Social Media for Attractions - IAAPA

Social Media for Attractions
IAAPA ASIA 2012
Charles Read

Social Media: What’s the big deal?
Social media: What’s the big deal?
ROI = Engagement
Best Practice

Social Media: What’s the big deal?
CONCERNS ABOUT SOCIAL NETWORKING……
Allows any outsider free access to the
family.
Exchange of twaddle between foolish
women.
Idle conversations and an inappropriate
invasion of the household.
Fosters inappropriate contact from people
of the lower classes.
Encourages indiscretions between
unsupervised women and strange men.

Social Media: What’s the big deal?
It’s increasingly the way that people communicate...
Example: Most tweeted events in 2011
10 Death of Osama Bin Laden: 5,106 tweets per second
7 Japanese earthquake: 5,530 tweets per second
1 Beyonce Reveals Baby Bump: 8,868 tweets per second
Until December 9th ...
Castle in the Sky: 25,088 tweets per second !!!

ROI?
Social media is word of
mouth on digital steroids
The ROI is to be in business in
5 years time….

ROI?
Some statistics from US theme parks – ignore social media at
your peril!
•Visitors with internet access from 76% to
81% from 2008 to 2010, but…
•The number of people who post a blog
about their theme park experience has
gone from 22% to 48% from 2008 to 2010
•Number of visitors who went to park
website prior to going to the park has
gone from 21% to 42% from 2008 to
2010, and…
•Those who posted about their most
recent trip exhibited greater spending
behaviour

ROI?
7 Drive traffic to website
6 Disseminate information & knowledge
5 Chance to monitor feedback, opinions from audience
4 Increase brand awareness, raise profile
3 Build community and relationships
2 Extend audience outreach
1 Engage and interact with audience - ENGAGEMENT

ROI?
Size Spend Popularity
BUT investment and popularity have little
relationship to engagement!
“It’s easy to spend money badly by going to experts”
Martin Grimes, Manchester Art Gallery

Best Practice
As with all new forms of communication or technology, it’s
important to learn how to use them properly.
1. Get a strategy?
2. It’s all about the brands?
3. Communication
4. Be future orientated

Best Practice - Strategy
Must be created in line with overall
strategy:
•What are you trying to do?
•Who are you trying to reach?
•How does this relate to the broader
audience strategy?
•How will you know you have been
successful?
•What methods best measure this success?
•Can you find comparative data?
•What insights are you gaining?

Best Practice - Strategy
Don’t think of social media in isolation
•Don’t think about digital as something separate
– must fit into overall strategy for the company.
•Define online targets and map to overall
business objectives – where does it fit in?
•Don’t forget your website – most traffic comes
from here – invest in SEO
•Build links between the web team and your
marketing department

Best Practice - Strategy
Don’t forget to analyse the stats
Adopt Google Analytics reporting. This should cover basic health checks, user
segments and goal definition.
How to measure success?
• Set objectives
• Select metrics for social media
which relate to these outcomes
• Benchmark of the current
position

Best Practice - Brands
Which social media brand?

Best Practice - Brands
Facebook v LinkedIN for Blooloop
• 2 minutes average visit
• > 6 minutes average visit, and ……
• > 8 minutes average visit
Our Facebook
Friends also
like……
McDonalds 403 likes
Rihanna 350 likes
Pringles 298 likes
Weekends 200 likes
Being tickled 65 likes

Best Practice - Brands
• Decide which social media channels you will
concentrate on - follow your target
audience
• Don’t bite off more than you can chew –
decide which ones you can reasonably
concentrate on
• Make sure you reserve your name on the
others for later……..

Best Practice - Brands
Reserve your name…….
Congrats! @OceanPark celebrates record breaking
weekend attendance, guest satisfaction an all time high.
Thanks! Was a great weekend, didn’t realise was a
record. Glad to achieve all time high ;)

Best Practice - Brands
Make sure you understand the rules for each brand
“Martin instilled in me my core values, both as a person and leisure professional, as
well as infecting me with my passion for our business.”
Martin instilled in me my core values, both as a person and leisure
professional, as well as infecting me

Best Practice – Brands - China
Note: China’s social media scene is different from anywhere else. Not copies but growth
of own brands.
“You don’t understand China
social media if you don’t
understand Sina Weibo”

Best Practice – Brands - China
Why is social media so popular in China?
•The sheer size of the Chinese territory is a limit to keeping longdistance
relationships - China is the only country in the world where
people say they have more friends online than offline
•Restricted availability of information on traditional media
“Strangers With Experience”
Chinese Netizens trust reviews and insights
on social media three times more than a
recommendation from an acquaintance in
a bar.

Best Practice – Brands - China
Who are the Netizens and what do they like?
Who are the Netizens?
•73% of China’s online population (80% of online hours) are aged 35 and under
•By 2015, internet penetration will reach almost 40% of China’s vast rural population
What do the Netizens like?
•70% of Chinese Internet Users use Social Media Networks (US: 46%)
•48% of Internet Users upload Video (US: 19%)
•42% of Internet users use Microblog (US: 21%)
Participation of Chinese Internet users in social media:
• 55% own or visit blogs
• 47% have a page on one or more social networking site (SNS)
• 25% write 10 or more posts on forums, blogs or SNS every day
• 92% visit social media pages at least 3 times a week
• 27% have pages on 5 or even more different social networks

Best Practice – Brands - China

Best Practice - Communication
• Think of it as a conversation
and not a sales pitch
• Be consistent – true to your
brand
• Ask for testimonials and
feedback
• Make sure you can trust the
individuals who are
promoting your brand
• Consider synchronising
social media accounts

Best Practice - Communication
Manage bad news

Best Practice - Communication
Manage bad news - An example of social media in action – Sentosa
Dear Fans, Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure will be undergoing enhancement works from 10
August onwards. We anticipate that the attraction will reopen in early 2012 with enhancements
that will greatly increase its current capacity. We will also take this opportunity to carry out
annual maintenance works concurrently. We'd like to thank everyone for your support for the
attraction. Lennard Chan and 66 others like this.
Thanks for the update RWS, a bit short on notice. At least we know before making any bookings!
Unfair for Annual pass member.. one more place I cannot go..
RWS create a refurb schedule and put it online so people actually know in advance when an
attraction will be down! It's not brain surgery!!
I suppose the works could be good, the last 3 times I tried to ride it, it broke down.
Aghh. Just planning to go to USS again, when is Transformers opening?
Hi resort world sentosa, do we get compensation like food vouchers etc?
Your notice is way too short....yes agree to some vouchers giving out soon....
Transformers later this year I think although you never know
Yup, waiting for transformers too, but it will surely take some time next year

Best Practice - Communication
Manage bad news - Deal with trolls

Best Practice - Communication
Manage bad news - Deal with trolls

Best Practice - Communication
Don’t post anything you might regret later
Don’t say anything
online that you
wouldn’t want
plastered on a
billboard with your
face on it
“There is no
delete button on
the internet”
Eric Schmidt, executive
chairman Google

Best Practice – The Future
Keep up with trends, follow your customers
3 trends to watch
•Mobile
•Pinterest
•Augmented Reality

Best Practice – The Future? Pinterest
• Buyers referred from Pinterest are 10% more likely to buy something.
• Pinterest projected to account for 40% of all social media driven
purchases
• Social media driven revenue:
• Facebook clear leader with over 80%, BUT
• Pinterest = 1% in Q4 2001, = 17% Q1 2012!!
• Twitter from 10% to 1% in same period
• Daily unique visitors to Pinterest:
• Jan 2012 = 2 million
• Mar 2012 = 4 million!!
• Average time per visit 14.2 minutes
• Jan 2012 - 80% women, March 2012 - 72% women
• Over 20% of Facebook users are on Pinterest daily

Best Practice – The Future? Pinterest

Best Practice – The Future? Pinterest

Best Practice – The Future? AR
The future: Augmented Reality
"Today, many of us assume that there exists a separation between our
online and offline lives. The advent of social media began to blur that
divide, but augmented reality has the potential to shatter it completely."

Best Practice – The Future? AR
Pinwheel allows users to leave photos,
videos and text at any location they
want.
At the moment, smartphone users see
most of this tagging as pins on a map of
their vicinity.
Increasingly, it is becoming possible to
see the digital notes that people leave
behind superimposed over the world as
graphics - or "augmented reality" (AR).
But at the moment you need a mobile
and the right app…….

Best Practice – The Future? AR
The seamless integration of the physical and digital worlds……..
Google and Apple developing augmented reality glasses that can overlay digital information
onto the physical world.
Google announced its headset will be worn like glasses displaying video, graphics and text.

In Summary
Never lose sight of the
fact that the most
important thing to do
is the same as ever:
focus on delivering for
your customers and to
behave ethically.

In Summary
Social Media - what’s the
big deal?
Social media is
increasingly how your
customers communicate
Your brand is no longer
under your control – it’s
being shaped by your
customers and you need
to be part of the
conversation
Thank you……