TravelMuse has broken with convention and appears to be the only travel company this autumn not talking about Twitter.
The California-based travel guide and trip planning website today launched a series of new features which utilise Facebook, rather than everyone’s favourite micro-blogging service Twitter.
The suite of tools include a trip recommendation tool, account syncing system through Facebook Connect and a new Facebook app allowing users to create trips or get advice from friends and connections.
TravelMuse has written a detailed post on its blog explaining the new features.
Good.
In fact, seeing some interesting tools being developed for Facebook makes a nice change
The fuss/hype/confusion over Twitter during 2009 – the year the service really took off around the world – will no doubt go down in web history.
But does it feel like the momentum is beginning to wane?
Twitter was the subject of many conversations during this week’s TravelBlogCamp, but to paraphrase a number of people on the night and on several occasions this week during World Travel Market: “Twitter is quite useful, often fun and conversational.”
The praise does appear to be faltering there.
Read the Silicon Valley tech press and they are falling over themselves with the apparent shock news that Twitter’s traffic has remained static (even fallen by a few percentage points) over the past few months in the US.
This isn’t a crisis, of course, as some would have it.
But there is a sense that usage is beginning – at least in Twitter’s motherland – to stablise.
This matters in travel because despite the uber-trendy status of Twitter, everyone’s other favourite social network, Facebook, appears to have more of a chance of relevancy for travel brands and consumers alike.
It has the user numbers as well…
Think about photos, recommendations, context, fan pages, likes/dislikes and all those other functions that Facebook has which Twitter doesn’t sand perhaps this notion of Twitigue makes sense.
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I’ve said this for ages now: you’d be a fool to focus on Twitter if your business is B2C. It’s really about as close as you can get to throwing resources out the window imho. It’s good to see other business owners not just following the hype, but actually thinking through the business case a little.
I love Twitter, but only for communicating with other people in the industry that I don’t have a chance to connect with otherwise. It’s also a good way to let steam off in an otherwise hectic day. But that’s me, as a person. Sure, it extends somewhat to the brand, but it definitely won’t (ever?!) pay the bills. I doubt it will ever be able to pay its own bills….
Sam: The way many brands behave, you would presume Facebook doesn’t exist.
Do you think therefore that perhaps Twitter simplicity is what has made it so attraction, rather than Facebook which arguably needs slightly more airtime?
Kevin, I just think Twitter appeals to people like us; business owners, journalists, people trying to figure out the next big thing etc. For everyone else, and that’s arguably 95%+ of the world’s population, Facebook is way more interesting. Not to even mention the stickiness factor, features, and tens of thousands of apps that extend it’s value. Give me 1% ownership in FB over Twitter any day
Very much agree. Promoting our agency (a B2B endeavour) works better on Twitter as there we’re networking, but for our client work (B2C) Facebook has been way more effective.
Example:
Our New Mexico FB page: http://www.facebook.com/NewMexicoTourism
Our New Mexico Twitter: http://twitter.com/NMtourism
Not only is there a gaping difference in numbers, I can also tell you that in terms of interaction (which is the great benefit of using social media for marketing) FB is massively more effective.
Aside from the fact that (despite what the media hype may lead us to believe) more general consumers are using FB, travel marketing needs to be visual, and therefore lends itself better to the more media rich Facebook.
Twitter and Facebook are two very different animals in my opinion and for that reason are called differently. Twitter is a micro-blogging tool with more similarities with texting and blogs. Facebook is a social network and although I can update my status there it does so much more and, as stated, requires more involvement and time investment.
I would never advise a company to focus on any one tool, especially in it’s über-cool phase but try it out as an add-on to other communications options. But, as always, once the hype machine starts its engine, the attention focuses on whatever that latest hype is.
Agree with all this. But I’d like to think of it as a new realism about Twitter’s value rather than disillusionment. A lot of the hype about T was based on traditional metrics – ’10 million users’ and the like – that were just meaningless in this context. Twitter was never going to deliver volume, but because the traditional measures of value on the web are all about volume, that’s what the story became.
In fact its value is quick, easy access to a fairly small number of like-minded people and contacts (for casual and journo users, as Sam says) and, for certain kinds of business, ‘ambient awareness’ (Adam @adders Tinworth’s phrase) of and from their most engaged customers. Ian’s comparison of B2B/B2C is really interesting.
Wondering about monitoring though. How good is FB for tracking what ppl are saying about the brand? Hard to monitor there unless they’re in the brand’s space, which makes comments more self-conscious. IMO…
Great post Kev.
@Nathan
Definitely, realism not disillusion with Twitter!
Actually we’ve just started a purely online B2B client campaign for Tourism Ireland, promoting business tourism, and although I’ve found research suggesting meeting planners & business travel execs use FB more than Twitter, from a networking perspective Twitter’s been easier to engage on so far. Only in our first week though so time will tell on that one!
You’re right though, can be difficult to see specific brand mentions on FB, but then there are also some great tools for overall monitoring on there, like Facebook Lexicon. And if you bring the conversation to you, on your page, then you can really engage and the insight tools are great. Users are going to be self conscious to a degree but it depends what your primary aim is – to monitor or to engage. I think I’d argue engaging has more value, especially for ‘ambient awareness’.
I agree with comments here they’re different animals with different audiences and different usage. Almost none of my non travel or non tech industry friends would use Twitter but they almost all use FB.
@Kevin I think your theory of brand engagment on Twitter because of simplicity could be expanded to include it being a perceived path of least resistance where brands, trying to make sense of Social Media, can get more followers faster on Twitter. Are those followers less engaged than they are on Facebook where people are in ‘their own’ social space and the interaction is more than just a status update.
We agree with TravelMuse, as such Facebook has been a much higher priority of the new Tourabout platform than Twitter. Although it distributes an operators interactions to both their Twitter and Facebook accounts we spent far longer evaluating and developing the key social features (including Answers – ask friends, the wider travel community and the expertise of Tour Operators, activity providers and DMO’s to understand destinations) of the new platform inside Facebook.
We look forward to the demo at PhoCusWright and meeting at #tcamp1
I think twitter has serious legs for swift response customer service – as Jetblue (@jetblue) and Easyjet (@easyjetcare) are doing. But yes, I do agree with you Kevin. I see USEFUL apps for Facebook being a really smart addition to any travel co’s social media strategy in 2010 – and that’s NOT about creating something funky or cool for the hell of it – it’s more about accessing their products/booking details/account via Facebook rather than having to log in via the travel cos website.