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a guide to using flickr for brand and traffic building

Posted by simon ashwin On Tuesday 29 Apr 08

Flickr is a social photography website which allows you to upload and share your pictures with friends and family, registered Flickr users as well as the general internet audience.

Like its closest rival Photobucket, Flickr functions as an image host but its main attraction lies in the social sharing of images with a large community of the interested viewers.

Many amateur and professional photographers use Flickr to showcase their work in return for constructive criticisms from others. Bloggers are also avid users of Flickr because it helps them to save on bandwidth while providing image backup in the unlikely scenario that all their files are wiped out from their servers.

Flickr’s built-in social features, strong user community and growing mind share has transformed it into a viable platform for marketing your website or business. Some bloggers like Barry Schwartz and Matt McGee have written about how Flickr can be used to drive traffic to your website or online business.

Why Should I Use Flickr for my Website?

According to HitWise, Flickr is currently the #2 photography website in the U.S, UK and Australia, while holding a U.S marketshare of 38%. While it still trails Photobucket in all three markets, Flickr’s global presence means that it possibly has a greater market share in various other countries.

Flickr’s recent integration within Yahoo! Image Search meant that Flickr pictures will be displayed when anyone uses...

can social networking and blogs enhance the travel purchase experience

Posted by simon ashwin On Sunday 20 Apr 08

If you're as demanding a consumer as I am, you're probably somewhat disappointed with the state of online travel content - data that can make a huge difference in the level of enjoyment you experience with your holiday. Because of its extensive database of user reviews, I think TripAdvisor is the best site for such content. However, while TripAdvisor does help, I see two limitations with its approach.

First, it can take a while to sort through all of the material to find something useful and of course you may not have the time or the patience to do the research. Even if you do the research, you may resist placing trust in the content found on TripAdvisor. Professionally written 3rd party content from such providers as Fodor's or Frommers partly addresses the credibility issue, but the biggest limitation with this type of content is that they rarely go out on a limb to actually have an opinion on an attraction, hotel, restaurant, etc. User reviews don't solve the issue completely either because you will often find widely divergent opinions and you don't know the people writing them. Bottom line: I have a hard time placing stock in someone's opinion if I don't know him or her.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not knocking TripAdvisor. It IS helpful and it seems to be playing a role in the growth of online travel (why else would IAC/Expedia buy the company?). But as a...

first priority: get the basics right

Posted by simon ashwin On Wednesday 16 Apr 08

I was asked by an Australian government tourism body client last week if Facebook was an option for marketing its Destination. My client had read about Facebook– over one million Australians are members of Facebook – and particularly, of how some businesses had successfully utilised Facebook to market and communicate with customers. The viral nature of Facebook – friends referring friends – means that relevant or entertaining content can reach a very large audient, very quickly.

Facebook reflects the growth in online communities, and the marked shift in the nature and sophistication of how we are now using the Internet; as users, we can now participate in, and shape our websites, versus the very unidirectional relationship we had with websites only a few years ago where all we could do was read and download. Some refer to this as the “one-to-one” web.

So is Facebook the next marketing channel for my tourism client?

For the time being, the answer is no.

The issue is that while Facebook can wield remarkable marketing results for businesses that understand how to effectively utilise Facebook, Facebook should be a low priority when compared to the other online activities and investments businesses should make.

If I had to order these priorities, number one would be ensuring that the business’ website was the best it could be, number two would be optimising the website for search engines and pretty much last would be tackling Facebook.

The point being that it makes no sense to dabble in...

digital marketing elements

Posted by simon ashwin On Wednesday 02 Apr 08

The Many Forms of Digital Marketing:

1) Corporate Domain

This has been a standard since the late 90s, nearly every company, mom and pop boutique now has a web presence. The primary purpose of this is to provide the public with information about your company, it’s products, and anything else they may need. Corporate websites often compose of several features that are listed below.

A) Corporate Site
Large to small companies have established a websites around their brand, the content is around marketing products, support, and corporate information. Despite the massive efforts to perfect the corporate website, much of the content is irrelevant as prospects shy away from marketing content and start to use social media.

B) Portal Strategy
Widely popular in the late 90s this strategy was intended to serve up all user information on one page, and keep users on one’s domain. A few well known portals now exist such as MyYahoo which is a form of a feedreader. Most modern marketers realize that content is now distributed.

C) Microsites for Segmentation
Typically deployed around new product launches or campaign focuses, or specific market segments, these often short term websites are used for calling specific attraction. They typically have a unique URL and are tied to an integrate campaign. See Microsoft’s Origami microsite. Caution: some companies overly deploy these microsites and end up with a distributed and unfocused web strategy.

D) Interactive Web Marketing
The web is more than a ‘read only’ medium, unlike other...

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