8.45am Day One - Wednesday March 24th

Introduction from the event Chair Lady

• Susan Black, Susan Black Associates

Keynote Presentations and Panel

Analyze the Advancing Social Media Landscape - Stay Ahead of Key Developments in e-Communications, Social Media and Customer Behavior

The Social Media and micro-blogging landscape is evolving at an alarming rate. 67.2 million North Americans now actively manage a social network profile. As social media reaches the ‘rationalization’ phase, what do you need to know to ensure you are ahead of the game?

• Brief round up of where we have come from and how will the major social networks look in 5 years time
• What role will social media play in the future of the web? How will social networks evolve? Will we see consolidation or fragmentation into niche networks?
• How have customer expectations of businesses changed in the last 12 months and how can you adapt your behaviour accordingly?
• Consumers are being more selective about where they are creating and sharing content - understand what this means for your social media strategy
• How can you intelligently prepare your organization to be in the right position to take full advantage of e-developments?
• What roles will mobile, video, and the semantic web have to play in the future of online travel? Where should you be investing your time and resources?
• Mobile and social Media - hear how the two trends are converging and what opportunities this poses for your business

• Porter Gale, VP Marketing, Virgin America
• Virginia Suliman, VP Websites, Hilton Worldwide
• Ted Souder, Head of Travel, Central, Google

• Jeremy Jameson, Corporate Strategist, Southwest Airlines

Networking Coffee Break

Manage the Strategic Importance of Social Media to Your Business

Travel companies across the world are using social media to increase brand engagement, target new customers and increase loyalty. You know that social media is important to your travel brand. But does your boss agree?

• How can you secure top senior management level company buy-in into your company's social media initiatives?
• How can you convince them that social media is worth investing more resources in when your initial initiatives may not have driven direct revenue yet?
• How can you ensure that your social media initiatives fit with your company's overall corporate culture and objectives?
• Can you create a corporate culture where social media plays a vital role throughout all departments and communications?
• Time scales - social media can take time and commitment to see tangible results - how long should you wait?

• Josh Steinitz, CEO, NileGuide & Nicole Lerner, Marketing Manager, NileGuide

Keynote - Social Media Strategy - Set the Right Vision, KPIs and Strategy for Your Business - and Make it Happen

• How do you set a vision for your social media initiatives? How does social media fit into your overall corporate and marketing objectives?
• Draw the right balance between experimentation and clear targets
• Ensure you are setting SMART KPIs - do they pass the checklist?
• What if you feel your social media strategy is not working - what steps can be taken to turn it around?
• What is the investment needed in social media in comparison to the return?
• Should social media be used to raise brand perceptions or as a tactical marketing tool?

Del Ross, VP Sales & Marketing, InterContinental Hotel Group

Flo Lugli, EVP Marketing, Wyndham Worldwide

Networking Lunch Break

Learn How to Manage Your Brand Reputation Online

• Can you put a dollar sign on the cost of ignoring your customers? The truth is, however large or small your brand is, you simply cannot afford to not know what is being said about your brand online - and how to manage it.

• What resources should you allocate to managing your brand online to be truly effective?

• Transparency is key but do you take a reactive or proactive approach? How do you manage customer expectations?

• How should you respond to what is being said? How much intervention is too much? How long should your response be? What tone?

• How can you combat fake/inaccurate reviews/contributions?

• Often messages and/or complaints are diffused without the messenger having the full information. How should you tackle this before it gets blown out of proportion?

• Should individuals within the organization express their own personalities when responding or should they follow the ‘brand personality’?

• Nearly 30% of bloggers will post opinions about products and brands that they have experienced - these blog posts will stay on the web for years and continue to be searched. What can be done (if anything) to minimise negative blog comments and maximise positive ones without being manipulative?

• How can you use social networks to build morale and a positive brand image internally & externally?

• John T. Peters, President & CEO, Tripology
• James Zito, Director of Interactive Marketing, Morgans Hotel Group
• April Robb, Communications Specialist, TripAdvisor

Networking coffee break

Effectively Use Social Media Tools to Boost Customer Engagement & Loyalty

• One-on-one push management of customers is a thing of the past. Social CRM is here and now but what does it mean to your business?
• How can social media be used as a customer retention tool?
• How can you use social media tools to foster positive relationships with your most valued customers and add meaningful benefits to their travel experiences, both online and offline?
• Can you measure the time and cost savings in other departments by providing real time info to your customers via twitter and social networks?
• Evaluate the way social software is altering the CRM landscape
• Customer profiling data - what information can be gathered via social media communications to target your customers more effectively?

Anil Aggarwal, Chariman & CEO, Milestone Internet Marketing Inc

Linda Palermo, Chief Revenue Officer, Joie de Vivre

Will Aldrich, VP of Product, TripIt

5.30 - 7.30pm Networking Drinks Reception

9.00am Day Two - Thursday March 25th

Best Practices to get the Highest ROI on Your Social Media Initiatives

Ok, so you have invested valuable time and resources in initiating a social media strategy. You've gathered a community of interested parties/people together, what next? How can you encourage them to keep contributing to the community/your initiatives? How much is your responsibility to contribute?

• If Dell can drive $3million in revenue from social media initiatives - can you?
• What resources do you need to allocate to keep your Facebook page, Twitter etc active?
• Are you trying to establish a presence in too many places?
• How can you ensure that you are getting the most out of the contacts that you have collected?
• What are the factors that make people contribute to a social site? Why do people get excited about using social media?
• Should you reward people for contributing? If so what is the most valuable way to do this?
• How do you make sure users aren't overloaded with messages from different social media channels?
• Content - editorial is costly. What's the right balance between editorial and UGC?
• Content vs. contacts - which come first?
• Price vs. experience - use social media to convey the quality of your travel product and go beyond price comparison
• New apps - what are the advantages as a travel company of creating your own apps to be used on established social networks? What has worked and what hasn't?

• Speaker name TBA, Facebook
• Henry Harteveldt, Vice President & Principal Analyst, Airline & Travel Research
  Forrester Research
• Brandie Feuer, Director of Interactive Marketing, Planet Hollywood
• Fiona Ashley, Director of Marketing, Travelmuse

Networking Coffee Break

Twitter and the Rise of Micro-blogging - What Are the Implications for your Travel Business?

According to some sources Twitter now has over 20 million users. In 2008, micro-blogging took the world by storm. Now that it is here to stay - what are the real implications and opportunities for your travel business?

• Virtually all the most innovative travel brands on twitter admit that they were unsure of what to expect when they first started using twitter. Nearly two years on, what have we learnt?
• Customer service, marketing, crisis management, and calming nervous travelers - how are travel companies using Twitter?
• Should you have one single-branded account or multiple? Will there be a limit to how many accounts can be opened?
• Followers - are you looking for quantity or quality? How can you differentiate?
• How do you identify brand influencers and work with them?
• Big brands - real time conversations. Use micro-blogging to reach out to customers on an individual basis and put the human back into your brand
• Hear real Twitter success stories from the travel industry
• As travel Twitter booking services start to appear, what is their likely success?
• What does the future hold for this medium and how can you prepare your travel business?

• Michael Perhaes, Ass. VP Marketing, MGM Grand
• Tom Romary, CEO, Yapta.com

Social Media Metrics & Meaning - Are you Tracking and Interpreting Your Social Media Initiatives Effectively?

As we all face ever-increasing accountability, ensure that you can prove the value of your social media campaigns.

• There are a number of tools on the market to help you manage what is being said about your brand online. But what is it you are actually monitoring and measuring?
• Compare and contrast the different measuring tools on the market - Which ones are must haves and which ones can you do without?
• Measure who your best brand advocates are
• Give meaning to your metrics - What does it actually mean to have X number of followers on Twitter and X number of fans on Facebook?

Sam Fulton, VP Retail, Orbitz Worldwide

David Doucette, Executive Director, Internet Marketing, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International

Networking Lunch break

Social Media Content and SEO - Get the Right Content to Suit Your Brand & Drive Quality Traffic to Your Site

Getting the right content to suit your brand and customer base is vital. Blogs, user-generated content, video - how do you get the right balance? Content can also boost your SEO results

• How many 3rd party providers of user-generated content should a website have?
• Creating your own blogs and communities - the rules
• Ensure your blog doesn't languish unread - Get the right contributors to suit your brand
• Understand how to leverage social media content to climb the search rankings
• Blogs, video, reviews, photos will continuously appear on search results for years to come. Ensure your brand is correctly tagged and referred to
• How can you leverage blogs as inbound lead generators?
• Monitor brand terms as well as keywords important to the organization using social media monitoring tools
• Learn how content that is relevant and useful attracts links from those empowered to publish (bloggers, blog commenters, forums, consumer reviews, consumer generated content such as images, video, audio)

• Mark Guerette, Director of e-Commerce, Alaska Airlines

• Michael B. Slone, Director Interactive Marketing, Vail Resorts

The Future of Search and the Social Web - Adding the Emotional Sentiment into Travel Search

The social web and search are converging.  What does the integration of social networks into Bing and Google mean for the future of search?  How can the emotional sentiment of searching for travel be incorporated into the search stage of the travel cycle? What technological developments support this development and how can you adapt your search strategy?

Yen Lee, CEO, UpTake

At What Point in the Purchasing Cycle and to What Extent are Travelers Influenced by Social Media? - Get the Facts

• Video - 76% of global social network users upload videos (up from 45% in 2008). 83% of US internet users watch audiovisual content on the web. An increase of 51% since September 2006. How much of this content is travel related?
• The days of writing a blog commentary on one site, uploading images on a separate site and then managing a network of friends on another site are gone. This rationalisation means you need to ensure your customers find the information they need to make the purchase

Anthony Rawlins, MD, Digital Visitor

Jennifer Davies, Director, Content, Expedia

Rick Seaney, CEO, FareCompare

Networking Coffee break

Manage Social Networks to Gain Employee Commpany Buy-in and Build a Positive Company Culture

Ever-increasing transparency and speed of online communications means that your customers can now watch every move of each and every employee in your business.  Social networks can be a powerful medium for employees to vent their frustration and one wrong move from an employee can cost you greatly.

• Internal vs. external communities - how can you use social media to engage your employees?  Should an internal social community be completely separate from an external one?

• How you can develop company policies and procedures to better take advantage of the benefits social media offers

  Claire Elias, Director of eCommerce & Marketing, STA Travel

A Quick Fire Round-up of New Social Media Tools and Trends to Watch

• Is the next twitter lurking round the corner and about to take you by surprise?
• Google Wave - what are the implications for social media and travel?
• Location based services - know where your customers are - literally - and target them accordingly

• Tim Gunstone, MD, EyeforTravel

5.30 End of Conference