Qube recently ran a benchmarking survey into Social Media use, attitudes and budget in the travel industry.

With nearly 100 key players in the industry taking part from travel organisations large and small, Qube has gathered key insights into how this sector views and engages with the challenges and benefits of Social Media.

Social Media Benchmarking

81% of marketeers and directors in the travel industry say they use Social Media due to pressure from customers. And despite the fact almost two thirds of respondents felt Social Media was important for the future of their business, nearly 50% still use non-expert staff to deliver Social Media marketing.

Platforms

Bebo and MySpace, perhaps unsurprisingly, were the least popular social networks for marketing activity within the travel industry, while Twitter is by far the most popular tool in use for this sector.

Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Whilst there are many ways to measure Social Media activity and quantify ROI, difficulty in measuring direct impact of sales was far and away the greatest reason cited for not engaging with Social Media marketing.

Interesting, a large proportion of respondents don’t actually set any Key Performance Indicators for any of their current digital marketing activity.

Round table event

Qube will be releasing and discussing the full benchmarking report at the Social Media for the travel industry round table we’re holding on the 17^th February.

This is a chance for people in the travel industry to discuss the findings of the report and talk to each other about the particular challenges travel companies face in this ever-evolving digital era.

If you work in the industry and would like to attend, you can find more details here.

Here at Qube we (obviously) believe in Social Media as a platform for change. Social media and the Internet are such important parts of our daily lives it makes sense for public officials to start using it as a way of making a positive difference to our country. With that in mind we thought we would start highlighting some of the best and worst uses of social media and the Internet in official communication on a weekly basis. With the election looming it seems now more than ever social media will be important for the political parties.

More of This

This week saw political figures respond to questions asked by social network users. Barak Obama spent half an hour answering a variety of questions from Youtube users. While he was only able to answer a few of the 11,696 questions asked it was great to see the president of the United States taking the time to respond directly to his citizens. The video has received almost half a million views and has over 9,000 comments. That shows a great level of discussion and influence with a smart piece of crowd sourcing.

Over in the UK Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was taking part in a similar endeavor. Reddit users had been asked to submit questions for Nick and then vote up their most popular questions. Mr Clegg then answered these questions in a refreshingly under produced Youtube video. It was great to see a party leader taking the time to go into other communities and get involved in discussions.

David Cameron has also taken some time to answer user submitted questions. Although the Liberal Democrats approach of going into existing communities may be preferential to some, it is great to see the Tories taking this action (they also have a nice and slick system for submitting and voting for comments).

Why is this worthwhile? A couple of Youtube comments from Nick Cleggs Reddit video make it perfectly clear why.

The next step is for the parties to get involved in these comments on their own videos

Less of This

Labour have a bunch of “tools for your website” on their official site. Rather than focus on their own policies they seem to have taken the school boy approach of throwing insults. There are a series of “satirical” widgets that you can install on your site to show txt speak conversations from the Conservatives. Hardly the most thought provoking or conversation starting stuff. Instead of creating fake conversations for your site perhaps they should help voters engage in real conversations with the party?

Have a look at the offending item below and let us know what you think. How do you think the political parties should be using social media?

5 of the best Social Media stories of the week as chosen by the Qubites. Also 5 of the rest aka “Things MC Hammer says you can touch”.

5 of the best

Google’s Privacy Principles

There are times when I worry about how much Google knows about me. They know all of my web history, my conversations, my personal blogging…the list goes on. On the one hand I can see how it creates better results for me (in both the paid and natural results) as well as providing me with plenty of highly useful services for free. How much should our privacy cost though and how much are you willing to give up? This video calms me a little that Google is thinking about these things and says they will let me remove private information when I choose, but is this enough?

UK Internet Map (as featured on the BBC’s Virtual Revolution)

The BBC’s new show on the virtual revolution had an amazing 3D diagram of how Internet traffic flows in the UK. Here you can see it in all its 2D glory and realise that maybe cyberspace isn’t as big as we think, or at least for all its size we visit a few websites very often and the many websites much less.

The State of the Internet

We love pretty graphs. Here is a collection of useful and interesting top level views of how people are using the Internet.

Five lessons from MyDavidCameron

My David Cameron is both a stab at political satire and interesting social experiment. I would recommend that everyone running social media campaigns reads the findings and see how they reflect their own experiences. I particularly like the “Crowd Sourcing is Good” and “Crowd Sourcing is Bad” section.

Government 2.0: Communication and Engagement Are On a Collision Course

Couldn’t agree more with the differences between communication and engagement strategies. There is a huge difference between using Twitter as an alternative to the phone or website and actually going out and engaging in conversations where members of the public are. Food for thought for any government officials.

5 of the rest

70-Minute Video Review of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Any Star Wars fan (and Phantom Menace hater) should find 70 minutes to enjoy this beautiful, witty and spot on analysis of the Phantom Menace that shows how off-base Lucas really was.

Internet archaeologists find ruins of “Friendster” civilisation

Very funny and makes you wonder how long it is until something similar to this becomes reality. Maybe I should start trawling through the way back machine for similar findings, I wonder how Friends Reunited is getting on. Also this Onion video has me chuckling .

Ashen’s Tech Dump – Retro Games

The BBC are doing some great web comedy content. Short in length but not low in quality. This is a funny look into the “past”, They don’t make them like they used to!

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” quotation marks

This is a very “Funny” series of photos

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the world with over 350m users and counting. With every person (and some animals) in my family having an account it seems the social media revolution is as mainstream as it could be. With that in mind you would be silly not to have a Facebook presence right?

Before you dash off and put some pack shots and a link to your micro-site on your Facebook take a step back and consider some of the following:

1. Who is your Facebook page aimed at?

Notice I asked who your Facebook page is aimed at, not who is your product aimed at. A product can have many target audiences so making a one size fits all page may end up not appealing strongly enough to anyone but making it too specific may alienate too many. Make sure you know who you want to target so you can tailor the page to best meet their needs.

2. What interests that audience?

Knowing who you are targeting is just the first step, different audiences require different communication strategies. Some audiences will want facts about the product (how much is it, when is it out etc) others may be interested in a behind the scenes look at how it was created and others will be more interested in engaging conversations around the product and its subject matter. For example Wii Fit users may want to talk about their progress and other fitness tips and Lost fans may want to talk about their show theories and ideas.

3. Do you need to create content?

Creating content, such as videos, is a great way to get people talking about your Facebook presence and while it may not cost the earth you may find that time spent creating content could be better spent engaging. As just discussed different audiences have different needs and you may find that putting all your time and effort into responding to every question that needs answering and stimulating conversations is a much better use of your resources. If you do decide to create content make sure you still keep involved with the community or at the very least continue to make great content.

4. Is this community for your product or your brand?

It seems a fundamental question to the creation of your Facebook page but one that frequently isn’t answered. Successful products these days are often turned into a franchise, iterated on or spun out into other products. If this is the plan for your product why try to create a community from scratch with every release? Creating a brand community can spread the news of more than just one product and build a fan base over many years not months. That said creating a umbrella community for your brand can lead to the page being too broad and you may want each product to have its own bespoke page.

5. How will people find out about your page?

We all want to believe the things we do are so good that everyone will just turn up to get involved, but that isn’t how the world works. You may want to create great content that people will share with their friends, word of mouth may be free but the cost is in the content. You may decide that driving people through targeted advertising is your best bet. Leading people to your Facebook page instead of your micro-site may be a better method for your traditional advertising also. You could also use traditional outlets and influencers to spread the word but as before make sure people have a good reason to do this.

Simply put, know your audience, know what they want and then give it to them. It seems so obvious yet so many people overlook it. Facebook is just another platform and not the be all and end all, you may decide you are better off creating your own community, or using another social network. Do what is best for your product or brand and not just what everyone else is doing.

5 of the best social media stories of the week as chosen by the Qubite’s. Also 5 of the rest aka “ Stuff we thought woz interestin’ ”.

5 of the best

Data.gov.uk

Probably the biggest news of the last week was the government launching data.gov an online platform for all its publicly available data. On a basic level this means you could search the site rather than submit a request under the Freedom of Information Act. On a more exciting level it means developers can use this data to create interesting applications and websites. Check out a couple of websites that have already been built Safer Streets and Where Does My Money Go.

Test Tube

Just like Google uses its Labs to show off new ideas and experiments Youtube is doing the same with Test Tube. Insights for Audience and Comments search are really useful for finding out what the Youtube audience is interested  in and talking about.

Preparing for the Launch of the Games and Applications Dashboards

Prepare for another change to how you use Facebook. The current Facebook interface for applications and games has always felt a little makeshift. Now Facebook have created a special dashboard for users to get all of their information in one place. Hopefully this will mean I stop getting ugly duckling gifts on my wall, thanks mum.

Does your company really want to hang out with me?

A succinct and spot on observation of how some businesses still use Social Media. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard Social Media referred to as “A marketing channel” or “promotional tool”. Stop trying to push your message for just one minute and actually listen to what the people you are shouting at want to say.

Your State of the Union

Even with data.gov it looks as though our government is still playing catchup with America. Not only will this years Citizens address be streamed live on Youtube, but users will be able to submit questions to President Obama! Users can then vote on their favourite questions and some of the highest rated will be asked to him the following week. Now that is Social Media!

5 of the rest

Charlie Simpson -  Just Giving

This young man wanted to raise some money for the people of Haiti with a sponsored bike ride. He set himself a target of £500, a whopping target for any one child to raise (I think the most I managed was £50 for a junior fun run.) He has now raised over £160k not bad…not bad at all Charlie. An amazing achievement, but I wouldn’t hire him as my financial forecaster.

Music spies a Spotify sunrise

We are big fans of Spotify here in the Qube office, but have often wondered whether or not it is financially viable. Well it seems the answer is yes and no. Other than the UK and Spain subscription levels are good, but us Brits don’t mind persevering through adverts to get ourselves a bargain. Personally I would like to see more features for my £10 a month. What would get you to upgrade to a Spotify premium account?

Billy Moyers interviews David Simon (creator of the Wire)

If you are a big fan of The Wire this is a must watch. If you haven’t seen it yet this video does contain spoilers…so don’t watch it, just go buy the complete box set here (Do we get commission for this?). You can thank me later .

Functional – why simple, small and cheap appeals to all

Some great examples of why cheap and simple works! Sometimes the best solution is the simplest.

TV shows on Youtube

Not sure how new this is but I just found that Channel 4 and 5 have put all their on demand shows on Youtube. Seems like a smart idea to me. It is a shame that they have disabled comments on the videos though, would be a great way to create conversations and get feedback on episodes.

Currently “PR” is the weapon of choice with regards to companies getting information about their games online. This entails a series of press releases and interviews appearing on the biggest gaming websites which then filter down through the smaller sites and eventually into the communities.

This practice is only a slight evolution of the old PR model used when print was king. The aim was getting column inches in the biggest newspapers and magazines and bagging the much sought after magazine cover. PR stands for Public Relations but most of this sounds like Media Relations to me.

This old school way of doing things is fine in the most part. A lot of gaming enthusiasts visit these sites so it makes sense to target them first. If you do get a story on there the site’s influence and advocacy will add kudos to your brand’s reputation.

That is if you even manage to get your story onto those sites in any meaningful way. Ad-funded sites need as much web traffic as possible so your news story could be old news within minutes.

Old school PR doesn’t reach those gamers not on these websites, the mums buying Wii Fit, the kids pining for a Ben Ten game and it’s hard to imagine all of those Call of Duty sales exactly matching the web traffic of Gamespot and IGN. Finally this top down message is all one way traffic. How often do you see game companies commenting on their own news stories with more insight, correcting misinformation or just answering questions from the community.

Another Way?

Just because you are making a game does not mean IGN or Gamespot are your best bet for reaching the widest audience. Really work out what your game is about and who would like it, different communities have different common interests.

Try looking at smaller games communities with niche interests that match your product, look further afield at communities that aren’t all about videogames. You may find that Mumsnet is a better place to get information for your new fitness game to reach its target audience than any games website.

In all honesty that bit of the job is the easy part, making your PR actual relations with the public requires more time and care. Make the information relevant to them and actually talk about what it is you are trying to sell. When someone asks a question go answer it. Show that you care about your audience and build your online reputation.

Having conversations with the right people and communities is much more important than a one way message to be disseminated from on high. Use all the social media tools (forums, blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc) to have real interactions with the people that matter most – your customers!

Here are Qube’s favourite tweets from the last week.

@Glennw’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @google:

“New & very high-res imagery of Port-au-Prince post-quake now in Google Maps. http://bit.ly/8R5oTC”

A tweet from @Ratsofatsorat:

“.DK? What country is that?” “Donkey Kong Country?” #lifeatbethesda (LOL!)

A tweet from @rexbox:

“Just stumbled onto this: http://tr.im/KS32 Man, they are really going to clean up in the emerging dead fish/squirrel market”

@Nijay’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @MarkClayson:

Just How Miraculous Could an Apple Tablet Be? [Blockquote] http://goo.gl/fb/dwjX

A tweet from @mockduck:

“Mummy, how many more birthdays have you got before you die?”

A tweet from @SMBSeattle:

Study Finds Marketers Embracing Social Media Marketing In A Big Way. http://bit.ly/76WvJy ^CC

@MrTomasz’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @vikkichowney:

Tesco to launch ‘buy one, get one free later’ deals to cut down on food waste: http://bit.ly/4yqjdG

A tweet from @wearesocial:

The new social technographics ladder http://bit.ly/5PKxNx

A tweet from @BrandRepublic:

Google’s YouTube to introduce live sports coverage http://tinyurl.com/ycmbspb

@FionaJane’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @wearesocial:

Please check my Blog! http://is.gd/5NmVP (trust us, this will rock your world) trust me, it will stick in ur head allll day

5 of the best social media stories of the week as chosen by the Qubite’s. Also 5 of the rest aka “The Home of amazing”.

5 of the best

Old people talking about Facebook Exodus

Apparently teenagers are leaving Facebook as it is too full of adults, who wants their mum checking their Facebook wall after all. Anecdotally I don’t see much evidence to back this up, most teenagers I know cant seem to get enough Facebook! There are also a bunch of Youtube opinion videos from teenagers for some interesting insight. One thing I would say to many of those complaints against Facebook is that it is just a tool. A tool that is only as good as what you do with it, so if someones status updates annoy you just un-friend them. (more insightful Facebook advice is available on request )

The Whuffie Bank

A virtual bank, but not for your money. The Whuffie Bank is building a new currency based on our reputations. Twitter and Facebook are making our online reputation really important, we all excerpt our own influence over groups of people in different ways. This site offers you a way of turning your reputation into a currency that can be traded and used for … well whatever someone is willing to give you for it. I first scoffed at this site and thought “It will never take off”, but then I tried to be a bit more open minded about it. The money we use today is just a system we all believe in and use, what is to say a new virtual currency couldn’t exist and do the same? Food for thought.

YouTube to introduce live sports coverage

Youtube will start showing live sports shows, only Cricket for now but this marks an interesting move for the video sharing site. Obviously this means you can watch it anywhere without a TV licence, but what does it mean for the product? One of Youtube’s main features is the ability to rate and comment. This could be the beginning of live sport becoming social in a big way.

Virtual game purchases benefit Haiti Relief Fund

The recent events in Haiti have been tragic and is something we all need to help with. Whenever such atrocities happen companies often donate large sums of money, but more importantly those companies use their influence to encourage others to help. Hugely popular Facebook game Farmville has recently added some virtual items that can be purchased to support the Haiti Relief Fund. I think this is a great idea and something all people and businesses of influence should be encouraged to do. Think about how you can use your influence to help others when they need it most.

Manchester United bans players from using Twitter

After some high profile Twitter gaffs from professional footballers Man Utd have banned their players from having a presence on social networking sites. It is a shame that the club feels the need to control the PR of their players so heavily. The nice thing about footballers being allowed to use these networks is it actually made them appear as real people, with real faults. It also gave them direct contact with the fans who help pay their wages, something that is surprisingly lacking in the modern game.

5 of the rest

Silicone ‘clay’ lets consumers modify troublesome products

If the product you bought doesn’t quite fit the bill, maybe you can customise it? This stuff looks a bit like silly putty to me, but hey maybe it is just what I need to fix my action mans broken arm.

Crayola Color Chart, 1903-2010

How Crayola’s colours have evolved over the year. I like cool looking diagrams .

Crappy Taxidermy

This is a weird and slightly creepy site. Probably not for everyone and the title pretty much says it all.

Love Money

I have been whining about lack of really good online banking tools for a while, it looks like the banks aren’t listening but at least someone is! Love Money requires you put in your account name and password (which is a little scary) but in return offers you a financial breakdown of your spending in a really useful way. You can even set personal savings goals for it to track. Definitely one to watch.

Irrational Behaviour

For anyone interesting in videogames especially those create by Ken Levine (System Shock, Bioshock, X-com) should go check out Irrational games new website and should definatly check out their new podcast. A great example of how to do a company podcast and how to make it interesting.

As we are in the first month of 2010 I am still allowed to make a prediction for the year. I predict this year we will see social media become a big part of videogames.

Right now there are a few standout shining examples in a sea of lame attempts and auto tweeting options. I will highlight a couple of these fantastic communities designed to allow players to interact with each other and the game while away from their console.

Bungie.net

Bungie.net is probably the poster child for linking a game and web community into one experience. Bungie have created a space that brings players of the popular franchise Halo together, wherever they are.

The site allows you to see global stats such as how many people are playing online and where they are, but more importantly it acts as a better way to share information than the in-game interface.

Bungie.net is a great resource for finding and sharing user generated content. Users are constantly sharing and rating their favourite content to share their experiences and add content to other peoples.

Killzone.com

Killzone.com joins the gaming community of the highly rated, Playstation 3 game, Killzone 2 together. Killzone.com also offers similar levels of stat tracking, enabling you to see who the best players are in the world and what online tournaments are coming up.

The site also allows me to check out my own statistics away from the game. I can also quickly check which of my friends are online playing and compare my progress to theirs. Now my friends can rub in how much better they are in the pub and use their iPhones to prove it (please don’t do this.)

Why are they so important?

Creating a web based user interface allows for greater flexibility than a game interface where the user is confined to a controller. A browser combined with a keyboard and mouse is much better for interacting with large sets of data and information. The experience shouldn’t be completely separated from the game but should enhance the options already available to the player. It should also act as a window into the game’s community away from the console.

For example Bungie.net allows the user to search the Bungie community for user created maps. The user can then filter these by tag or rating until something takes their fancy, then with the press of a button the map is queued up ready to download the next time they turn on their console. That level of integration is vital for joining the web and console communities together.

Social networks, such as Facebook, already have huge pull for users, so rather than reinventing the wheel with an isolated gaming community these existing platforms should be enabled. On Bungie.net a user can share links to their own maps, videos and statistics across their other social networks. Being able to share a great moment of fun or a level you have found across your Facebook or Twitter makes more sense than just sharing it within the game’s own space.

This can also pull players back into the game as their friends highlight why the game is still fun and may even help to drive sales as potential players see their friends enjoying themselves and want to get involved.

The communities allow all of your activity to be linked together, so when I ask a question on the forums I can see if the answer I am getting is from a player who knows what’s what (ie how much has he played Killzone and is he any good.) The beauty of all this is it happens without need for user input, I don’t have to manually input my stats or tell the site who my Playstation friends are, it just pulls all that data in. Again linking any communities that exist outside the game as closely as possible to the in-game community needs to be done as tightly as possible.

The more ways you allow the players to interact with your game and their friends when they are not sitting in front of the TV, the more likely they are to keep coming back and playing it and therefore more likely they are to keep telling other people about it.

To Wrap Up

Those are just some of the features these community sites offer. There are a host of other communities developed around games (listed below.) I recommend you check some out and spend some time getting to know why they are so interesting and how you might make a better one! If you know any other good examples let me know in the comments.

Over the coming year I expect a lot more integration of videogames in other places, whether it is checking out your friends’ stats on the web or sharing your top score on Facebook. Gaming’s integration into social media isn’t going away. It is only going to get bigger and better.

Fifa (http://www.eafootballworld.com)

EA Skate (http://skatereel.ea.com/)

Spore (http://eu.spore.com/sporepedia/)

Social Media Strategist / Consultant

Qube is recruiting again. We’re looking for someone who is fascinated by digital/social technology and how it is impacting our lives.

Someone who can thrive in an open creative environment and personally contribute to the growth of the agency through ground breaking Social Media strategies and initiatives.

We are not necessarily looking for someone who has worked in Social Media before but you will need to have a solid experience in brand communications, ideally from a digital perspective. You will have good business acumen and a strong planning and/or research skill set, be able to take a brief, analyse it and propose the best solution.

Read the full job description here.