How can railways make best use of social networking?

With the explosion in use of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, over the last few years, are our preserved lines making the best possible use of the opportunities offered by such services?
Many lines including the West Somerset, Severn Valley and North Yorkshire Moors Railways all use both Facebook and Twitter, but are they using them as well as they could? Are there different/ better things railways can do with their Twitter or Facebook pages to engage with a new audience and make the most of the opportunities for promotion that social media offer?

Discuss.

If you've got any suggestions on how Facebook/Twitter pages could be used differently or what kind of information should be included - such as should pages for the general public and pages for enthusiasts be kept separate then post those here as well.

 

Always interested in new ideas to improve my use of FB and Twitter...and any ideas of how to use Google+ espcially welcomed (I just don't get it!)

Steve

 

Blogs/facebook/twitter can be very useful publicity tool, particularly if you can link them together.

I've set up Wordpress blogs for local groups and whenever anyone adds a post on the blog, it automatically adds a post on their Facebook page and on their Twitter account. So you get all three audiences in one - and it didn't cost a penny.

Facebook "pages" are better than Facebook accounts, as they allow more than one person to edit them. People can also "Like" the page, and get news on their own Facebook account.

You can also create Facebook events and invite people to them. It's amazing how fast these get pass on. I invited 20 people to a local event at our pub, and within a couple of hours, they had invited another 100 people who I didn't know. They then invited THEIR friends and so on.

Wordpress blogs also allow different people to contribute to the content, with many a couple of "administrators" to double-check the new posts before publishing them online.

Happy to share ideas and examples - please pm me.

Richard

 

In reality it is already well proven that in order of priority a well organised, informative and sales orientated web page is more important than a dedicated blog, which in turn totally eclipses the value of all the social media sites which have their uses as publicity avenues, to keep organisations in public view but, which, in terms of return for resources employed are way back in the distance. The amount of information out there is such that information overload is all too possible when up against myriads of other users.

Unless the result of such sites actually leads to cash in the bank, they are a great pastime for the keyboard warriors, but of no value at all to the bottom line.

 

I think London Midland have this one broadly right, actually. They have a reasonably easy to navigate website, which is where you go to look up times, book tickets and so on. They send out emails about special offers with a sensible frequency. They have a Twitter account which isn't just a mouthpiece but which actually answers questions put by passengers. The point here is that they don't try, as some organisations seem to do, to use Twitter or Facebook as a replacement for a website. I've never seen anyone do that and make it look right.

There's a danger in trying to do everything and spreading yourself too thinly. How many railways (and their supporters) truly have the resources to keep properly up to date across half a dozen different types of electronic media? As an example, look at Bridgnorth station. At the bottom of its homepage is the line: "Follow @bhstn on twitter. Like us on Facebook. We're also on Blogger." But while the first two are regularly updated, the Blogger blog hasn't seen a new entry since early February. It would, to my mind, have been the perfect forum for a slightly more thoughtful, discursive postscript to the spring gala.

To be honest, where the SVR is concerned I would have thought that some tweaking to what it's already got would help more -- for both casual and enthusiast visitors -- than setting up even more outlets all over the shop. For the former group, an email enquiries facility -- there are plenty of quick queries where a letter is over the top and a phone call is inconvenient. I can't think of another significant railway that doesn't either publish an email address or (eg GWSR) have an enquiry form. And for the enthusiasts, better integration and links between the main website and (the generally excellent) SVR Live site.

 

Interesting - where did you read this?

Richard

 

A website is great but not always difficult to keep updated by different people. Also, people have to make an effort to visit it. Wouldn't it be nice if they automatically got updates whenever they were looking in their email, Facebook page etc which they probably do on a daily basis?

Also, I personally would be much more interested in an event recommended by someone I knew, rather than an anonymouse advert. So if someone invites me to something through Facebook, I am more likely to go to it than an advert in a magazine.

But as David Buttery says, all of these online communications methods MUST be kept updated. There's no point in setting one up without know who is going to update it and how often.

Richard

 

I've been thinking about this and looking at quite a few lines Facebook pages, the market just isn't there. The sort of people who use Facebook and are into railways in more than a day out capacity (enthusiasts) rarely meets. The official NYMR FB page only has 640 "likes", SVR has 76. Like has been said, blogs can connect to Twitter and FB but the people seeing it just aren't there. People wanting times, prices (and to an extent, loco roster) will look at the website or email, thats just what we are used to. Behind the scene blogs appear to be quite popular. Youtube, Flickr and forums are popular as they can provide a good debate and answers are generally gotten very quickly. As much as I like the idea, I can't see it working.

 

I'd be interested to know what percentage of the UK population actually use Facebook or Twitter. Only one out of my immediate family does (that's 12.5%) and I seem to recall a survey showing that only 15% of young people use it regularly, less with older people. Although I signed up to see what it was about, I've never posted anything and never use it. If I'm looking for info, I go for websites, every time; and I don't think I'm any different from most people.

 

There are millions of FB and Twitter users and thankfully it's not a limited readership like a railway forum. Most of the time we are not selling the railway to the likes of us, the enthusiasts. The real object of using Facebook and Twitter is to reach people who hadn't thought of going to the railway's website. For example. I can tweet about a special event or train or tour making sure the tweet is not too "railway speak". And within a few minutes a few of the 447 followers will retweet the message to their followers and perhaps some of those followers will retweet...and so on. Now this tweet will, for free, shove the name of the railway and the event/train/tour and a link ot the website right in the face of perhaps hundreds or thousands of people. People who hadn't dreamt of visiting the railway. Now if only a few of those people actually come along and buy tickets, it all helps. If I was trying to flog a trip on my railway, I'd be very keen to use any means at my disposal esp if the means is free and takes a few secs.

Steve

 

Careful Ralph - I wrote this two posts before yours

Richards - I deal with people who are active in tourism consultancy, website writing and ticket selling fields. I am not referring to some perceived reference in a paper, but to actual hard evidence from results.

The concensus is exactly what you wrote - companies either deliberately or unconsciously tend to major on just one means of primary communication to obtain bookings and revenue and very often there is an initial push to use additional new media which just falls away as either resources prove insufficient to keep all media up to date, or users migrate to one means of communication, and that means of communication gets all the attention.

Better to just have one good website 100% under your control than half a dozen chit chat sites that can veer around uncontrollably. Isn't the way this forum behaves sufficient evidence of that

 

I think to me the most important thing is consistency and clarity, and the ability to receive information without 'going round the houses'. Speaking personally, I find that whilst the communication from the SVR on the internet is very good, it is also very disjointed.

Each Station has its own website, some of which are updated regularly, some hardly at all, and not exclusively with station info. Most of the owning groups have their own site - which is ok, I can appreciate that. The S&T dept. has its own rarely updated site, with a lot of non-SVR info on it - interesting but 'off-topic', then there is the SVRA website, svr.co.uk, svrlive.com, the rolling stock trust site, facebook, two twitter accounts and the SVR engineering site. There is also the unofficial forum.

See what I mean?

So in answer to the question, things like twitter, facebook and blogs are useful for their specific purposes - twitter to release snippets of information quickly and easily, and to answer queries; facebook another valid avenue for dissemination of information, and as someone else noted to spread the word on events occurring, and blogs for the dissemination of information by specific groups/parties. I think a 'Bridgnorth Blog.

If I was asked which I thought was the best website for a heritage railway, I think it would be a toss-up between the GlosWarks and the Mid-Hants.

 

I acknowledge that there are millions of users but I asked how many in the UK and how many of those signed up actually use them? I, for one, don't.

 

Neither do I Steve. But even if it's a small number, which I doubt, what's wrong with using FB and Twitter if it gets the message out there. FB and Twitter are free to use and takes no or little time to manage and each is known to have generated interest in the railway which in turn provides hard cash. Now what could possibly be wrong with that!

Steve

 

I completely agree with the comments made by Steve / West Somerset Wizard...

Epping Ongar Railway has had a presence on both Facebook (where you can be a friend of the railway) and Twitter for quite some time, and have found this an excellent way to engage with the wider society (especially during the engineering works when our doors unfortunately have to be closed to the public due to the site being a "work site"). We use these to inform and keep people updated with progress at the railway, and going forward with news about special events, celebrate the achievements of our volunteer teams and progress towards getting a platform at Epping.

This media is an excellent way to communicate with, and hopefully inspire, some of the next generation who are the lifeblood of any heritage railway. This was really brought home to me when looking at the campaigns to LU many years ago, when huge numbers of under 25's signed in to support it as they saw the branch as something useful for them; would they have done so if it was an article in the paper or heritage magazine??

The people who are friends or twitter followers reveals a great number who perhaps wouldn't have heard of or use Nat Pres or heritage media - and it doesn't matter if you only log on once in a while, its free, and we are keen to make the information available to anyone who might be interested - no matter what their background. Volunteers also get a huge buzz out of seeing the results of their hard work published and recognised. )

I also agree with the previous comments about keeping things fresh and updated - hence why you will always find the latest news (Epping Ongar Railway – News) on our website, the progress the various departments are making on "department diary" (Epping Ongar Railway – Departments Diary), and snippets on facebook and twitter ("eorailway").

Simon, GM, EOR

 

Facebook reckon that about 50% of the UK has a Facebook account. The difficult bit is 'how many of them use it to research heritage railways'… answer is probably next to none.

A better use of Facebook is targeted advertising - Facebook can put ads in front of very specific groups (50 year old blokes who like trains, have a son and live near Birmingham, for example). It costs a little bit of money, but only on a pay-per-click basis, so you only pay when people click through to your website or Facebook page.

Simon

 

The key to any use of the social media topics is to keep the audience engaged all the time, with frequent, relevant updates. Its so easy to follow or like somewhere, but its also very easy to unfollow or unlike - meaning your audience can change very quickly.
East Lancs Railway do a good job on Twitter - promoting events, mentioning the soup of the day in the Trackside restaurant, etc. For heritage lines, the aim would be to get more awareness to members of the general public, rather than just the enthusiast crowd. Lets be honest, it is a mostly male-orientated past time - so the angle they need to take would be one of attracting the parents of kids, or convincing the women that going out to ride a train is worth it.

Some tips for engaging a wider audience would be....

- When posting, ask questions to encourage replies - ie, "What are you plans for this weekend at our gala? Coming to see anything special?"
- Use hashtags when you can
- Make sure the railways themselves are following other local attractions - twitter will automatically recommend you to others following them
- On the point of other local attractions, re-tweet their tweets. When the railways offer something, they'll re-tweet yours
- Spin off the back of popular events - if Apple release a new iPad - mention how great is makes your site look on it
- Offer competitions at follower milestones, eg, 1000 followers or likes and you win something (make a decent enough - perhaps a dinner for two on any dining trains they offer, or a family ticket for the next gala) - also encourage competitions for people that re-tweet updates
- The tweets don't just have to be setup from a computer - if people have iPhones or Android phones that actually work at the railways, encourage them to tweet photos or locos in the yard, being worked on - the enthusiasts would like the behind the scenes view, plus parents would show their kids the images
- If you've got dining services (as many railways do), tweet out the menus, photos, carriages all setup for service - etc - sell it to non-train people as an alternative for eating out
- Use services like tweetdeck or hootsuite to setup scheduled tweets, perhaps generically worded, to keep a constant stream of updates to followers
- Creative use of Facebook's new timeline is also a good way to get people to like you - adding historic images, key moments, etc
- Get people to submit images to the Facebook photo album
- Promote special offers in your shop, or stock that you want to shift

Targetted ads for attracting new business wouldn't be the answer - I think there are alternatives with use of email newsletters and updates.

Data capture should be key for online marketing - and it isn't majorly difficult to get some good results and the tools are already out there, and the free ones would do the job quite well.

Theres plenty of things to do and all the above could be achieved in the space of 2-3 hours per week, so you're only talking about 30 minutes per day or so.

Jason

 

I'd agree that joined up with websites pages on twitter and facebook. I am only on the latter.

Looking at where I volunteer in manchester the focus is website and then facebook and twitter. If you want to get lots of people in and its a big event getting the local papers and regional news is best. Manchester Model Railway Society had this down to an art as there would always be a slot on BBC North West tonight towards of the end of the 6.30 broadcast with a reporter down at Coop HQ.

Getting a lunchtime slot on the regional news for the Great Garratt Gathering also helped this become one of the most successful events in the museums 25 year history.

I'd say it's not about getting publicity everywhere but targeting a few well done ads.

Duncan

 

My tip, consider your audience and what they are most likely to use, and under no circumstances forget the traditional forms of media. A company I worked for paid for some research in this area and from what I recall one of its findings was that late or non-adopters of new media are often seniors and these folks generally have more discretionary cash than youngsters but as a result can be difficult (meaning expensive) to access. Seniors tend to have a hankering for nostalgia and that includes heritage railways. That means that while social networking is great for part of your audience it may not necessarily work for all of it. A well targeted mailshot to members of say a certain age group could well produce as much interest as many hours of setting up websites, twitter or facebook, particularly if you are fundraising.

A quick fundraising story. The nearby village church needed some repairs. Various new media accounts were set up including things like just giving, a website, and I think there may have been a facebook page as well. An ex-marketing man in the congregation suggested a personal letter to various known benfactors of the church might also help as he knew they didn't all have computers. £35k was raised in surprisingly short order which amazed everyone. When they looked at it about £10k came from new media. The balance came by cheque from one lady whom recieved a personal letter from the vicar asking if she could help.