony Lee defined this new technology as following: “cloud computing means using remote computers to host software and store data which can then be accessed over the internet or other data network “.

Nowadays many hoteliers benefit from placing their key business processes in cloud-based software. As we have seen before - with the case of the IHG group - one of the stakeholders of the hospitality industry has already embraced the use of advanced analytics and cloud computing for economic and operational reasons.

However, there is still uncertainty regarding the benefits and risks about cloud computing. Therefore, several companies remain sceptical about investing in this new technology.

2. How to prevent risks arising from cloud computing. 

Hoteliers must consider some risks when they move through a cloud-based strategy.

First of all, hotels are in charge of ensuring the security of customers’ personal data. A blind trust, based on exchange and interactions, between the provider and hotelier is mandatory.

The supplier of cloud computing solutions has to use secure facilities and must be prepared to hack attacks. As long as privacy laws are at stake, hoteliers have to carefully set up contracts with their suppliers. The contract must be easy to suspend and terminate if necessary. Moreover, the company running the cloud service usually provides an assurance to the hotel, in order to protect its interest in the case of a leak of personal information.

Another concern, linked to data protection, is the transfer of personal data from a country to another. As an example, exporting data from Europe to USA can be a source of risk because law regulations are different. US state agencies can actually have access to customers data without the company agreement.  The risk can be handled by suppliers but once again; this concern must be discussed when setting up the contract. 

ऀTo conclude, for any business, but especially hoteliers, please find the questions to ask the service provider before investing in this tool. The uses for cloud applications, the cloud support, terms and conditions and cloud security are concerns that must be taken into account with a lot of attention.

As long as these risks are measured and well managed through a reasonable contract, hoteliers can start to take advantage of the multiple benefits offered by the cloud computing.  They are now able to extend the life of their existing systems, reduce upgrades costs and finally convert capital expenditure to operational expenditures.

Marie Astrid Barral & Baptiste Lignel

References of additional articles used:

• http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4051622.html

• http://www.smallbusiness.co.uk/running-a-business/technology-in-business/2225868/questions-small-businesses-should-ask-about-cloud-computing-cloud-applications-support-and-security.thtml