Send your Facebook profile to South Africa! Become a back-up dancer in Hong Kong! Virtual experiences + social media (Part 1)

Welcome to post #6! Today, we explore virtual experiences on social media, looking at 2 creative travel campaigns for Cape Town, South Africa and Hong Kong.

Virtual experiences: An Introduction

Social media marketing is about creating an experience for customers, not just using social media to conduct straight advertising and selling. A few weeks ago we looked at a successful case study where US TV station, HBO, used social media updates and games to lead audiences to Game of Thrones events offline. This highlighted one way of creating fun experiences for customers using social media.

However, organisations can also create fun experiences for customers online. By providing simulations of real-life experiences, companies can allow customers to 'try' products or services before they buy them. Or if they have already tried these offerings, a virtual experience can augment products and services, using interactivity, animation and graphics to bring the product or service to life for customers. If this is conducted on social media, individuals can not only enjoy the virtual experiences themselves, they also share them with with friends, family and peers.

Virtual experiences help to generate word-of-mouth advertising because it allow customers to tell interesting stories about the product or brand. According to Mangold and Faulds, from the article 'Social Media: The Hybrid Element of the Promotion Mix,' stories are memorable and repeatable. By helping to create stories that individuals can share about a brand or product, virtual experiences help to drive online brand discussions. Below, we will look at two creative case studies that have succeeded in creating brand discussion online:

Case Study 1: Send Your Facebook profile to Cape Town Campaign

Advertising firm, Ogilvy, helped to create a social media campaign for Cape Town Tourism that sent individuals' on a virtual holiday to the city through Facebook. Individuals could sign up and select the aspects of a holiday they were interested in (shopping, dining, adventures). This information was then used to tailor content to individuals' timelines. To send peoples' profiles on a virtual holiday, Ogilvy and the Cape Town tourism board put photos, videos and status updates that not only entertained individuals, but made it look like they were actually on holidays in Cape Town to their friends! Individuals who joined up for the program also had the chance to win a real trip to Cape Town.

This campaign was quite smart because it used virtual experience to give customers a taste of what it would be like to visit Cape Town. There were many different pictures and videos that were placed on individuals' profiles that displayed the beauty of city. Rather than give people a tour of the main attractions, this campaign took individuals to the secret gems of the country and allowed them to visit small communities and beatufuil natural mountains and beaches. By conducting this campaign on social media, pictures and experiences were 'shared' naturally, as peoples' friends and families would be curious with the Cape Town content appearing on their newsfeed.

What were the results of the campaign?

Overall tourism up by 4% and bookings for the following year up by 118%. On social media:

Case Study 1: Hong Kong Summer Spectacular Dance campaign

As mentioned in a previous post on this blog, Hong Kong hosts many events during the summer months including a large pop concert with many Chinese performers. To attract audiences from Asia to travel to Hong Kong and attend these events, the Hong Kong tourism board created a virtual music experience for audiences. Individuals could create their own music video and become dancers - they just had to upload their photos and their face would be placed on a pre-recorded dancers' body. This would create a funny videos that individuals could share with friends on platforms such as Facebook or Renren Wang (chinese social media platform).

                     

This campaign used virtual experience to give individuals a taste of 'stardom' and allowed them to experience the fun activities taking place in HK during the summer. These music videos not only showed the summer events, they were also outrageous and humourous media clips that amused individuals and enticed them to share with friends. According to Mangold and Faulds, outrageous content generates discussion and sharing online. In addition to this, individuals could encourage their friends to go on the Hong Kong Tourism website like their videos. The individual with the most likes could win a trip to Hong Kong with free accommodation. 

What were the results of the campaign?

The campaign received over 3000 submissions and the videos recorded received over 300,000 views. The site also had over 50,000 page views. Overall, the campaign raised travel to Hong Kong during the Summer months from the target destinations including Korea, China and Taiwan. 

Why were these virtual campaigns so successful? 

There were a few things that both campaign did that helped to increase success:

• Both campaigns gave audiences fun experiences that they might not yet have experienced in real life, e.g. travelling to South Africa, dancing in a music video
• Both campaigns were interactive and allowed individuals to personalize their virtual experience, e.g. select your holiday interest, select which photo to upload and which dancer to become
• Both campaigns provided avenues to share the content, e.g. on Facebook and other websites
• Both campaigns used competitions to incentivize viewing, participation and sharing. 

This is what I have observed. But please leave a comment... let me know if you have noticed other things that have made these campaigns successful! Would you try a virtual travel experience on social media? Would you share it? 

Key points to take away from this post:

• Make virtual experiences ones that customers haven't had the chance to experience in 'real life.'
• Allow these experiences to be personalised and shared across social media.
• Use virtual experiences to give customers a taste of the product or service being sold.
• Make experiences outrageous or humourous to generate discussion and sharing.
• Provide an incentive to share content!

Taking advantage of User Generated Content in the tourism sector

This week we're going to look at User Generated Content (UGC), specifically in travel campaigns developed by the Hong Kong Tourism Board and Visit Norway.

User-Generated Content: An Introduction

As a result of social media, online content can now be produced by ordinary people, rather than just media corporations; these days everyone can create, publish and share their own opinions, ideas and interpretations. User-generated content (UGC) can include comments, photos, videos, stories, reports, reviews and digital artworks. Social media platforms facilitate for the sharing of UGC.

Should companies incorporate UGC in their social media campaigns?

The use of UGC depends on the situations surrounding the firm or industry. In most cases, UGC can help companies to create a higher level of engagement with customers. For those in the tourism industry, it is highly beneficial to incorporate UGC in social media campaigns. Why?

Firstly, when people travel, they tend to take photos, film videos, make scrapbooks, write journals, give reviews or blog about their experiences. As a result, there is already a large pool of content available for tourist boards and travel companies to tap into. When they display UGC, these organizations not only provide lots of interesting, positive content, without high costs or effort, they also make customers feel proud of their work. This sense of pride encourages customers to spread word-of-mouth about the campaigns.

Secondly, travelling is about trying new things and having fun. But sometimes people don't know about the fun activities that exist outside the borders of their own country. UGC like photos, videos and stories can help to bring awareness to, and sell these exciting travel experiences. Below are two successful case studies where tourism organizations have used UGC effectively. The platform used in both cases happens to be Instagram (but UGC can be showcased on many other platforms like YouTube for videos, Facebook for stories etc.)

Case study 1: Hong Kong Tourism Board's Summer Spectacular Viewfinder



To raise awareness for Hong Kong's various tourist attractions and hotspots in summer, the country's tourism board ran a photo competition. Because they knew that locals were avid Instagram users, they took advantage of this platform and asked their audience to send in their best Instagram photos of Hong Kong. The board then developed a website, where visitors could view these photos on a viewfinder. Participants could link family and friends to this website, increasing word-of-mouth.

By creating a competition, the board provided an incentive for customers to send in their best photos. By developing a special website to display this content, they made audience members feel like their work was valued, and therefore worthy of sharing. This campaign resulted in 426,000 likes and shares on Facebook as well as 74.4 thousand micro-blog references (like tweets) on the Chinese social media site, Weibo. It raised inbound travel to Hong Kong from China and South-East Asia over the summer that the campaign ran.

Case study 2: VisitNorway's Your Way campaign & current Instagram platform

A few years ago, Visit Norway created the 'Your Way' campaign in central and Eastern Europe asking audience members to participate in a competition making creative works that portrayed Norway as they saw it. The process of the campaign and results can be viewed in this video: 

As part of their current social media strategy, Visit Norway now runs an active Instagram channel. Like the Hong Kong tourism board, Norway's main tourism organization has created a special platform to view these photos. This platform has gained 560,000 likes from the public on Facebook:

            



From these campaigns, we can see there are a number of benefits with incorporating UGC in social media campaigns. UGC provides:

• Voice: If firms encourage audiences to generate and share their own content about their brands, they give voice to their customers. This can make customers feel valued and appreciated.
• Authenticity: By handing customers the power to generate publicity for a brand, firms can create a sense of legitimacy. A customer's display of enthusiasm for a brand is often considered more believable than a company's advertisements.
• Personal connection: Firms can establish a strong personal connection with customers through UGC if they interact with their audiences' contents.

However, we must also we aware of the problems with UGC, including:

• Negative contributions: Content can be created by trolls, who damage the brand's reputation with poor-taste jokes; angry individuals, who post abusive or racist content; and criminals, who post illicit images or documents.
• Control: It may appear totalitarian to the public if firms exercise strict control over other individuals' content...but firms still need to monitor for abusive or illicit contributions.

How have the case studies examined become successful and managed these issues?

Both the HK Tourism Board and Visit Norway were successful because they maximized the benefits of UGC and minimized the issues with it:

1. They both created competitions to provide an incentive for posting positive UGC. Because users wanted to win the prizes or gain recognition for their work, they were willing to put in more effort to create appropriate and high quality content.
2. They created their own channels and platforms to showcase user-generated content. This allowed them to show that they valued the participation of their audience members. It also allowed them to screen content before posting it online. These platforms were then linked to other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, etc. so they could be shared with other individuals.

Key points to take away from this post:

• Incorporate UGC on social media to encourage customer engagement with brands.
• Be aware of all the benefits and issues with UGC before engaging in it.
• Provide incentives that encourage individuals to make positive contributions and share work.
• Monitor content, but don't control it too much. Provide posting guidelines and screen public contributions first before releasing them online.