VBB Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH Eike Arnold, Political Marketing

1. VBB Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg GmbHEike Arnold, Political Marketing Markets are conversations The impact of social media on public transport(general considerations and EMTA survey) 1

2. Media consumers over the ages: great-granddad, granddad, son and grandson • Newspaper as a key medium • Newspaper subscription as a general rule • Themes are selected by editors • Discussions take place during get-togethers, in the (local) club, but most of all in bars, pubs and cafés. • Info and arguments from the public retrievable only via readers’ letters • Silver Surfers ca. 1942-1961 • An older generation of internet users,belonging to the “best agers” target group from a marketing perspective, i.e. between 1920s A few (media) inform many people From the 90s: Web 1.0 1970s 2

3. Media consumers over the ages: great-granddad, granddad, son and grandson • No newspaper subscriptions as a rule, trend to weekly newspaper or the website version. • Discussions on products and companies, knowledge is available. • Themes are those most discussed on the web. • Classical media supplemented by social media, blogs and forums. • Digital immigrants: Adaption from computers, before 1980: mobile telephones, the internet, video games, in the course of adult life; internet use influenced by altruistic-social values = social responsibility, status, security; focus: communication, transactions, targeted search for information Participatory web: many inform many | Web 2.0 3

4. Media consumers over the ages: great-granddad, granddad, son and grandson I’m not the one looking for information. It’s information that’s looking for me. • A major task in the near future is the developing of systems, which can organise the enormous amounts of data and make them available to individual users in a meaningful manner • Digital natives, grown up with computers, 1980 (at the earliest) - mobile telephones, the internet, video games etc., disproportionate internet use influenced by hedonistic-egoistic values = fun, action, creativity and self-realisation, contacts to others, focus: communication and entertainment Thousands of billion gigabytes of information2010. Those who have grown up today have not consciously experienced the pre-internet era. Enterprise 2.0 and Web 3.0 Facts need relationships Semantic search Expanded reality 4

5. The web is becoming social: everybody can write, comment, recommend – (partly) publicly. Not only spectators: From a viewing web emerges a participatory web: commenting, recommending, warning Das Netz gibt vor: Orientierung an den Echtzeitthemen der Netzwerkmedien Veränderte Öffentlichkeits-mechanismen: Medienredaktionen fallen als entscheidender Filter weg Companies: Their image and reputation stand and fall with their web reputation = active recommendation by 55 users = passively viewed: 1,500 users (hidden) 5

6. Social Media: discussions on Facebook and Twitter influence the formation of public opinion Facebook by numbers, March 2013 Compared to the previous year, Facebook has: …1.11 billion monthly active users (+23%) …751 monthly active mobile users (+75%) …665 million daily active users (+26%) …7.5 million paid contributions (visibility) …1.46 billion US$ turnover in the 1st quarter of 2013 (+38%) …4.5 billion likes per day (+67%) …4.75 billion daily shared contents (+94%) Source: thomashutter Twitter by numbers Twitter web data report the following: There are ca. 500 million Twitter accounts worldwide (as of: July 2012) 200 million monthly active users (as of: Dec. 2012) No. of German-language Twitter accounts: 825,000 Source: Webevangelisten • …in addition to countless others, equally aspiring: Google+, Xing, Linked.In, Pinterest, Tumblr, Quora, Instagram etc. • Formation of public opinion and public discussions have partly relocated to the networks. • No prefiltering by newspaper editors. Journalists address themes. 6

7. Why social media in the public transportation network? For a long time, the major advantage of the car was the sovereignty it provided us with. Whereas in public transport, we often felt helpless and at the mercy of the operator. State-of-the-art, internet-based telephones give our sovereignty back to us. We have our entire personal environment – in the form of calendar, documents, images, contacts and messages in our own hands. We always know what kind of transport we can use. That feeling of impotence has disappeared. Moreover, transport systems and companies are no longer enraptured by the world, but communicate fairly via the web media in a partnership of equals. 7

8. VBB marketing success: Facebook page on school children holiday ticket Imagegewinn garantiert.Erfolg muss sich jedoch auch im Verkauf widerspiegeln.Ergebnisse nach dem Sommer. 8

9. Facts: Facebook page on school children holiday ticket“I like”, reach, participation 287.261 232.373 102.325 Interesting contents determine business Readiness for dialogue is key 9

10. Facts: Facebook page on school children holiday ticket The average Facebook user of this product is… …a female user, aged between 13 and 17, living in Berlin. If she is lives in Brandenburg, she tends to live in an autonomous town. 10

11. Facts: Facebook page on school children holiday ticket Regional distribution: focus is where it belongs 11

12. First S-Bahn channel (unofficial) • Started by a S-Bahn hobbyist • S-Bahn messages from internet presence(delays etc.) • Plus messages from the other Twitterers • Immediately passed on to all subscribers, authentic • Today taken over by the S-Bahn (relinquished voluntarily by S-Bahn hobbyist) • Then some 5,000 subscribers, today around 14,000 12

13. Berlin transport market: BVG “allows Twittering in private” • Hobby Twitterers even at the BVG, divided according to means of transport. • Largest communal public transport operator in Germany still without any official activities. • Nowhere are there more social media users than in Berlin. Take over open (“S-Bahn strategy”?)sufficient for such a large company? 13

14. Deutsche Bahn AG (German Rail) Twitter and Facebook channels Since 13th June 2013 also active on Google Plus and Youtube. • Customer dialogue supplements information line • All others join in reading and learning • Customer benefits: time-independent, no queuing • “Social control” by the reading and writing of others • Commonly expressed similar concerns (“Has my train been cancelled due to flooding?”) – are accordingly dispensed with. 14

15. Quality management: companies are closer to the customer as a result of social media • You can say anything as long as you say it in a friendly way. • Defects and shortcomings are pointed out to companies at an early stage, long before they appear in the newspapers • Part of quality management and monitoring 15

16. It often starts unofficially: loyal customers create a company presence (as happened with the S-Bahn) • Contents mainly taken from the company website • Success factor: contents and news value • Companies and products are actively sought in the event of questions • DB Regio curbing Berlin-Brandenburg marketing • No network-wide contact partner • First provider strategy promising 16

17. Markets are discussions. • Where there are markets, products and companies will be discussed:…without these(company not represented)…or with these(company „represented“). 17

18. Strategy and realisation • Social media and team manager • Organisation in team and company • Training: Social media 1x1 • Preliminary work and and benefit from specialist employees Team • School pupils, tourists, seniorcitizens, commuters, ticket buyers, journalists, politicians… • Themes: passenger information, marketing, press… Target groups Evaluation Performance measurement, adjustment • Selected by suitability • Facebook Xing LinkedIn YoutubeTwitter Google+ Pinterest Linked.In Platforms Control content External: Response managementInternal: management, generation and planning of content Strategic level: company goals (Internal)further training Quarterly and annual reports New developments? Advantages and disadvantages for each platform? Expense? Target group? Operative: Every day is different. 18

19. Conclusion: VBB as a framework of transport companies as well as of Berlin-Brandenburg requires a presence in selected network media. Benefits VBB brand recognition | VBB early warning system | Customer information on an equal footing | Representing public transportation as a total system in Berlin-Brandenburg | Marketing | Press | Politics | Sales | Realisation Team building Strategy developmentOperative business plus further development Interlocking of “external effective” areas Press, information hotline, marketing, quality scouts Requirements Strategic planningtarget group analysis Cross-cutting issue, single department responsibility Initial annual budget from 0 to 20,000 Euros plus transport contracts, as appropriate Start initially with the further development of the holiday ticket channel (Facebook) and official activation of a VBB channel on Twitter. Target all relevant channels. 19

20. 20 Participants from the public transport authorities • Kopenhagen • Prag • Vilnius • Warschau • Budapest • Amsterdam • Barcelona • Turin • London • Helsinki • Wien • Stuttgart • Valencia • Madrid • Paris

21. 21 Organisation: number of employees EMTA: hetereogenous field of members

22. 22 Organisation: number of employees 20000 average: 1,496.81 employees

23. 23 Do you have a spokesman-woman, a public relations department, a marketing department, (customer) call centre, passenger information centre or similar departments? Imaginable social media departments: the transport authorities are similarly organized “Marketing communication dept. uploading less informal content (games, marketing), at press communication dept. uploading press releases and other official material.”

24. 24 Do you make a classical internet monitoring? “Yes, we got research agencies.” • Prague • Warsaw • Budapest • Amsterdam • Turin • London • Valencia • Madrid • Paris “It is one of the responsibilities of the press communciations department.” “We monitor websites on relevant articles with name or organisation and relevant key words.” “We have monitoring that is prepared by a professional agency. We define topics and the agency sends us results.” Majority thinks that internet news and dialogues are important for the company. “We have a Google Analytics account and monitor visits to our web site on a regular basis.”

25. 25 Do you have your own blog for comments and criticism? • Prague • Vilnius • Helsinki “Yes, one blog for public transport and one blog for other issues.” “No, comments and complains are possible to put your complain on web site or on our facebook site.” Tendency: rising

26. 26 Does your organisation use social media platforms at the moment?

27. 27 To which department does the social media staff belong? social media extends in all business areas

28. 28 Could you tell us about the budget only for social media?

29. 29 Is it possible to advertise on your web site?

30. 30 Do you advertise online ? “We don´t think about a platform but we already used Facebook for advertising.”

31. 31 What do you think are possible reasons for the strong development of social media activities? „Yes, since a year we have started to use social media in the occasion of the launch of the new suburban rail service.“

32. 32 What do you consider as the biggest obstacles introducing and implementing a permanent social media work? “We should dedicate staff who understand the importance of every word written by the company. A Facebook comment is like a press release. It will be quoted by the press in the same way.” London: “None of the above are barriers that prevent us using social media. We have always been very aware of reputational ‘risk’.” „We don´t have many current events or topics.“

33. 33 Does one of your operators/co-operation partners use social media?

34. 34 Conclusions • Out of 15 public transport authorities only two don´t use Social Media platforms at all. • Social Media is a relevant topic: Some use it intensively. Those who don´t use Facebook and Twitter actively are however aware that monitoring is important: Social Media residents versus visitors. • Tendency: rising. More and more companies think about integrating more social media channels: relevant for customers. • Although Social Media platforms a regularly for free there are mostly small budgets for content or even advertisement. • There is not a classical public-transport-authority strategy: The approaches are very different, tailor-made, according to the PTA • Need for strategy, guidelines and organizational change. • Those who made experiences see strong benefits, innovative change but as well a change of communications and efforts.

35. Political MarketingTelefon: (030) 25 41 4125 Hardenbergplatz 2 Arnold@VBB.de 10623 Berlin VBB.de Thank you for your attention! 35