Technological advances have seen the rapid introduction of social media into the business place. Adam Coulter explains the dangers of ignoring this phenomenon and gives some suggestions on how to use it to your advantage
The online marketing company Travel Intelligence Group has a succinct and highly effective analogy when it comes to corporates not dealing with the rise of social media: "Imagine entering a crowded networking event and witnessing a room full of people discussing your brand all around you, but not stepping in and saying a word. This scenario is the equivalent of deciding not to invest time in social media outlets."
These conversations are happening whether you choose to participate in them or not. And this is the (virtual) reality of doing business today.
We are surrounded by a bewildering array of social media, some of which seem entirely unconnected with the day-to-day business of running a travel programme, or putting together an request for proposal (RFP), for example. But there are a few examples that will make you think again if you haven't logged on.
This form of Social Media (in which users post a maximum of 140 characters - a Tweet - online or to their followers' phones on whatever topic) did not even exist two years ago but Buying Business Travel, having realised its importance and value in conveying what is going on in the travel world, has climbed onboard - follow us at BBT_UK.
Now it is the fastest-growing social media, and has already had an enormous impact on the way corporates do business.
Take Ford Motor Company, which is often used as a classic example of how a long-established, traditional company can start using social media to its advantage.
In July 2007, Ford came to a bold decision: it realised that traditional forms of getting messages out to customers were on the wane and it needed to embrace social media.
At that point Ford's only social media outlet was YouTube.
So, timed to coincide with the 2008 launch of the redesigned Ford Focus, Ford used a number of social media to engage with the public and so-called 'digital influencers'. This included a number of firsts: inviting these digital influencers to test drive the new car; launching a Flickr account to post images of the car; using video specifically to be uploaded online; and releasing a press release via a social media platform.
But perhaps the most significant event occurred in July 2008, when a man called Scott Monty joined the company. Monty is a pioneer in the use of digital media and joined just at the time Twitter was beginning to explode Stateside.
Monty swiftly set up a number of Twitter accounts and started encouraging employees to start Tweeting, in a bid to give the company a human face.
So far so good, but social media can also be turned against you.
Ford found this out when it became a target of sustained abuse from Twitter users for what turned out to be a case of mistaken information involving a website selling counterfeit Ford goods.
It was only because Ford was already in the social media arena that it was able to counteract the attacks and diffuse the situation swiftly by using the same medium which was attacking it.
Now, according to emarketer.com, Ford is recognised as one of the US's top 10 corporates that have done the best job using social media.
Ford's approach stands in stark contrast to how another traditional brand - United Airlines - dealt very badly with a social media crisis. For readers who don't know the story, Canadian singer-songwriter Dave Carroll had his beloved US$3,500 Taylor guitar broken on a flight with United.
He tried for a year in vain to get compensation, then finally, exasperated, he wrote a song about his experiences, 'United Breaks Guitars', posted it on YouTube where it went viral (it's had more than four million views to date). United backed down and offered to pay compensation.
The point is, social media is here to stay and so needs to be incorporated in the travel and meetings mix.
Second Life is another form of social media that many people would probably struggle to find a corporate application for, dismissing it perhaps as some sort of gaming fantasy.
However, two years ago a company called Rivers Run Red saw its potential as an alternative to real meetings and began developing its Immersive Workspaces application, which has been picked up by a number of corporates, including Intel.
As Rivers Run Red's chief executive Justin Bovington explains: "The first priority in an economic downturn is the substantial reduction of non-core expenses.
"Consequently, things such as corporate travel and training budgets receive closer scrutiny and mounting pressure to yield greater savings. Therefore business leaders have to find ways of redefining their existing processes.
"This will often involve the leveraging of current technologies into an opportunity for change."
The Institute of Travel & Meetings (ITM), which is often at the forefront of promoting change and alternatives to accepted travel practices, ran two sessions of Second Life for members in September.
ITM chief executive Paul Tilstone says: "Technology moves at such a fast pace, so when we find something new we have got to test it.
"I'm not suggesting it will replace meetings and events, and I'm not saying it's the answer to all business meetings. "But because it's removed from a normal environment, and because it's unusual and animated, it changes the way we think about doing business.
"It's like all social media - those who are dyed-in-the-wool anti-Twitter or anti-blogging won't get involved in this, but I would say that any CEO who is not open to this and other social media applications won't be around for long."
ITM ran two sessions - a real one at Birmingham's NEC, and a virtual one the following day.
The real session attracted about 20 people; the virtual one about 15.
Tilstone wrote about the experience under his Second Life avatar name of Cormac Tigerpaw in the last issue of BBT (November/December 2009).
He says: "The feedback we got from delegates in terms of their ability to interact with speakers and delegates was 11 per cent higher than in a physical environment.
"Having said that, in most of the other sections it scored lower than the real thing."
Tilstone's view is that the pace of technology is so fast that it would be a mistake not to embrace new applications, however unusual or 'out there' they might seem at first. "The TMCs' traditional role is to get people from A to B, but I think most will agree that business travel is not going to grow much in the next two years," he says.
"So if TMCs want to expand their proposition they need to engage in areas and start to look at other ways of doing things that move with new technology."
Second Life is not new - it has been around for a number of years - but its business application is new and is gradually being embraced by corporates and TMCs.
These include corporate giants such as Intel, which was forced to cancel its annual conference due to costs.
However, it still needed to run a conference so it decided to go with the Immersive Workspaces technology. Every participant needed to create an avatar first, but apart from that, all employees needed to do was log-in when the conference was due to start.
The whole event cost $35,000, compared to an estimated $500,000-$600,000, when flights, hotels and taxis were factored in. The figures speak volumes for corporates struggling to find travel savings in the current economic environment.
TelePresence
The jury is still out as to whether travel will ever return to its heady mid-noughties days but, whether it does or not, two of the world's biggest TMCs, perhaps seeing the way the wind is blowing, have recently signed agreements with video-conference producers.
One of those is Carlson Wagonlit Travel (the other is American Express), which has signed a deal with Tata Communications allowing it to use the group's network of public Cisco TelePresence suites across the world.
Although it costs twice as much ($300/hour) as video-conferencing, it is vast improvement with no time-delay or fuzzy images.
TelePresence, as the name suggests, is almost of TV quality, using high-definition video and real-time audio.
There are numerous other spin-off advantages, such as a reduction in the carbon footprint of all concerned, getting employees together who would not normally travel to be in meetings and, of course, vast savings in travel costs, which is currently the key driver for corporates, according to Alison Smith, CWT's director of business development.
"TelePresence has only just come to market in the UK, but it has become an option for corporates who are looking for alternatives to travel," she says.
"For some it is now part of their travel policy."
The suite used by CWT is at the Taj Hotel in London and is designed with what is meant to be half of a table set against a wall with a large screen. The participants sit around the table, the other 'half' of which is wherever else in the world the conference is taking place.
The images are life-size, and the overall effect is as if you are sitting opposite people in the same room.
The feeling is quite odd at first, but participants soon get used to it, and it is often just at the very end, when everyone instinctively gets up to shake hands, that people snap back into the 'real world' and realise where they are.
As broadband gets faster and more information can be transmitted at once then it will improve further.
CWT includes it as part of its meetings and events programme but, however good it is, Smith doesn't believe it can replace that first meeting: "If you have never met anybody in that room before, you need to sit down with them and meet them first. But it is different with a second meeting, and it has become part of the meetings mix."
The CWT/Tata deal allows the TMC access to any of the TelePresence suites around the world, which includes locations in the US, India, South Africa and the Philippines.
Tata has also separately entered a deal with Starwood Hotels to open other suites worldwide throughout 2010.
Some larger corporates are even building their own suites, but at $300,000 a time, this is confined to just a select few.
However, Stewart Harvey, client management director for HRG (Hogg Robinson Group), has noticed that some corporates are making such large cost savings in terms of travel avoidance, it justifies the spend on a TelePresence room.
One of the big questions which faces TMCs is how do they get remunerated for persuading someone not to travel?
Harvey explains: "The first thing we ask is: 'Has this trip been authorised?' If it has, then we check to see if we have sent an email stating: 'You could turn this trip into a virtual meeting.'
"And then, if we have had a response which shows that person has followed up our advice and held a virtual meeting, we have the proof a meeting or a piece of travel has been avoided."
And, as Harvey states, that saving comes from professional advice - which can be charged for.
"Our approach is not to say: 'Don't travel' - it's about finding out who is going to the meeting and why.
"Once we know that, then we can base our advice on the specific trip."
HRG has seen a sharp increase in the number of its clients asking for virtual meetings - up from single digit percentages pre-September 2008 to almost one third today.
Before that it was largely driven by clients looking to cut down on their carbon-footprint. Today it is mainly driven by cost savings.
The first meetings to be substituted for virtual ones are internal gatherings. As Harvey says: "Our belief is that 30 per cent of clients' business is internal meetings.
"When we return those findings to the client you can almost hear the sharp intake of breath."
HRG has also seen a trend for companies to fly their employees out to the nearest client-owned virtual meeting room and hold the meeting there, rather than fly them all the way to the US or India, for example.
The only obvious disadvantage which Harvey cites - again an intangible - is how many other external meetings could the employee have done if they had gone to the destination? This is almost impossible to track.
Harvey adds that "most of these alternatives are for internal meetings. When it comes to external meetings and establishing a working relationship, those first few face-to-face meetings are essential. It is only the follow-up meetings which can be virtual, and then only if the client agrees."
David Radcliffe, HRG's chief executive, is also a firm believer that face-to-face meetings are still an essential part of doing business. "Video-conferencing and technology can only take up so much slack," he says. "Ultimately when you are doing deals you need to get in front of the customer."
The overall view is that however sophisticated technology becomes in the next few years there is no substitute for face-to-face meetings when deals are being negotiated.
But, for internal or follow-up meetings, the new technology is now an extremely viable and increasingly popular alternative.