360DigitalInfluence

Two weeks ago I stumbled upon a video tweeted by a friend; the clip was visually stunning, brilliantly edited and instantly made me want to cash in my airline miles to follow in the director’s footsteps. I shared the video via email to my co-workers and via Facebook to my friends. Within an hour of hitting send, two friends had also shared the video and a colleague posted it to his Tumblr account. Roughly five thousand people had instant exposure to this content simply because I thought it was worth sharing.

As I kept my eye on the video it continued to be shared and viewed in multiples previously attained only by pop-stars and adorable cats. As a digital strategist I couldn’t help but investigate why and how a group of independent filmmakers could pull this off.

I started down the wormhole, did a few searches, and stumbled upon mentions of the directors on outlets like OK Magazine without a whisper of the brand that actually commissioned the content! I continued to investigate and suddenly noticed that the credits on the director, Rick Mereki’s, Vimeo account had been updated with funding details. As it turns out, STA Australia-the well known student travel site had commissioned Rick’s team to create the now “viral” clip.

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We met with Heather to talk about the evolution in travel booking online, due to the huge growth in peer recommendations, and the continued growth of travel clubs such as Jetsetter. Jetsetter is a community of travelers that provides members with insider access, knowledge and exclusive deals on vacations.

Heather describes how social media is used by her team, the travel brands she sees as doing well in the space and makes her predictions for the future of social travel.

Exclusive for our blog readers! You can join Jetsetter via this  link: www.jetsetter.com/register/promo/ogilvy

Social media has dramatically changed the way we book travel and plan vacations.

According to a Destinations Analyst survey - “The State of the American Traveler” - nearly 35.8% of travelers listen to the opinions of friends, colleagues or relatives when making travel plans. And with the average person having 130 Facebook friends, social media is a natural place for gathering recommendations from our peers.

This change has been accompanied by the growth in use of social and web tools for planning vacations; social media has become a necessary partner in experiencing the best vacation possible. So what are the most useful tools for planning in advance and while on vacation?

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