11 Tips For A Social Superyacht
If you own or manage a superyacht, you might be dabbling with the idea of increasing your charter revenues by stepping up your digital presence. If you already have a great superyacht website, such as the one we designed for MY Stafire, the next step is to join the social wave.
Why should your superyacht join the social wave? Because social media gets you actively connected with industry leaders, influencers and fans while your website simply waits for them to connect with you.
In an era where time is scarce, some consider social media to be the new email with its quick, timely and relevant interactions. As you share your story with compelling content across your social media channels, you let fans get to know the people behind the superyacht, creating the foundation to a great relationship.
But in order to turn fans into brand evangelists, you must have a clear social media strategy that includes great content representing your superyacht’s expertise. Once you have a strategy and a few original pieces of great content, such as infographics and blog posts, you must get the message out to the right audience at the right time through the right channels.
To help you better understand the digital yachting landscape, we have put together some of our wisdom to get your superyacht on the social wave. Here are our 11 Tips for a Social Superyacht.
1-Be reachable. To interact with you they need to find you.
Your website is the gateway to your social media channels; so make sure your social icons are easily findable on every page. Don’t hide the icons, but instead, be proud to be social and place them somewhere easily findable. Consider adding social widgets to your website giving a glimpse into your social communities.
2-Be Branded. Tell your superyacht’s unique story.
Your social media channels must reflect your superyacht’s personality. Are you a fun yacht, a classic yacht, an exploration yacht? Or are you just a regular plain old yacht? We didn’t think so. You must build your social media personality around the superyacht’s true essence.
3-Be Real. Show the people behind the superyacht.
You are more than jet skis, sun beds and staterooms. You are a superyacht, loved and serviced by a team of crew members. Your crew is your differentiating strength and must be put forward throughout your social media strategy. Don’t hesitate to share adventures, stories and fun facts about your crew to show the real side of your superyacht.
4-Be Engaging. Don’t talk alone, have two-way conversations.
These is nothing more boring than listening to someone talk about themselves for hours on end; don’t do the same on your social media channels. As a general rule of thumb, don’t spend more then 25-35% of your time talking about your superyacht. Instead, give your words to others and you will see them giving theirs back to you. Social media is all about team work.
5-Be Knowledgeable. Show off your expertise with others.
You are a superyacht. Luxury & travel experts and even brokers have a lot to learn from you about the industry. Share some of that wisdom and privileged information by answering questions from others and giving your opinions on related topics. Don’t just be there, get involved in the discussion.
6-Be Creative. Have fun and show your spirit.
You have a superyacht with a great personality; so now it’s time to show it off. Create compelling content such as infographics, videos, photos, blog posts, interviews to get people talking about your superyacht. You are living the life, so why not share it with those who dream of white sands and blue waters.
7-Be Around. Don’t join to simply disappear.
Getting to know your fans takes time and dedication; so you might not see any results in the first few weeks and months. Once influencers see that you are here to stick around and that you provide compelling content, they won’t hesitate in creating social synergy and give back some social love.
8-Be Everywhere. Build your presence where fans seek you.
Your fans are on every social network; so it's important to have a unified presence across all majors channels. Since time is of essence, concentrate your efforts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and Instagram. You might also want to interact on a country specific network to target a specific clientele.
9-Be Personable. Show your personality and enjoy the wave.
Every social media platform has its guidelines; so don’t automate your Tweet, Pins and Likes, then forget about it. There is no better way to kill your social presence then to plug in a tool and forget about engaging. Your fans won’t interact with your superyacht if you take a robotic approach to social media. They will immediately see the disconnect between your interactions and your social promise.
10-Be Surprising. Engage your followers with unique content.
A little bit of this, a lot of that and a little more of this. The secret ingredient to a social cocktail involves combining questions, quotes, comments, replies, retweets, hashtags, pictures, videos, polls, giveaways, blog posts and everything else that fits with your branded strategy. Don’t repeat the same strategy every day, as you will see your social interaction fade away. Surprise to engage, then surprise once more.
11-Be Luxury. You are a superyacht, so you must act like one.
Since your online presence reflects your reputation, you must always act and talk like a superyacht. Social media is all about building your brand image, an image that is built on one Tweet, Like or Pin at a time. A reputation can be tainted rapidly; so make sure to have a clear strategy before you jump in.
Now that you understand the basics of building a solid branded superyacht presence on social media, the question is, what will be your superyacht’s social media strategy? Reach out to us if you need someone to guide you with your digital presence.
The New Conversation Prism: A Visual Of Social Media Today
Trying to keep track of all the key players in social media is rather difficult. New players jump in every week while others become almost obsolete. Understand what service does what and where to put your marketing dollars can seem like an overwhelming task. Although we could provide you with a great list of who's who is social media, we think a visual representation of the social web as a whole might be the best way to understand the overall conversation between each player. And more importantly, where your brand fits in.
In 2008, and again in 2013, Brian Solis and his team created The Conversation Prism, an infographic representation of the social web and its various divisions such as social networks, social marketplaces, influence, quantified self, and service networking. The Conversation Prism was designed to help brands by providing a clear roadmap of the current state of social media.
How to read the new Conversation Prism
Halo One: YOU, the Brand
Obviously, social media is not a cookie-cutter marketing solution. You should not engage in every social opportunity. Your brand should pick the networks and tools that are in line with your audience and your marketing goals, otherwise you will dilute your influence and maybe not even make a mark.
Halo 2: Vision. Purpose. Value. Commitment. Transparency.
Once you have decided to bring your brand into the digital era, you first need to make a social media plan. Consider the pillars where you should concentrate your efforts. Ask yourself these questions. What is your brand vision for social media? What is the purpose of your social activity and how will you justify your investment? What is the added value you intend to deliver to your audience and how will you communicate this value? Are you committed to social media or is this simply a trial? Are you comfortable with transparency and showing the human side of your brand? Don't jump in before you make your plan.
Halo 3: Brand, Lines of Business, and Corporate Functions
Social is bigger than marketing, it is a way of business. Once you join the social revolution and make a commitment to your fans, you need to keep the conversation lines open. Social media will affect every aspect of your business from your dealings with suppliers, partners, customers and even competitors. It will also affect all the processes and systems that exist between all the players.
Halo 4: Always Be Improving (ABI) – Listen. Learn. Adapt.
In communication, it is often said that the best listeners are the best conversationalists. It's even more true when it comes to social media. Whether you want to learn what not to do on Twitter or how to reach an online influencer, make sure to keep the conversation real.
Listen to what your customers, employees and competition are saying, learn from the conversations you engage in and adapt to new environments. Social media is moving fast, so be prepared for the ride of a lifetime.
Solis, who is also author of popular books such as Engage, The End of Business As Usual, and What’s the Future of Business?, says:
The social landscape is evolving with increasing acceleration. As you can see throughout every iteration of the Prism, the number of networks that vanish and emerge is staggering. But more importantly, the nature and focus of how networks are used is also dramatic in its changes. In some cases, we see the move to smaller or more concentrated networks and at the same time the visual “social” web is becoming more pervasive.
Although it is clearly impossible to include every player in social media today, Solis and his team recreated an accurate representation of the state of social media in 2013. In every one of the four editions, the Conversation Prism has seen hundreds of services removed and hundreds more new ones added. What will the social media scene be like in two years? It will be interesting to see who is still leading the pack.
What Not To Do On Twitter
Twitter can quickly overwhelm a newbie with its millions of tweets per minute. Trying to understand the etiquette and the general rules of this social cocktail party can be a challenge, even for a veteran. As you try to ride the social wave, you will most likely do a lot of mistakes. As long as they don't land you on the first page of the New York Times, don't sweat them. Simply learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them.
Since you probably want to avoid doing mistakes altogether, we recommend you keep a copy of this list in your toolbox. With LuxeInACity, we have send out over 16 000 tweets, and we have to say, we too made some beginner's mistakes. This is what we think you should not do on Twitter:
Skipping the Social Media Plan
With no plan, you will end up tweeting about everything and about nothing. Your message will not be cohesive and you will end up turning around in circles. Just like any other marketing activity, social media should be studied and analyzed to then determine the best course of action to take and the best message to send out. At LuxeInACity, our aim was to become an influencer of luxury. We achieved our goal and, according to WeFollow.com, we are now listed as one of the Twitter's Top 25 influencers for the hashtag #luxury. Pick a strategy, then make your plan.
Self-Promoting in every Tweet
While you can and should share your brand message through Twitter, you should not self-promote all the time. There is nothing worse than someone who shouts at the world without ever listening to a word said in return. Twitter is not your typical marketing tool. To become successful and influential, you first need to gain the trust of the community. This starts by making real connections and interacting with your community. Listen, interact, share, then talk.
Spamming as a strategy
We all hate spam, yet so many brands spam on social media. Twitter is not a sales pitch machine nor is it a place to continuously send out the same message in different formats. Twitter should not be used to send out automatic DM (direct messages) to every new follower acquired urging them to also follow you on Facebook. Being personable means engaging fans one by one, and truly building a relationship with them. You don't want your first impression to scream "robot".
Not balancing dialogue and content.
There is no set rules about the amount of content versus dialogue to have in your Twitter stream, but try to balance the two. Post a great piece of content then follow up with some re-tweets, replies and conversations. Mix it up to engage your followers.
Automating Every Tweet.
We know. It's tempting. But trust us when we say this, it doesn't work. The only way to build a real community around your brand is to be non-robotic. We often see brands that simply plug in their RSS feed and never interacting with others. Unless you are a very important person or brand with a cult following, you need to spend time to be real.
Tweeting too often, or, too little.
Again, there is no formula to succeed on Twitter but as a general rule don't overload with hundreds of tweets a day or simply disappear for weeks at a time. Unless you are someone's idol, if you clog up their timeline, they will most likely turn you off in a hurry. And if you never participate, they will also remove you in their next clean-up session.
#HashtagAbuse.
Even if you want to become an influencer for a particular hashtag, don't abuse it. Instead, save it for when it matters the most.
Ignoring the Community
Don't act like you are the only person with an interesting message to share. Otherwise, you will achieve only failure. Engage in conversations, share content from other great brands, thank people for their retweets, offer assistance or support and become a social ambassador.
Lying or misleading
Some influencers have everyone talking about them. They are the "cool" kids of Twitter with huge followings. It might be tempting to buy yourself thousands of followers by injecting a few hundred dollars into a quick popularity scheme. In the long run, you might have 100 000 followers but no one really listening to you. Don't create a fake persona with fake fans. In the long-run it can only hurt your brand and destroy your online reputation.
Twitter is both an art and a science. Spend time listening to the chatter before you embark on your mission to dominate the social scene. Ask advice from those who have succeeded and be patient with your results. Twitter probably won't help you make a million dollars but it will certainly help you build your brand, engage with fans and make new partnerships.
What annoys you the most on Twitter? Share your thoughts below or send us a tweet at @luxeinacity or @roxannegenier.