Access exclusive travel research, data insights, and surveys
Media and PR
First rule of social media marketing: Make sure lots of people don't hate you before you drop a self-branded hashtag onto Twitter.
Skift | 12 years ago
Online Travel
Pictures are worth 1,000 words and there seems to be that many social travel apps and sites. Most of them feature photo boards and images, and Jetpac is one of the latest entries.
This seems like a win-win for the people who love Wikitravel: They keep all the content they want, keep the link juice, take the experts with them, and join forces with an organization that shares the same values.
Like many of the other social planning travel sites, Stay looks fantastic and works well. But it could better distinguish itself by being the first of its peers to develop its own expert voice for all its guides.
Expedia's new and inspirational "Find Yours" advertising campaign really sets a new social-media-driven tone.
There is a ton of skepticism here about whether the startup, acquired by Microsoft/Skype, can really build a seamless, mobile, group-travel planning experience and whether or not people will care if it does.
Bing has reorganized its search results pages to incorporate the social element, but it really has a long way to go before the service evolves into something really useful for travelers.
It looks pretty, and that's the most it will ever do. But that you knew already. Someone can hire the design team, though.
The short answer is, "no," it doesn't work. Both for the reasons clearly laid out in Patokallio's article and because there's also already a massively successful social site that helps users get travel recommendations from friends. It's called Facebook.
Hence our general skepticism of specialized social travel startups.
