Since Google launched its social sharing service Google+ 7 months ago, it’s remained at the bottom of the priority list for travel and tourism marketers – a poor third behind Facebook and Twitter. Even when Google launched brand pages to emulate those on Facebook, there was hardly a stampede of travel and tourism brands to set them up. But all of that has changed.
 
That’s because Google has announced the release of ‘Search Plus Your World’  – the integration of ‘public’ search results and private search results from the user’s social …

I’ve been meaning to write a blog on Facebook’s Open Social Graph ever since it was launched back in April, and having finally got round to it, I decided to do some research on which travel companies had integrated the functionality into the site. How many did I find? Well…..none actually.
 
That’s not hugely surprising. The adoption of these features has been much quicker over in the US as you’d expect, and in environments frequented by social media savvy types such as mashable.com.
 
So what is the Open Social Graph and why …

Too many social campaigns are ‘channel specific’, isolated, unintegrated and therefore doomed to have a fraction of the impact they could have had if planning had started with the objectives and audiences, rather than the tools to connect with them.

 
I don’t know about you but when I’m planning a bit of DIY around the house (a rare event I’ll admit), I don’t make a beeline for my toolbox and look in there for inspiration as for what I should do (hmmmm – what could I make with these….).
 
I start off …

Have the rules of travel and tourism marketing been re-written with the emergence of Facebook, Twitter et al? Or are we simply playing the same game with a different set of tools at our disposal?

We’ve all heard quotes like ‘social media is a game changer’ or ‘you’ve lost control of your brand’ from the new crop of social media experts that have sprung up due to the rapid adoption of services such as Twitter and Facebook.  But have the rules of marketing really been re-written? For me, the answer is …

 Digital marketing is cost effective, measurable and the likelihood is you’re under-investing in it. Make sure you’re keeping an eye on what’s coming over the hill but don’t forget some of the more established digital disciplines.
 
You could argue that I’m writing this a little late in the year because, believe it or not, we’re already beyond the point when most people have lapsed in their commitment to a new lifestyle for a new year. I have to admit to having one foot in this camp myself as my resolution to …

Whatever it stands for, it’s a peeRleSS tool for keeping on top of your marketing environment.
 
RSS is one of those technologies that until your try it out, you don’t really get your head round it.
 
It doesn’t help that no-one’s 100% sure what RSS means. I thought it meant “Really Simple Syndication” but then discovered some thought it stood for “Rich Site Summary”.
 
I was always told by web designers that we really ought to have a RSS feed on the site and would nod, agree and sign it off with only …