On Friday, March 25, 2011, a 20-inch Egyptian Cobra went missing from the Bronx Zoo in New York City. On Monday, it got its own Twitter account, and within 24 hours after the first tweet, the account had nearly 100,000 followers, and more than 160,000 as of publication.

Egyptian cobra, Bronx Zoo, New York

The impact of a cobra on the lam in the Big Apple ‘cracking jokes’ on twitter is powerful, and the Bronx Zoo couldn’t buy such publicity.

In fact, it’s just as big a free lunch for the city too, since the cobra spent the day tweeting about slithering around at various New York City landmarks and attractions, including the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Plaza and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Here’s a few samples from @BronxZoosCobra:

Rockefeller Plaza is amaz….wait…OMG! Tina Fey totally just walked by me! HUUUUGE FAN! #snakeonthetown

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Temple of Dendur really kicks some asp. #snakeonthetown

On top of the Empire State Building! All the people look like little mice down there. Delicious little mice. #snakeonthetown

This missing cobra on Twitter is the latest in a rising trend of animal social networks, where the account owner poses as a real animal that’s in the news for some reason. If the concerned tourism organization is able to jump on the opportunity and push it on social media, then it can end up as a marketing windfall.

A case in point is Canada’s Banff crasher squirrel. The cute critter popped up in a photo taken by Melissa and Jackson Brandts when they were in Banff. The photo was published in National Geographic and went viral.

Sensing the opportunity, Banff Lake Louise Tourism (BLLT) set up YouTube, Twitter and Facebook accounts and launched a search-marketing campaign for the keyword ‘squirrel.’ They also took it offline with billboard ads and stickers.

At that time, the squirrel had already garnered 301 blog-post mentions, some 5,000 tweets and 650 Facebook posts. The ad value was worth $3 million in online, print and TV, and reached more than 80 million people.

But more often than not, the opportunity goes a-begging. The Bronx Zoo cobra is most likely unaffiliated with NYC & Company (the tourism marketing organization for New York City) or any other official city organization, and it also doesn’t seem likely that they’ll jump on this the way BLLT did with the squirrel.

Another similar example is the case of Greg Swan and Punxsutawney Phil. There’s no denying the public interest in the world’s most famous groundhog. In 2009, Greg Swan set up an account for Punxy as @GroundhogPhil. Every year in January and February, Swan starts tweeting as Punxsutawney Phil. He has even posted a message that says, “If you represent Punxsutawney Phil and/or Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, I will gladly turn over the Twitter account to you. I’m just having some fun, so please shoot me a note.”

One would think that a town whose reputation entirely depends on this groundhog would be a little more interested in reaching out to fans on Twitter, but Swan says on his blog that he hasn’t heard back from anyone.

But there’s no doubt that animal social networks do have an impact, and they are being taken seriously. The Brookfield Zoo near Chicago even has a scientific grant-funded program where it’s trying to get citizens involved by studying the daily routine of zoo animals, then posting on their behalf on twitter @brookfield_zoo.

Photo – Bronx Zoo

Related posts:
Reptilemania at the San Diego Zoo
Snakes (and Other Pets) on a Plane!

Room 77 app

Feature 1: Room 77, a hotel-room search engine, has launched in public beta with a free iPhone app and indexed data on what will soon be more than 425,000 hotel rooms in 2,500 properties spread across 16 cities.

The company plans to grow its database by crowd-sourcing it with pictures and room data submitted by users. The Room 77 app has built-in features so that travelers can easily rate and review a room, verify data accuracy and upload interior room and view photos.

The app could also come in handy at the front desk during check-in. Users simply have to enter the room number offered by the clerk, and the app instantly advises if you should “take it” or “leave it”, and offers alternate suggestions.

Read our post about the new company and it’s Launch award: Room 77,  ‘SeatGuru for Hotel Rooms,’ Wins Big at Launch Conference - UpTake
Consumer data reveals most popular web sites for viewing hotel visuals -VFM Leonardo
Holiday pictures by friends inspire 52 percent Facebookers’ travel plans - Skyscanner

Feature 2: Seventh Art Media has published a white paper that quantifies in dollar terms the Twitter account value of top hotels and hotel companies. It studied 120,000 tweets made by 135 hotels on Twitter between Nov. 1, 2010 and Jan. 31, 2011.

The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas tops the list with a $445,688 valuation, which translates to $47.93 per follower. The Roger Smith Hotel’s account, valued at $109,361, also stands out as an example of what a single property can do on social media.

Twitter Hotel account valuation

But 83 out of the 107 accounts have valuations below $15,000 and the median value is only $3,941. Read the full report “Hospitality Brands and Twitter” by Seventh Art Media.

Here’s the rest of the week’s interesting news:-

Q&A: Stephen Cloobeck, chairman of the Corporation for Travel Promotion - LV Sun
New York-Las Vegas airline promises “straight to the room” baggage service – LV Sun

Visit Sonoma launches online “Speak Sonoma” glossary – SonomaCounty.com
San Jose to add “Silicon Valley” to airport name, maybe – Gadling

Travel site retracts mistimed deal after Christchurch quake - Stuff.co.nz
EasyJet apologizes for serving Jewish customers pork - Huffington Post

Israeli startup Bioexplorers using mice for airport security – Israel21c.org
Kentucky offers to help promote Florida’s Oxy-tourism - Palm Beach Post

Direct Connect users fear GDS retribution - ABTN
Direct Connect in a can -TheBeat.travel
Priceline CEO sees mixed market airline bookings - WSJ

Report: Economic significance of meetings to the U.S. economy – PwC US
Report: Antitrust issues posed by Google-ITA merger – American Antitrust Institute

Photo credits – Room 77, Seventh Art Media

Related post:
Room 77,  ‘SeatGuru for Hotel Rooms,’ Wins Big at Launch Conference

Travel Companies Using Klout

Although social media experts are still arguing about whether or not Klout is an accurate measure of a tweeter’s influence, a few companies in the travel industry have decided to trust the new metric and are targeting people with high Klout scores for freebies and special discounts.

Read More »

The Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) has put up interactive twitter walls in NYC, Chicago and Los Angeles which display twitter streams with photos and tweets abut Canadian destinations.

Canada Tourism Twitter Wall

The campaign was created by DDB Canada, and uses large 8 x10 foot touchscreens installed in Times Square and Chelsea in New York, Michigan Avenue in Chicago and The Grove in Los Angeles.

It’s not just for display, though. As you can see in this video, passers-by can interact with the touchscreens, and pull up photos and info about a Canadian destination related to a tweet on the screen, or one in which they’re interested.

Twitter walls are usually used at conferences and events to aggregate tweets based on the event’s hashtag, but video screens fed with twitter streams have been installed at public places before. The Berlin Twitter Wall set up last year for the 20th anniversary of the real Berlin Wall’s fall is a prominent example.

The Footwall, London

Another recent example is The Footwall – a giant 4-story World Cup twitter wall in London. The company that set it up – The Brand Union, simply used a projector to post a live stream of tweets from their @thefootwall account on to the side of their office building in Farrington.

Paul Wood, Account Director for The Brand Union, explains why they’re doing this. He says “Many companies use social media to be seen to be keeping up, but consumers are interested in relevance to create social currency. The Footwall is about uniting fans through the power that social media offers, giving them a voice.”

The Canadian Tourism Commission’s twitter walls and what they hope to gain from it is a slightly more complex issue. To motivate more people to engage with them on twitter, the CTC is offering Americans a chance to win a $5,000 travel voucher for a free trip to Canada.

All you have to do is follow the @Keep_Exploring account and reply to them mentioning your favorite Canadian destination. This will get others in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles interested in taking a deeper look at these Canadian destinations when the tweets show up on the twitter walls.

It’s a neat combination of online and offline destination marketing, and shows just how much power a social media-based tourism ad campaign has to influence and engage even an offline audience.