Tracey Taylor, Nora Maki and Andrew Daines

TMI Hot TopicCoventry, May 2012

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

• Is it really that important?

• VisitEngland’s agenda for Social Media

• Best practice considerations for mobile

• Shaping VisitEngland’s digital roadmap

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

Andrew Daines

Is it really that important?

Remember me?

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

Functional?Sophisticated?

Precious

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

Every day…

Babies borniPhones sold

Android devices activated

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

371378

700

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

(thousands)

In the UK

• Over half the mobile population own a smartphone

(Source: ComScore, March 2012)

• 57% of mobile users access ‘mobile media’

(Source: ComScore, March 2012)

• 9% of visitors to travel websites in 2011 access via mobile devices (up from 2.8% in 2010)

(Source: EyeForTravel)

• 28% of UK travel-related queries came from mobile devices by the end of 2011, tablets accounting for a third of these

(Source: EyeForTravel)

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

Social media and mobile

Mobile audience for selected social media channels, US

Total audience (000s)

Aug 2010 Aug 2011 % change

Facebook 38,240 57,332 50%

Twitter 7,639 13,375 75%

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

Source: ComScore, October 2011

Mobile check-ins via foursquare / Facebook, US

2011 2012

Adult population 4% 10%

Source: Tnooz, May 2012

Nora Maki

VisitEngland’s agenda for Social Media

VisitEngland’s Social Media Profile

• http://www.facebook.com/EnjoyEngland • 156,797 likes• Daily posts about events & news across England

• http://www.youtube.com/enjoyenglanduk• 93,031 views• Destination promo videos• UGC (competition entries)• 2nd most popular search engine after Google

• https://twitter.com/#!/VisitEngland• 21,949 followers• Daily posts about events & news across England• #journorequest• Answering queries/questions

Twitter – how to make it work

Best option is always to speak with local DMO

Awards

Aims & Objectives Who are you trying to reach?

Positive customer experiences

Key to Twitter success: know your audience

Local events

Don’t sell anything on Twitter – Engage in conversation!

So, what do I tweet about?

#hashtags

Good examples in tourism – destinations!

VisitEngland Social Media Activity

DON’T…

Be afraid of social media

Direct all links to your website

Use social media as a sales channel

Don’t be afraid of deleting, unfollow or

ban followers who spam you

Use social media if you don’t have the

resources to do so

DO…

Create personal account to get a feel for

platform

Set a strategy – what is your aim with the

account/s?

Engage in conversation; RT, mentions, tag

etc.

Stay focused when choosing who to follow;

follow people relevant to you business

Keep branding consistent on all platforms

Create a tone that suits your brand

Categorise and create lists – easier to digest

Andrew Daines

Best practice considerations for mobile

Key considerations for delivering content via mobile devices

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

1. Use the device’s GPS functionality and deliver content accordingly

Key considerations for delivering content via mobile devices

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

2. Integrate with mapping functionality, to provide directions

Key considerations for delivering content via mobile devices

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

3. Integrate with installed social media apps, to enable and encourage sharing

Key considerations for delivering content via mobile devices

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

4. Ensure content is up to date

Key considerations for delivering content via mobile devices

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

5. Allow offline access to content

Tracey Taylor

Shaping VisitEngland’s digital roadmap

VisitEngland’s role is to ensure England grows its share of leisure visits against key competing destinations

From VisitEngland’s marketing objectives…

• Instill pride in England as a destination and get our audience to share their experiences

• Enable integration for England and its destinations• Bring value to the whole industry and reduce duplication of

effort• Focus on inspiration and conceptualisation of the decision

making process • Focus on thematic campaigns • Ensure advocacy is at the heart with sharable content and

strong social media integration

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

Start with needs

• The design process must start with identifying and thinking about real user needs. We should design around those — not around the way the ‘official process’ is at the moment. We must understand those needs thoroughly — interrogating data, not just making assumptions — and we should remember that what users ask for is not always what they need.

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

Do less

• We should only do what only we can do. • If someone else is doing it — link to it. • If we can provide resources (like APIs) that

will help other people build things — do that.

• We should concentrate on the irreducible core

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

Do the hard work to make it simple

• Making something look simple is easy; making something simple to use is much harder — especially when the underlying systems are complex — but that’s what we should be doing.

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

Understand context

• We’re not designing for a screen, we’re designing for people. We need to think hard about the context in which they’re using our services. Are they in a library? Are they on a phone? Are they only really familiar with Facebook? Have they never used the web before?

Mobile, Apps and Social Media

• How do we include content across every location in England?

• How can VisitEngland facilitate mobile / app development?

Considerations