p38-39 Know feature feb 20 17/2/09 11:50 Page 38
knowledge online networking
ttglive.com
Social media
Weapons
for the web
Don’t let direct sellers get the better
of you with their online presence.
Adopt the tools they use and beat
them at their own game, says
Olivia Hemmings
W
hen Sam Smith
Travel home- name
worker Murray out there and
Harrold wrote to become respected as a
TTG recently, stating “we need to commentator. “This will hope-
fight back, and let us fight back fully funnel people back to you,” Club Med with whom the company has good
with the very same weapons that are he says. relationships. The account also enables him
used against the high street agent”, he wasn’t to upload a company profile and write a bit
referring to drawing knives to fight street Twitter about who they are and what they do. “I’ve
crime – but to something just as damaging Amir Lodge is web consultant at Lowcost- also mentioned the awards we’ve won on
to an agent’s livelihood if left untapped:
deals.co.uk. He recently signed up to Twitter, our profile,” he adds.
online networking tools. – the social networking and micro blogging So far he’s had one cruise enquiry through
In this tough operating environment, site that allows users to send and receive up- Twitter, although unfortunately the client
Harrold believes agents must adopt an dates (called “tweets”). couldn’t go on the date scheduled.
online presence to highlight their skills “Twitter is all the craze at the moment; Lowcostdeals is also signed up to Facebook
and knowledge on the high street. even Jonathan Ross is doing it. It’s good for and LinkedIn.
our search engine optimisation too. We’ve Harrold agrees with using Twitter as a
Blogs only been Twittering for three weeks; in the networking tool. He puts deals from tour
“During the XL Leisure Group collapse, first week we had eight operators on his own website’s landing page
I chanced upon a travel blog called Travel followers but now we’re and then sends out a “tweet” about them to
Rants. There were a lot of queries; people up to 40! I’m hoping to attract people to the agency. So far he says
had lost the plot with Abta and Atol. I have at least 3,000 follow- he’s seeing an increase of 20-30 hits back to
offered advice on this blog and a couple ers by the end of the year.” his website as a result.
of others, and then I got on Twitter, and so Lodge says he tweets “They (direct sellers) think they can over-
on,” he explains. about new resort updates turn us. We need to fight back. This is our
While in the past Harrold has generated and holiday deals, and future. Companies such as British Airways
business through his activity on Yahoo! An- uses it as an opportunity to are twittering but you don’t need to be
swers, he recommends agents first get their promote suppliers such as Amir Lodge: Embracing Twitter the size of them to get involved. You
38 20.02.2009
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