360DigitalInfluence

From our colleagues in APAC.

As we all know, 2009 has been a hard year for almost everyone. There are very few corners of the globe that have not been effected by the crisis. The economic downturn has left many countries in or on the verge of recessions/depressions. To compound these matters, the threat of H1N1 (aka swine flu) is leaving some countries worse off than others.

 
Take Mexico for example. They were at the epicenter of the outbreak and the fall-out has been devastating to their economy. Mexico’s claim that the H1N1 virus emanated from Asia  seems to have fallen on deaf ears as Mexico’s economy, which relies heavily on tourist dollars, has been suffering since the outbreak of the H1N1 virus. As a result, vacations to Mexico are cheaper than they have been in years. Forbes  is reporting that Travel-Ticker is offering over 20 Mexican vacations up to70% off.

Since amazing travel deals alone are not luring the tourists in, Mexico is using social media to entice travelers back to Mexico with its “Believe It” campaign. Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History has signed an agreement with Google Mexico to promote archeological and historical sites. This is not a bad idea because according to Trip Advisors 2009 travel trends, 87% of travelers will visit a historical site on vacation. In addition to partnering with Google to showcase the plethora of historical gems in Mexico, they have started a channel on Youtube.com to further showcase their historical landmarks They will also be launching advertising campaigns in 12 major U.S. markets and six in Canada.

There are many communication lessons that can be learned from Mexico’s H1N1 fiasco. Had they handled their communications better from the beginning (apparently blaming Asia did not work) they might have avoided the swine flu’s name metamorphosis into the ‘Mexican flu’ .  Waiting four months to tell the world Mexico is a a safe place to travel might not have been the best idea. We encourage our clients to have crisis plans in place for just these reasons. However, their use of social media to launch a recovery campaign shows how serious they are about revitalizing their image as a safe place with amazing beaches and fabulous historical sites. “Mexico and its tourism sector have proven yet again that we are resilient to crisis,” says Oscar Fitch, CEO of the Mexico Tourism Board. “Not only are we back up and running and receiving tourists every day, but we are showing the world that this administration represents responsibility.”

This is the first of in a series of posts I’ll draft on listening to conversations happening in social media.  Much (!) has already been written on this topic - my humble aim here is to arm you with one powerful and simple tool that will get your ear to the ground in a hurry.

It was inspired when I came across a Tweet from my colleague, Rohit Bhargava …

… and the first thing that came to mind was:  I wonder if the person in New Zealand who is responsible for this knows people are talking about it in social media?

I don’t think I’ll get much argument when I say that first and foremost, good marketers listen (particularly, social marketers).  Listening allows us to track conversation trends, brand/product mentions, what people are saying about the competition and what the competition is saying about themselves.  Having a good listening post in place also enables marketers to quickly identify potential negative stories brewing in social media - more and more often where crises are erupting - and to respond rapidly (more on that in another post).

This listen first mentality applies just as much to travel and tourism marketing as it does consumer packaged goods.  If you’re marketing a destination, airline, hotel, etc. and are not listening at all, here’s what I recommend you do immediately:

1. As people who know me will tell you, I am a bit obsessed with my RSS reader as a way to find, segment, consume and share important content. I use Google Reader, but I know a lot of people who use Ogilvy PR’s tool, The Daily Influence.  Either way, sign up for an RSS reader and learn how to use it today.
2. Populate your RSS reader with feeds from every important source of news and information (newspaper, magazine or blog) from your particular industry.  Everyone from The New York Times to Hospitality Net offer RSS feeds.  Look for the universal RSS icon and get clicking.  As you use your reader more and more you’ll find your comfort zone in organizing the incoming feeds (just as we have different styles of managing our email in-boxes).
3. Use Twitter Search to find brand, product, service (or in the example above, country) mentions and subscribe to the resulting RSS feeds.
4. Google Blog Search:  Purely anecdotal, but I get the sense that Google is overtaking (or even has overtaken) Technorati as the preferred blog search engine.  Again, I conduct a search on relevant terms and either grab the RSS feed or subscribe to email alerts.
5. Rinse and repeat for Google News, images and video (naive is the brand that does not think consumers are talking about them on multimedia sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube).

Again, I know we all have our favorite tools.  These are the basics that work well for my needs.  Would love to know what you use, and why.