Courting Brand Evangelists to Twitter
11 Thursday, October 16th, 2008Update: Read the comments to learn how to win a free cruise. I believe this is the first #freecruise contest held exclusively on Twitter.
Case Study: Effective Online PR by Travel Brands
Working at GSD&M, I got to see some of the cool interactive and broadcast work we did for Norwegian Cruise Line. The creative campaign translates well across print, outdoor & direct and the TV spots have been well-received.
 |
 |
 |
In the social space, Carnival has cruised to the front of the Twitter line. They have a brand evangelist, @CruiseSource, tweeting live from a Carnival cruise that is currently underway. His current bio reads “Your Source for Everything related to Cruising. Live from CCL Destiny 10.16.08.”
CruiseSource.us is a blog about cruising, not Carnival persay. My clients in the travel industry tell me that they enjoy perks from cruise lines and destination resorts in exchange for bookings and promotion. Presumably, that arrangement exists for CruiseSource, and it’s a good way for Carnival to dip their toe in the social ocean.
What is notable about this case is how effectively brand evangelists utilize micromedia to generate buzz and online PR for brands. This is also a good example of small businesses being nimble with social strategy and engagement.
Best Practices in Social Media Strategy & Engagement
CruiseSource is using Twitter to establish themselves as experts in their niche. Rather than just constantly link back to their site, an early mistake they seem to have overcome, they relate with their audience in meaningful ways. Examples:
- They spent weeks building excitement about this cruise.
- They invite cruise-related questions and follow-up with answers.
- They retweet properly.
- They reply and DM properly.
- They suggest cruising for nonprofit fundraising.
- They post cruise specials.
- They post cruise news related to Hurricane Gustav, primarily as a service, but they also attract Twitter search traffic.
- They search Twitter for lead generation. Very smart. They can expand their search by topic, by cruise line, by cruise ship and by destination to find perfect little nuggets like this.
- They listen to tweeters and engage them directly with relevant responses.
- They invite followers & prospective followers to give cruise feedback.
- They tweet about fun activities while aboard the cruise.
- They link to Flickr pics from the cruise ship.
- They are patiently building a Twitter following, maintaining a follow/follower ratio around 4:1.
Apparently their efforts have led a major cruise line to invite CruiseSource to participate on a web 2.0 advisory board. If this is Carnival, then kudos for building a smart partnership and generating inexpensive online PR. As long as CruiseSource maintains an air of industry promotion and authentic human interaction, Carnival will benefit from the company’s peer recommendations.
For any travel brand, I suggest a few more tips in establishing a genuine social presence online.
- Be more personable. CruiseSource has found a voice on Twitter and its blog, but it still hides behind the company name on all posts. Even using a first name (Tucker?) would cut through informality and lend credibility to their recommendation.
- Browse Peter Kim’s list of social media marketing examples for inspiration. Carnival Connections already made his list with it’s community forum, but the site entry is weighted heavily toward sales.
- Remain Authentic. Tyler Banfield offers good tips on authentic promotion.
I’m interested to see what travel brands develop on other social platforms, both in external marketing and within the company’s internal organization of staff, partners and sales channels.
Comment Below Tweet me @shannonswenson
Like this Post?
I recommend these similar posts.
8 Comments For This Post
3 Trackbacks For This Post
-
CruiseSource Highlighted on Web « CruiseSource (October 21st, 2008 at 4:44 pm)
[...] CruiseSource Highlighted on Web While utilizing twitter to give followers semi-live updates from our Carnival Destiny Cruise, CruiseSource was picked up by a Social Media Blogger as a Case Study for the Effective use of Social Media in the Travel Industry. Read the entire Article: http://shannonswenson.com/courting-brand-evangelists-to-twitter/ . [...]
-
Free Cruise Give-Away, Final Update « CruiseSource (December 3rd, 2008 at 9:03 pm)
[...] Courting Brand Evangelist to Twitter – Written by @ShannonSwenson [...]
-
2008 in review: CruiseSource.us « CruiseSource (December 31st, 2008 at 3:49 pm)
[...] - @CruiseSource was recognized by some of Social Media’s brightest for use of Twitter. [...]
There are a LOT of companies on Twitter that could benefit from your advice to be more personable. However, I have found several examples of companies that are doing a good job of putting real people on Twitter, including @zappos (their CEO Tony Hsieh), @comcastcares (Frank), @richardatdell (part of Dell’s Digital Nomads campaign), @kodakcb and (Jennifer Cisney, who is the chief blogger for Kodak).
In addition to their CEO, I also noticed that Zappos seems to have most (if not all) of their employees on Twitter: http://twitter.zappos.com/employee_tweets
Thanks for additions, Tyler. Yes, those are exactly the examples I had in mind! I see Gary Vaynerchuk just posted similar advice to Britney Spears (@TheRealBritney)
Shannon,
I am back from my cruise on the CCL Destiny. I was extremely excited to see that you picked up on what I was doing on Twitter and on my blog CruiseSource.us! My goal was to utilize my Carnival vacation to try to pick up as many followers as possible on Twitter who share my passion of Cruising. I only get to cruise a couple of times a year, so I wanted to take full advantage of it.
On Twitter, you are correct, I want to be seen as the resident Cruise Expert. I have quickly become a Twitter Addict because of the access to experts in the my other interests outside of Cruising like the Stock Market and Social Media.
Last December, I was on the NCL Pearl and Posted daily from the Ship on my blog: http://tinyurl.com/627cqw . The NCL Posts and pictures were very successful for generating a large number of visitors to the blog thanks to Google Search Results for the NCL Pearl.
On this trip, utilizing Twitter and the blog together flowed very naturally up until I no longer was able to use my Cell Phone. I think it is much more effective than the blog itself. It was an experiment and I look forward to doing it again on my next Cruise.
Thanks!
Rich Tucker - http://Twitter.com/cruisesource
Hi Rich, thanks for chiming in with your experience and aspiration. I want to encourage you on your work applying social media to a real business need. Keep it real and keep us posted.
And thanks for the pimpage on your blog
referred to this article by rich after he read an article i wrote about social media implemented by carnival.
From my perspective carnival is one of the few that is really doing great and getting a return on their investments in social media. Indeed, companies who wish to use social media such as twitter, should participate in the conversation as you described above, same like carnival is doing on twitter.
article about social media within carnival cruises (their social network, blog, twitter etc.); http://tinyurl.com/5z38te
best regards, marcel http://twitter.com/marcelvdlaan
Hi Marcel, thanks for dropping by! I recommend your article as a an example of what Carnival is doing to directly engage its customers. You have good examples in blogging, @carnivalcruise on Twitter as well as campaign metrics.
Your reference to the Guy Hagen’s case study on Carnival’s social outreach is enlightening too. I am particularly drawn to the discussion about ROI & Carnival’s qual/quan measurements of success prior to launch. Many brands struggle with this, although they were certainly in good hands with Ave A | Razorfish. Carnival seems to embrace social media for brand awareness, as well as positioning itself as fun and approachable.
I am curious, can anyone share how Carnival uses social media for enterprise communications, if at all? With employees? Vendors? Partners?
Thanks!
Shannon
Shannon,
@CruiseSource and @CruiseDeals is expirmenting with a Twitter contest…The first Free Cruise given away to Twitter users. for details checkout http://tr.im/WINACRUISE >>> The Cruise will be given away before the end of the month. We have high expectations for the number of entrants, but anytime you experiment like this with new media there is always the chance for failure.
Hi Rich,
Wow! how cool is that? I’ve entered your contest and started a #freecruise hash to help you search for dialog in Twitter. I love the idea. Thank you for making an announcement on my blog and please check in with the results of your experiment!
Shannon