社会网络广告者找错门了？

对于这个行业很多人来说，对使用社会网络接触潜在消费者的价值评估过高仍是个大问题。

非常惭愧，我们曾在Travolution上大肆宣扬，为了在这些非常受欢迎的新领域拓展品牌市场，将有限的资源越来越多地投入Facebook、MySpace之类的网站上有很多好处。

对于一些营销人来说，有一点已经越来越清楚了：尽管社会网络的用户极其庞大，但传统在线广告在获得潜在顾客方面，还达不到期望值。

最近，一名营销人告诉我们：“人们使用社会网络来交谈，但不买东西”。

这对旅游公司来说很尴尬，因为旅游本身就是一种以经验为基础的产品。

在使用社会网络谈论他们的假期时（计划的过程，最重要的是在度假胜地发生了什么），用户看起来很惬意。

以STA Travel（译者注：STA Travel是一家全球最大的学生青年旅游组织）为代表，一些旅游公司投资社会网络，他们通常采用的方式是在Facebook的网页上创建简单的申请表供人们访问，而不是传统广告。

但是，一项由电子营销代理Tamar发布的报告认为，那些与度假相关的友好因素仍旧被旅游公司遗漏了。

社会网络上有个为旅游公司准备的“大量用户支持”，但只有一小部分公司注册了。

不过研究中出现的最有趣的事情是：尝试与社会网络合作的公司所拥有的非官方支持组织，比那些缺席的公司多出59%。

看起来，只要知道社会网络的存在，并且以某种方式在上面显现，就是个好的开始了。

相关文章：旅游2.0的真实性检验

原文来源：Travolution Blog 作者：Kevin May

原文：

Are social network advertisers barking up the wrong tree?
For many people in the industry there remains a big question mark over the value of using social networks to reach potential consumers.

At Travolution we have been unashamedly guilty of talking up the benefits of throwing increasingly scant resources at sites such as Facebook, MySpace and others in order to spread the marketing of a brand into these hugely popular new areas.

It is becoming clear to some marketers that traditional online advertising is not as rewarding – in terms of solid leads – as many would have expected, given the enormous volume of people using social networks.

One marketer said to us recently: “People use social networks to talk to each other, not buy products.”

This is a dilemma for travel brands and travel per se is one of the most experiential products.

Consumers appear very comfortable with using a social network to talk about their holidays – the planning process and, most importantly, what happened in resort.

Some travel brands – STA Travel in particular – have capitalised on this by creating simple applications within a Facebook page for people to visit, rather than traditional advertising slots.

Nevertheless, a new report by digital marketing agency Tamar suggests travel brands are still missing out on the goodwill factor often associated with a holiday.

There is a “great deal of consumer support” on social networks for travel brands, but only a few have registered their presence there.

But the most interesting fact to emerge from the study is this: brands that have tried to embrace social networks have a massive 59% more unofficial supporter groups than those with no presence.

It seems that just acknowledging the existence of social networks and creating some kind of presence is a good start.