yelp The Top Ten Travel Social Networks 2010 – Which Should You Be Using? | HouseTrip Blog - Holiday apartment news, travel and rental tips Triporama - Group Trip Planner | Group Travel Guide Social Networking for Travel Industry, Tourism, Social Networks Web 2.0 Destination Community Travel 2.0 - Travel Spike: Interactive Travel Experts Travel Social Networks - Help Travelers Find Your Website Social networks and online communities are the hottest trend in the industry. They allow you to grow your traffic economically by using viral marketing to create a community of travelers who promote your destination or travel service. Social networks also help to increase your search engine visibility, because Google, Yahoo, and MSN favor websites with frequently updated content. User generated content (like reviews and message boards) is a tremendous asset, because it enables your website to sustain itself. A Turn-key Social Network Solution - You Have Full Control One of the challenges with social networking involves controlling what the general consumer is saying about your travel brand. Travel Spike empowers you to monitor and manage your social network to limit negative comments. Travel Spike has spent the last 3 years creating the best social networking tools on the market.
Tripatini - the social network for travelers and travel pros Top Ten Travel Social Network Sites for 2010 - Technorati Travel It’s pretty common these days for someone to come up with a “top ten” best web site list or best airfare search engine or best applications, and it’s anyone’s guess how accurate or useful the lists are, because we all have different needs and preferences and use sites differently. But I’m always interested in who’s on top...and on the bottom. I was particularly interested when Hotel Marketing.com announced that the travel social network entity, Tripatini.com was “the best travel social network of 2010.” And then the popular blog, Housetrip.com also dubbed Tripatini as one of “The Top Ten Social Networks.” Full disclosure: I do post to Tripatini, and my content does get “feature status.” So I read more. Both HotelMarketing.com and Housetrip touted Tripatini’s ability to bring together travel industry leaders with travelers, allowing travelers to profit from experienced travel voices, and helping travel experts get better branded. I was glad to see Trip Say on the list.
Sabre Travel Network versus Travelport: Who Knows What About Being Social? A Cautionary Tale I’m about to offer you two bits of information. One is probably something you learned a long time ago. The second bit is news, a comparative of two major companies, in a way. Sabre Travel Network and Travelport are two huge online travel players, and dogged competitors mind you. What occurred yesterday, I think you will find interesting, if not downright funny – even ridiculous. Origins of News, Fluffy PR Goofs, and Arrogance? ITB in Berlin is the world’s biggest travel trade show. Well Sabre Travel Network released a German version of hosted social platform AgentStream just for ITB Berlin. AgentStream’s landing page. As you can tell by the title, “Sabre Launches AgentStream Germany With Resounding Thump” my analysis of the product was not complimentary. The image below is self explanatory. Ellis tossed out the numbers, the defense posture, the techno mumbo jumbo, of product manager blathering – the warning siren “BS is headed your way.” Reality Smacks Clearing Smoke
Social travel sites are screaming for attention - but industry and consumers are not really listening For years we have watched as startup after startup has attempted to marry social media and travel into a profitable, or even just a revenue-generating business model. But maybe it’s time that entrepreneurs look elsewhere for their startup glory. PhoCusWright recently released an infographic showing how US travelers use social media and the data leads me to conclude that travel-specific social media just isn’t doing much to drive bottom line revenues for travel companies. Take a look at the chart: Before I jump into my analysis, let me clarify first of all that I am referring to social media where travel is the primary focus. I am not including travel communities like Travellerspoint and Bootsnall or travel blogs, since they are primarily content focused. Since I don’t know the conversion rates of social media referrals versus direct traffic to a travel website, I cannot definitively conclude that the two are related. How are travelers using social media? I repeat: not even a rounding error.