This infographic shows a breakdown of the social demographics of Twitter vs. Facebook users in 2010. Fascinating!

Source: Digital Surgeons

F1 Blog Trip Valencia 2010

With the explosion of social media and the growing influence of bloggers in the travel sphere, many tourism boards and travel companies are starting to turn their attention to organising blog trips as a means to connect with travel bloggers and raise the online exposure of their products. For travel bloggers, it’s a great way to gain new content and network with the organisers and fellow bloggers. From my experience with blog trips, I’ve learned that there are certain expectations and responsibilities that need to be addressed by both parties in order for the trip to succeed. Here are some tips which I’ve picked up along the way:

Tips for blog trip organisers

• Choose bloggers with varying areas of expertise – this ensures different perspectives of the same subject matter. Ask the travel blogger community for blogger recommendations. In addition, check their level of online influence as travel bloggers often wield a high level of influence within their online networks
• Full or partial compensation for transport costs (flight/train tickets) to the destination should be offered
• Don’t over-plan. Provide the bloggers sufficient time to explore on their own
• Ensure that an internet connection is never far away – travel bloggers are able to provide real-time exposure of the trip via their online networks
• The itinerary will form the basis of the type of content that can be expected. Refrain from exerting further influence
• The bloggers should not be expected to publish all the content generated from the trip within a short space of time (e.g. a month). A gradual roll-out of the content (over a period of several months) will ensure greater exposure of your product(s).

Travel blogger responsibilities

• Give your hosts an idea of the story angles you’re considering
• Depending on the availability of an internet connection, post photos/videos on your blog/facebook and/or Twitter page during the trip. On twitter, use a hashtag
• State clearly in your posts that it was a sponsored trip
• Alert your host to your published content
• Create a trip report for your host (several months after the trip) detailing the published content and traffic stats of each post.

Most importantly, enjoy the trip!

Several weeks ago, I was invited by ING Bank in Amsterdam to share my thoughts on how social media can be utilised effectively by companies. We talked about the many ways companies can use platforms such as Twitter, facebook and LinkedIn for various purposes such as brand-building and networking. I stressed that social media was not about broadcasting a message over and over again but rather a place to build a community by networking, engaging and listening to what people are saying. A question was raised about whether it’s indeed possible to build meaningful relationships on Twitter. My answer was “YES”! It really is amazing how much you can achieve with 140 characters.

When I first started blogging, I used Twitter as a channel to promote my blog posts. However, Twitter soon became my main channel to network, share my expertise and build my brand. I discovered that people are a lot more accessible via Twitter. Many of my clients discovered me on Twitter and my followers play a large role in helping me to promote my blog posts. Without social media, it would have taken me a lot more time to build these meaningful relationships.

Ten tips to build solid relationships using Twitter

Here are ten tips to help you build and engage with your followers on Twitter:

1. Join a discussion. Respond to questions by offering relevant information
2. Tweet about interesting articles and add a comment or a question
3. Mix the topics of your tweets. For example, if you tweet about travel news, you could mix this topic with other topics like photography, architecture or the environment
4. Retweet interesting tweets from your followers
5. Screen your followers and get to know them. The DM function is especially handy to move a conversation out of the public space
6. If you have a new follower whom you find especially interesting, send a tweet to say hello and to thank him/her for following
7. Share a bit about yourself (an upcoming holiday, an opinion or your thoughts on the weather!)
8. Share your good news (such as an achievement)
9. If one of your followers has good news to share, congratulate them and join in the euphory
10. It’s ok to broadcast your own content but keep broadcast-type tweets to under 40% of your tweets.

Een paar weken geleden werd ik door ING Bank in Amsterdam uitgenodigd om te komen praten over mijn ervaringen met sociale media. Ik gebruik sociale media als Twitter, facebook en Stumble Upon op een dagelijks basis om verschillende redenen, voornamelijk om mijn blogs te promoten (brand- en traffic-building) en om te netwerken (contacten leggen/onderhouden en klantenwerving).

Het resultaat van mijn gesprek bij de ING is te vinden in dit rapport: ING – Zakelijke Dienstverleners Scoren Met Sociale Media.

Velvet Connect biedt advies en masterclasses in sociale media – van ‘Networking op Twitter’ tot ‘Blogging als Etalage van Expertise’ – aan zowel het bedrijfsleven als individuële personen (bijvoorbeeld ZZP’ers). Wilt u nog meer weten, stuur mij een email. Volg @velvetconnect op Twitter.

You’ve been on Twitter for a while, your number of followers has been growing briskly, your tweets are being read and re-tweeted, you enjoy having chats with your followers and you’re on many followers’ lists. If this is the case, CONGRATULATIONS! You’re an influential Tweep. You’ve achieved this by sharing quality content and great ideas. In addition, you’re actively engaging with your followers by participating in discussions, helping with advice and/or tips and recommending other Tweeps. These aspects contribute to a higher level of influence within your Twitter community.

Influence

Influence is becoming an increasingly important measure of your presence on Twitter. It is your level of influence that stimulates a reaction from your followers: from clicking on links included in your tweets, to re-tweeting these tweets, and commenting or launching a discussion about your tweets. A high level of influence translates into a higher number of re-tweets and active discussions, as well as a strong awareness of your authority within your niche. For individuals, organisations and companies who utilise Twitter for marketing and brand-building purposes, achieving this level shows that you’re on the right track.

Measuring influence has always been tricky. The number of followers is insufficient to measure influence as it doesn’t say anything about how that person grew the follower base, if the follower base is actually ‘listening’ or how many people in the follower base are actually active. In this sense, analytics tools that use different variables provide a more concise picture. I’ve discovered various tools that do a good job at measuring influence levels. These tools’ ability to add context to a person’s influence is critical for businesses that want to leverage influencers in spreading the word about their companies or products. These are my two favourites:

Tweet Level is a tool that measures an individual’s importance on Twitter. According to TweetLevel: “Each score is rated out of 100 – in other words, the higher your score, the more important you are. There are four result metrics:

• Influence – what you say is interesting and many people listen to it. This is the primary ranking metric.
• Popularity – how many people follow you
• Engagement – you actively participate within your community
• Trust – people believe what you say

Klout is an analytics tool that measures your influence or “Klout” on Twitter. “Klout allows you to track the impact of your opinions, links and recommendations across your social graph. We collect data about the content you create, how people interact with that content and the size and composition of your network. From there, we analyze the data to find indicators of influence and then provide you with innovative tools to interact with and interpret the data.”

Update 2 Nov. 2010: A new site Influencers in Travel now uses Klout scores to rank the influence of travel names in social media.