Bigmouthmedia's blog » travel http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com Thoughts from the bigmouths Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:21:31 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Pinterest: Already a Major Social Player http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/2012/02/03/pinterest-already-a-major-social-player/ http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/2012/02/03/pinterest-already-a-major-social-player/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:28:18 +0000 Darcie Tanner http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/?p=5285 Pinterest LogoThe newest name merge to enter the social media arena hit my radar about six months ago. The platform is called Pinterest, and allegedly drives more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. Pinterest comes from combining Pin and Interests, with the idea being that you ‘pin’ and ‘repin’ visual things you find interesting, or that has to do with your interest. Although still invite only, it has taken the social sphere by storm, particularly for those interested in baking, cooking, art, fashion, design and photography – to name a few.

Individual perspective

Pinterest is a great way to get ideas, share ideas and store things for future use – such as a pattern, picture, room design or recipe. Being heavily image driven, it’s a great site to use when you just want to browse and be inspired. One of my favourite finds so far is still the use of an old Ketchup bottle for pancakes.

Business perspective

While Pinterest might not be for all brands, it really shines when it comes to:

  • Jewellery/Accessories
  • Fashion
  • Wedding themes
  • Party themes
  • Travel
  • Food and drink (especially recipes)
  • Architecture
  • Interior Design
  • How to’s
  • Animals/pets

The site, whether by plan or circumstance, is currently very heavy in the female demographic (54-70% of user base, as estimated by comScore), however it will be interesting to see how that changes or evolves over the next six months.

There is a section for buying (US only) – you may see a price tag in the corner of some pictures – and it will be interesting to see how and if it takes on sites such as Etsy.com (who even have their own Pinterest page).

What works well on Pinterest?

  • Images
  • Colours
  • Professional quality
  • Inspirational pieces
  • Quality visual content

What doesn’t work?

  • Infographics (too long & busy)
  • Text rich content
  • Poor quality pictures

What is the main benefit of using Pinterest?

Although the links are now nofollow (as of a week ago), Pinterest has already proven to be a strong driver in traffic to the destination page due to the nature of the link journey. A user clicks on an image, can repin or share, and then clicks again to get the full story or information behind the image. This last click takes them to the landing page of the site from where the content was ‘pinned’.

What is useful is that when a user ‘pins’ a piece of content, the URL embeds in the image automatically, so even if you have users that aren’t super savvy with how links work – you will get one automatically.

The top three benefits of using this platform if it’s right for your brand:

  • Increased brand awareness
  • Great way of showcasing quality, visual content
  • Drives traffic to your website
  • Helps to reach your target demographic

I’m already on StumbleUpon and Tumblr – how is this different?

Pinterest Cuteness Board - Puppy hugging teddyWhile StumbleUpon is also a useful tool for driving traffic and a place to source new things when you are looking for inspiration, the interface doesn’t allow for users to share in a visual and simple way. With the Pinterest ‘Boards’ users can easily follow all of their friends pins or just a specific genre they are interested in.

Whether it’s for personal use or for your brand – joining Pinterest, pinning, repinning, starting to play around, share and follow – you’ll soon learn what all the excitement and hours lost is about. Also, unlike Tumblr, Pinterest allows users to follow all their pins in a rich UX site, that enables infinite scrolling, zooming and resizing of images and saving a persons place when they go to repin (top tip!).

Let us know what you think about Pinterest!

]]> http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/2012/02/03/pinterest-already-a-major-social-player/feed/ 1 Best Western Affiliate Day http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/2011/08/19/best-western-affiliate-day/ http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/2011/08/19/best-western-affiliate-day/#comments Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:54:17 +0000 Susan Jamie http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/?p=2207

The bigmouthmedia affiliate team organised a successful affiliate day for Best Western Hotels GB earlier this month and wanted to report back on the day! Affiliate Marketing is all about building relationships, and by organising this event it was a great way for bigmouthmedia to bring key affiliate partners together at a Best Western hotel to meet with our affiliate team and the Best Western e-Commerce team. We also had a representative from each network attending, which gave affiliates a chance to speak to them throughout the day.

Despite the 30 degree heat in London (coming from Edinburgh we were struggling to cope!), we had a great turnout and it proved to be a very productive and informative day for all involved.The day involved presentations from bigmouthmedia giving an overview of the affiliate program, key stats and an update on developments for the program, followed by a second presentation from the team at Best Western which gave some very insightful information to affiliates about the brand and marketing plans – I’m sure both presentations gave affiliates lots to think about and will help them to promote Best Western more effectively!

The afternoon consisted of breakaway sessions which gave each affiliate a chance to meet with bigmouthmedia and Best Western representatives and discuss how to work more closely and drive more sales in the future. There were some great ideas that came out of these, and it was great to meet everyone face to face!

The day was a great success and we received some really positive feedback from attendees including:

“Good for networking and informative”

“Well organised, effective, informative and enjoyable”

“Worth taking a day out to attend the event! Good not only to catch up with networks, BMM and Best Western, but also other affiliates”

Here’s to the 2012 Best Western affiliate day!

]]> http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/2011/08/19/best-western-affiliate-day/feed/ 0 The State of the Travel Market http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/2011/05/17/the-state-of-the-travel-market/ http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/2011/05/17/the-state-of-the-travel-market/#comments Tue, 17 May 2011 16:48:43 +0000 anneliritari http://blog.bigmouthmedia.com/?p=1121 What in January seemed like a great start to the year, with record number of online travel, fell off a cliff in April. The latest data from Nielsen Netview shows that unique audience to the travel category declined by 6% YOY in April. The airline industry saw the largest drop with 26% followed by hotels with 16%.Google also shows a similar trend in terms of flight searches with airlines suffering during Easter and April and failing to reach up to last year’s figures, illustrated by the graph below from Google.So what’s behind this? The escalating fuel prices and air passenger duty (APD) have dramatically increased the cost of long-haul flights. The pretty steep figures are likely to discourage travellers beyond Europe and increase the pressure on airlines and long-haul tour operators. Moreover, recent political unrest in the Middle East saw oil prices reach a staggering $122 a barrel this month, which forced a number of airlines to raise fuel surcharges. Fares are likely to rise even further next year with the introduction of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which is bad news for travellers and travel companies alike.

Also the package holiday market is slow, the package search queries on Google were down 17% in Q1 and the number of bookings is reported to have fallen by 15% YOY in April, according to GFK Ascent. In terms of destinations Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco are obviously missed out on by UK travellers but Turkey seems to be the biggest looser as consumers opt for Spain and Greece, the big winners this year.

Again this summer the industry is expecting a growing numbers of travelers to choose a “staycation” despite some economic recovery. The sales of camping equipment are at a record high already. This has also been driven by the low value of the pound. It’s good news for the Brits staying at home that the weather is yet again predicted to be record-high this summer, with scorching barbeque temperatures forecasted for June, July and August. I do hope they get that right this year!

One third of global travel booking to be conducted online by next year

The global travel market is still showing very positive signs in terms of growth. One third of global travel bookings will be conducted online by the end of 2012 according to Phocuswright. Online booking is highest in the US and Europe, which represent more than three quarters of all online sales. However, online booking is expected to boom in APAC and LATAM and the combined online share of US and Europe will continue to decline, only making up of 73% of the global travel market by next year. Europe is predicted to grow by 10% this year, outperforming the 8% growth projected for the US, ahead of the UK travel market’s paltry growth prediction of 6%. Today it’s other, less mature online travel markets that are growing at a much higher rate, with APAC at 17% and LATAM at a staggering rate of 36%While travel companies are trying to profit from the opportunities that lie in less mature markets, and all eyes are on the sleeping giant China, where online travel bookings are growing at 27%.

As the travel industry is still tensely waiting for how the Google-ITA marriage will pan out, a similar coalition has taken place in China according to a press release on Bloomberg today. Tencent Holdings, China’s largest internet company, has bought a $84.4 million stake in Elong, China’s second largest online travel agent after Ctrip.com. The two companies, Tencent and Elong, plan to form a partnership to develop online travel products and distribute Elong to Tencent’s 674 million online community users in China. Both Google and Tencent are looking beyond their core competences to ensure they keep growing and it will be interesting to see how these coalitions will change the dynamics of the online travel market.

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