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Cruising Toward Social Media Success with a Customer Advocacy Program

Posted by Michelle (Haschka) Wright on July 15, 2010 at July 15, 2010 10:38 AM

I had the opportunity to sail on the inaugural cruise of the NCL Epic last week with a travel agent friend. (The ship's first sailing is reserved for travel agents and their guests, who all travel free). It's a smart influencer relations and awareness building strategy - wine and dine the people that are going to sell your stuff. Show them first-hand what a wonderful experience they'll be selling their customers.

Before we set sail, I overheard someone mention they were planning on meeting up with some Twitter friends. Ever the curious social media nerd, I logged in on my phone and discovered someone set up a hashtag for the ship and was organizing a Tweet-up on board. People were tweeting about the meeting, taking photos and making general observations and conversation about the ship.

The fact that people are making the effort to form communities in this way fascinates me, but it also got me thinking about what Norwegian Cruise Line could be doing to engage with these folks and tap into their excitement about the brand. They're basically being handed a plate full of social-media savvy influencers eager to talk about them in a positive light. It doesn't get much better than that!

How would we advise our clients to get started? We'd recommend they tune in via social media monitoring and identify the people talking about NCL. Then they could sponsor the planned tweet-up and create a social media ambassador club (with a cute name, of course ... The Social Skippers, Cruise Crew, NCL Socialites, etc) for attendees to join. While cruising, offer this group some exclusive perks that will encourage them to share information about the ship after they've landed. From there, elevate their experience and help them get social:

Give club members a badge to add to their name tag so they can identify each other throughout the trip.
Reserve special tables in the dining rooms/bars so the group has a place to congregate.
Offer member giveaway drawings such as a Flip video camera or digital camera to record their trip.
Provide behind-the-scenes access to cruise ship amenities (interviews and photo opps with ship entertainment and cruise staff, room tours, etc).
Organize a photo scavenger hunt that requires people to explore the ship and take photos along the way.

After the cruise, NCL could create a LinkedIn, Facebook or customized community to keep connected with this group. Perhaps they offer this type of experience on every cruise (not just the ones for travel agents) and then all of these folks are invited to join the community to stay connected with the brand and receive exclusive discounts and information.

By incorporating social media into a pretty traditional influencer program NCL could take its game to a whole new level.

What else would you suggest they do?

Photo credit Ell Brown

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Comments

Michelle,

Great thoughts on what NCL and any cruiseline could do to engage those who are coming on their ship and are users of Social Media. I think that they should open the Wifi to those who are heavy users. I think they should offer social media classes onboard to teach passengers how to share pics and photos with family as well as how to stay connected after the cruise with people they meet onboard. They are truly sitting on a goldmine.

BTW, I was on the NCL Epic for the Miami Inaugural. We hosted a Bon Voyage Tweetup the night before the cruise and NCL actually promoted the tweetup on their Facebook page. We then used twitter to plan a Tweetup at the Plunge Slide on the Epic that you mention in your article. Small World.

Rich Tucker

Posted by: @CruiseSource at July 15, 2010 5:36 PM

Thanks for your insights, Rich! All excellent ideas - I especially like the point about free Wifi. It seems like that would be greatly appreciated, and utilized, by the social media "elite" on board. It's also an idea that could be replicated by others in the hospitality industry - hotels, resorts, etc.

And it's great to hear NCL is already engaging with its customers via Facebook and Twitter. Hopefully they'll continue to build on the program and make their customer experience even stronger.

- Michelle

Posted by: Michelle (Haschka) Wright at July 16, 2010 8:14 AM

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Cruising Toward Social Media Success with a Customer Advocacy Program

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