NB: This is a guest article by Jamie Riddell, creator of social media insight company Birdsong.
A new survey of 50 cruise companies has indicated an overwhelming preference for using Facebook Fan pages over Twitter profiles.
Of the brands surveyed, Digital Tomorrow Today found that of the 50 brands reviewed, only two did not have Facebook Fan Pages.
By contrast, 85% of brands were actively promoting a Twitter account.
The most popular cruise line on Facebook is Carnival with over two million fans. On Twitter, Silversea is the most popular with 83,958 followers (Carnival only has 58,561 followers).
YouTube is also an active channel for the cruise industry, with 24 brands actively promoting their YouTube channel.
Pinterest makes a small showing, with six brands promoting a Pinterest presence. At the time of review, only MSC Cruises (USA & NL), Hurtigruten, Tauck and Paul Gaugin Cruises are actively pinning content.
MSC Cruises has created boards to reflect the key aspects of a cruise, including boards for Fine Dining, Restaurants and Bars, Ships and Destinations.
Tauck focuses on exotic locations whilst Hurtigruten has created boards for inspiration, including beautiful images of Norway, interesting architecture and Aurora Borealis.
Pinterest is not currently a major channel for any cruise line with MSC and Tauck, the two most followed cruise lines, having 217 followers 141 followers respectively.
Most pins receive between zero and five likes, with this pin achieving the most in terms of sharing, with 24 repins.
These small numbers for Pinterest are comparatively bigger than Google+ presence for the cruise industry. Only Cunard, Viking River Cruises and Princess actively link to a Google+ page.
Princess is steaming ahead with 830 followers for its page, with Cunard on 440 and Viking River Cruises with 59 followers.
At present the Google+ pages seem to be an afterthought with only Princess cruises regularly updating the page a few times every week, the other two updates a few times every month.
The cruise lines look to have covered the main bases well, maintaining an active presence on Facebook and Twitter with video channels working well to promote the Cruise Line experience.
Credit should be given to the brands that are trialling Pinterest and Google+. Whilst the numbers for both these social networks will be small, they will offer the switched on brands an opportunity to learn and build solid foundations for future growth.
NB: This is a guest article by Jamie Riddell, creator of social media insight company Birdsong.