April 20, 2010

Lonely Planet Grabs an Opportunity to Help Customers – and Build Brand Equity

In a recent post I talked about how Lonely Planet is participating in social media, but not taking all the steps to encourage its customers to become actively engaged. In this post I want to talk about how the same company, Lonely Planet, is currently taking advantage of an opportunity to assist some of their customers.

On April 14, 2010 volcanic eruptions began at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland spewing debris up into the atmosphere. The resulting ash clouds forced authorities to close airports and airspace, grounding airplanes and canceling across Europe and beyond. The repercussions have completely disrupted the European transportation system, stranding travelers around the world for over a week.

Instead of seeing this disruption in travel as a hinderance, Lonely Planet has jumped on the opportunity. On April 19th they posted a blog entry announcing that they were offering 13 of their European iPhone city guides for free to help stranded travelers through Thursday April 22nd. They then shared this information via Facebook, Twitter, and direct email message to their community members. This is a gracious and timely offer that will most likely earn Lonely Planet some positive brand equity. Smart move.

And, for the stranded travelers, the links to the free guides can be found at the Lonely Planet blog.

April 16, 2010

Culturally Significant

I began my last blog entry with the sentence “Today social media has become part of the fabric of our culture.” In a relatively short period of time social content on the web has become a significant element of our society.

A few days ago the Library of Congress announced it has acquiring the Twitter digital archives. These archives contain every tweet every posted since Twitter's inception in 2006 – every last tweet. This includes historic tweets – the first tweet ever, the first tweet from space, and President Obama's tweet about winning the 2008 presidential election – and all the other comments, ideas, and opinions posted by the millions of Twitter users around the globe.

But, saving these notable tweets is not the main motivation to preserve the archives in such a venerable institution. In their press release, the Library of Congress stated this data has “extraordinary potential for research into our contemporary way of life”. So, it is the everyday tweets that they want to save and study. It is these tweets that are a window into our daily lives – just as preserved journals and letters have been for former time periods.

This acquisition is part of the library's ongoing efforts to capture and archive materials from the internet. To date the library has collected over 167 terabytes of information from the web as part of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. Now, every tweet – significant, strange, embarrassing, or boring – will be added to that collection. Of course, the Library of Congress first posted this news on Twitter (click here to read their tweet).


This signifies the cultural importance of digital information and social media. In the past pieces of information which were deemed to be culturally significant included books, video and audio recordings, and important documents. But, today – in the Information Age – it is bytes not paper that hold the clues for future generations to understand who we are. So, keep tweeting and share your experiences with the world.

April 7, 2010

Social Media – Participate and Share

Today social media has become part of the fabric of our culture. We share, like, and comment on all sorts of information and media. This creates a web through which information and ideas flow. For many individuals – like myself – this social web of information has become a major source of news. In addition, I am an active participant in this web, sharing and commenting frequently.

The social web has brought many new aspects to our daily lives. One of these – for better or worse – is viral videos and content. One person reads information or views media online and shares it, then more and more do the same. News spreads and a viral phenomenon is born.

As this social aspect of the web has become more prevalent many websites have made it easier for readers or users to participate by installing widgets, apps, plug-ins, gadgets, or links for social networks. For example, the New York Times has widgets that allow readers to share articles via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Mixx, Yahoo Buzz!, and MySpace or to send the article via email or SMS. They also provide the permalink to the article or piece of content for individuals who want to incorporate the link into a blog or website. In other words, the New York Times enables and encourages their readers participate in the social web. I have come to expect this type of functionality on all websites I visit.

This afternoon I clicked on a link on Facebook to watch a video on Lonely Planet blog. For many years I have been a big fan of the travel books, guides, and information provided by this company. More recently, I have become hooked on their 76 Second Travel Show which is posted on the Lonely Planet blog and on YouTube by Lonely Planet author Robert Reid. It's short and fun – and I think it's a great use of social media. After watching the video I instantly looked for the share widget or link and was surprised to find the page did not have one. It seemed odd since Lonely Planet is an active participate in social media. At the bottom of the each of the company's webpages there are links to follow Lonely Planet on Twitter, subscribe to their newsletter, read their blog, download their iPhone and iPad apps, and subscribe to their print (paper) magazine. There is a space to leave a comment, but no links to enable participation in the social web.

This made me start thinking about the importance of well rounded social media campaigns. Social media is about sharing and participation. Companies, brands, and individuals need to not only participate in social media – but also enable and encourage others to participate and share.

Back to the issue of Lonely Planet. How are they participating in social media? Their main website allows users to register and link their Lonely Planet account with their Facebook account. That is good. As I mentioned previously at the bottom of all their webpages there are widgets encouraging readers to follow them on Twitter, read their blogs, and sign up for their newsletter, mobile content, and magazine. Their website has active forums (Thorn Tree) and groups, as well as functionality to allow users to rate and comment on destinations, save favorite places, and plan trips. The company actively participates in Facebook and Twitter. And I think that their 76 Second Travel Show is a great viral video campaign. The some of the 76 Second Travel Show videos have upwards of 1000 views on YouTube. The company promotes videos and blog posts on Facebook and Twitter. The only thing is missing to complete the circle is to incorporate functionality into their websites and blogs that enables and encourages users to share the content via social networks and participate in the social web.

But, overall I do think Lonely Planet is doing a very good job participating in the social web. What I think they could improve upon is to enable and encourage their users to do the participate and share. Then their social media campaign would be truly dynamic. And it would also increase the likelihood that their information, blog posts, and videos will be shared and discovered virally.