The social web is not quite the lawless, anarchic “Wild West” that some would have you believe.

It is 2012 …. long past time to get serious about social media.

Heck, if the US Air Force can come up with a 31 page PDF set of guidelines titled New Media and the Air Force (covering social media, blogging, metrics, engagement, tips and examples) then the rest of us can certainly put some thought into this topic.

But let’s not overthink it, right?

Your tourism or hospitality organization only has immediate access to one of the most powerful, effective, worldwide, 24-hours-a-day communications platform in the history of mankind.

No biggie to pull together a few guidelines for how to handle it, hmmmm?

EEEEEEEEKK.

As Tom Webster said back in 2010, however, if you won’t allow and train employees to engage with people online, “You don’t have a social media problem, you have a trust problem.”

Here are some resources for you to review and adapt for your own use regarding wise and effective social communications policies….

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Don’t Re-Create Round Transportation Objects

(you know – reinventing wheels)

When in doubt, remember this phrase that is one of Sheila’s favorites:  consider the spirit and intent of a set of rules.

(In fact, calling them “rules” is awfully restrictive when the tools change so quickly. “Guidelines” is better.)

When you can’t fit a situation into your current guidelines, then stop. Reflect. Apply common sense and leadership.

Ask:  Does this action conform to the spirit and intent of how we want to connect with visitors, guests or customers?

Then proceed accordingly.

Here’s how others deal with the social web:

***  Five Things the Air Force Knows About Social Media That You Should Too  –  An infographic of how to respond to blog posts based on the guidelines from the Air Force.  http://spinsucks.com/social-media/five-things-the-air-force-knows-about-social-media-that-you-should-too-seriously/

***  Specific Twitter and Facebook best practices for tourism (PDF) —  http://crt.louisiana.gov/tourism/research/Documents/2009-10/LouisianaTourismSocialMediaEffectiveness.pdf

***  Two brands to learn from:

• Best Buy …. Includes this good advice: “Be smart. Be respectful. Be human.” What to do and what not to do. http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/Welcome-News/Best-Buy-Social-Media-Policy/td-p/20492
• The Coca-Cola Company Online Social Media Principles …. a marvel of brevity and relevance.  http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/socialmedia/

***  170 more examples:

• Online Database of Social Media Policies (many government examples, but not one that we can find specific to only tourism. Sigh.)  http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php

If we’ve missed any helpful resources – including yours – by all means give a shout down in the comments.

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It’s Time To Move On From Social Media

There’s no such thing as social media anymore.

Fine. We said it.

Yes, it’s a rather provocative statement, but in our role as geek scouts for you, it is time to point out that social communications is not going to be seen much longer as a separate, silo’d, specialized entity. It will become simply another way to communicate, like its brethren in print, TV, radio, direct mail, outdoor and email.

Do you have a separate Email Department?

Do you have a separate Telephone Department?

Of course not – those are tools that everyone uses each day to conduct business.  At some point here, we will arrive at the same situation with social media.

The difference with social is the two-way communications aspect, and if an organization can’t get up to speed on how to handle that sort of customer service and interaction….well, it will be tough sledding.  This should not be news to anyone.

Firebrand author and consultant Gary Vaynerchuk sums it up….(direct link to the video on GaryVaynerchuk.com)  http://garyvaynerchuk.com/post/14680495467/there-is-no-such-thing-as-social-media

Think about it, folks.

Don’t bet against the internet.

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Announcing a New Option With Our Online Course

Several customers of our six-week online course in social media for tourism have told us that they’d like more individualized guidance, more chances to ask direct questions of us (other than in the Lesson comments) and more help in staying focused on all of our course material.

We hear you!

We’ve added a “Full Course with Full Support” option to our online Store.

Soak in the learning from six multi-part lessons – plus get answers to your specific questions and advice for your situation with seven half-hour video chat or phone sessions throughout the course, in person with one of us.

We’ll keep you on track. We’ll make sure you get the most out of each lesson. We’ll make you laugh and kick destination marketing butt – guaranteed!

Thanks for your continued feedback on our educational products. We’re here for you, we’re never generic and we’re independent educators who only want to “teach you to fish,” then get the heck out of your way so you can tell your story.

Put our brains to work for your destination, attraction or lodging. Go here, see what the course offers, and if you want more of our personal attention, add Full Support.

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Have you connected with us in your favorite places? If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter. Say hi to Tourism Currents on….

• Our Facebook Page – we love your comments.
• Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
• Our LinkedIn Company profile – follow us.
• Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics!
• Our Delicious bookmarks on tourism – great research tool.
• Our YouTube channel – video about and from the tourism industry.

Don’t miss these goodies, either:

• Our free Idea Book download.
• The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
• ….And the online course in social media for tourism that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.

How can we help give you the knowledge you need to be a confident user of the social media tools that can communicate your destination’s story online?

How can we make your social web interactions more effective?

How can we keep you up to speed on strategy, integration, trends and constantly-changing online services?

These are questions that we ask ourselves almost every day.

We ask people at tourism conferences to tell us what’s most frustrating for them in their work. We listen to discussions on LinkedIn, in Facebook Groups and on Twitter. We sit in on super-basic-101 social media workshops so that we can take notes on the kinds of questions that people ask when they’re first coming to grips with the topic.

It’s all to make better educational products that help fix those thorny communications problems.

Now, for many of you, this is a “well, DUH!” moment. You already know what we do, you already know that high-quality training and answers to problems are available 24/7 in our online Store.

We love y’all, of course, but that opener really isn’t for you.

It’s for the people we kept running into at conferences this past fall who told us that they honestly did not know about our online training offerings; they just figured we were plain vanilla consultants, and that was it.

So, we decided to bring in more cowbell….

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Choose The Real Deal

Who We Are & Why We’re Different

Shot in one of our relatively rare moments in the same location….Sheila lives in Texas and Becky lives in Oklahoma….who we are and why we’re different, in less than 60 seconds….

(Direct link to the video on its YouTube page, in case you can’t see the embed box below.)

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Chat Us Up

Open Comments

Want to see us live and in person?

Well, while it’s true that Becky is a speaker and Sheila’s a speaker, too, we can’t personally teleport to you right this minute, so instead….

Come join us for an online chat during our next Open Comments night, Wednesday, December 7, 2011.

Show up at this post for Open Comments at 7 pm Central (CST) and you’ll find us both in conversations down in the Comments.

Bring us some problems that are driving you crazy in social communications, and for about an hour we’ll see if we can get at least a few solutions rolling for you.

Pssst – sometimes we get off topic, but that’s OK.  A little conversational wandering makes things interesting!

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 Check Us Out

Open House

This is for those who don’t know what our online course is all about, or who may be wondering whether there’s enough value in a six-week course specifically focused on social media for tourism, with us as your guides (um, we’d say there sure is, but maybe we’re biased….)

We’re holding a course Open House Wednesday and Thursday, December 7 and 8, so you can (temporarily) poke around in our online course for free.

Yep, free.

We think you’ll like it THAT much.

Start here to see how the course works, and navigate through whichever multi-part lesson catches your fancy.

Want a little help?  Have questions? We’ll be offering guided tours through the course using Google Hangouts, on the hour and half-hour, from 1 to 4 pm CST on Thursday, Dec 8. You will need a public Google account to join our Hangout.

Better make it snappy, though, because the pay wall goes back up after December 8.

Don’t miss your opportunity to check out what we can offer you, or someone in your office or even your tourism partners/members.

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 Cheaper By 20%

Our Sale

The final, irresistible offer….

Take 20% off of the cost of any item in our online Store, Wednesday night through Friday, December 7-9. Everything’s included:  two-page downloads, on-demand webinars, individual lessons or the full course.

If you’re sitting around after the Open House on Friday thinking, “Wow, that was good stuff, but I couldn’t get through it all….” then we invite you to take the six-week course or an individual lesson a bit less frenetically, at a lower price.

The discount code is “Sheila” – hey, we keep it simple.

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Have you connected with us in your favorite places? If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter. Say hi to Tourism Currents on….

• Our Facebook Page – we love your comments.
• Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
• Our LinkedIn Company profile – follow us.
• Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics!
• Our Delicious bookmarks on tourism – great research tool.
• Our YouTube channel – video about and from the tourism industry.

Don’t miss these goodies, either:

• Our free Idea Book download.
• The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
• ….And the online course in social media for tourism that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.

(This is the spot! Comments are open!)

Periodically we like to host a casual get-together online chat event that we call Open Comments.

It’s an opportunity for us to bring people right into our Tourism Currents “house”, enjoy good company and happily allow a bit of free…yes, it’s true!….brain-picking.

The topic on 7 Dec is Fixing Problems – we have some hammers and by golly, we’re looking for your nails. Stuff like….

**  Integrating social communications into your daily workflow.

**  Ideas for getting more out of the photos, blog posts, etc. that you’re already creating.

**  Getting some buzz going for that New Year’s event you’re running.

**  How to get buy-in for social media from the boss or Board.

**  How the whole SEO/social media thing fits together.

**  What to do if you get negative feedback (or just plain nutball people) on your Facebook Page, your blog, your tweet stream, etc.

Here’s how it works: you add your comments right on this post down below and hit Refresh in your browser to see updates. It’s a conversation held in the Comments section. If you like Twitter chats like #tourismchat, you’ll love this.

Even More #Awesomesauce

Open House & 20% Off in Our Store

Yes, we’re blowing the doors open and letting you in to explore our social media for tourism online course - an Intro plus six multi-part lessons - for free.

The normal pay wall will be disabled for two days only, Wednesday and Thursday, December 7 and 8. Come on in, kick the tires and see how we can help you feel more confident in telling your story online.  We’re even offering guided tours on the hour on Thursday, Dec 8 from 1 pm to 4 pm Central time, using a Google Hangout.

If you like what you find – and we think you will – you can also get 20% off of any item during our online Store sale through Friday, December 9.  The promo code is “Sheila” – hey, we keep things simple.

This is for those who don’t know what our course is about, or who may be wondering whether there’s enough value in a six-week course specifically focused on social media for tourism, with us as your guides (um, we’d say there sure is, but maybe we’re biased….)

The pay wall for the course goes back up after December 8, though, so don’t miss the open window!

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Have you connected with us in your favorite places? If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter. Say hi to Tourism Currents on….

• Our Facebook Page – we love your comments.
• Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
• Our LinkedIn Company profile – follow us.
• Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics!
• Our Delicious bookmarks on tourism – great research tool.
• Our YouTube channel – video about and from the tourism industry.

Don’t miss these goodies, either:

• Our free Idea Book download.
• The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
• ….And the online course in social media for tourism that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.

One more month to go in the year….how are things shaping up for you so far?

Back in January, we said that this would be the year than many would get serious about social media marketing for tourism.

If the attendance numbers and smart questions at this fall’s tourism tech conferences are any indication, we appear to have been correct.

So, you’ve either already been serious about telling your story online for awhile, or you recently made the leap into some sort of social communication channel (you started a Facebook Page, or a blog, perhaps.) The more you get into it, though, the more you realize that something has to give with regard to workflow and time management, and deciding where to put more effort and where to put less.

We brought back some Tourism track communications ideas and streamlined content creation tips from BlogWorld in the newsletter below, but don’t forget that we also have help for you in the Two Pages of Terrific downloads section of our online Store of educational products. There’s a two-pager on finding time for social media, and another on creating more content in less time.

Affordable answers, right here.

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Promoting Your Event During Your Event:

Content Creation in Real Time

At BlogWorld Expo, Eric Berto from Waggener Edstrom Worldwide gave tips on how to create content “on the fly” as it is happening. While Berto acknowledged that real time coverage is impossible, he said that nearly real time is possible, with good systems.

Tip 1:   Having a style guide makes it easier to create content quickly. Create the outlines you’ll use over and over. Prepare ahead of time. Know what style, what voice you’ll be using.

Tip 2:  Know your audience. Also, know what devices they use. Knowing what audience you are targeting with your content makes it easier to create content. You’d tell the story differently to your grandmother than to your peers at work. Make sure you know who you are creating this content for.

Tip 3.  Know what success looks like. Why are you going to the effort of doing this work? There is something you want to achieve, and you have to know what it is, before you can reach it. Berto suggested a question they use at W-E: what is the business problem we are trying to solve? Include a call to action. You can’t measure and track your success until you know what it looks like.

For a toolkit to help with real time content creation, stop by http://bit.ly/BWErealtalk.

It includes links to an editorial calendar, writing tools and many measurement tools you might not have thought of.

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Shoestring Budget / Minimal Time Video Tips

From excellent BlogWorld and SoMeT presentations on shooting video with limited time and a small budget, by Brian Matson from the Fargo (ND)-Moorhead (MN) CVB:

—->>  Make videos short and snappy. Limit your shots and the editing process will go a lot faster.

—->>  Try to shoot one video per week and take no more than about an hour to do it. This will force you to make some super-short ones (30-45 seconds) and will train you in working rapidly.

—->>  Get a digital audio recorder, and conduct brief interviews with the owners/operators of your local attractions, hotels, restaurants, etc. Many times they’ll be a lot more relaxed about being recorded than about being on video. Use the audio as voice-over for video clips that you shoot around their property.

—->>  Huge bonus – visits to your local attractions to shoot video of their offerings is a golden opportunity to build partner/member relationships.

Here’s the presentation as it was given at SoMeT, very similar to his BlogWorld version. WELL worth your time to watch!

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Your Smartphone – A Timesaving Content Production Machine

Let us count the ways….

**  Tweets on the fly, including photos

**  Facebook Page updates on the fly, including photos

**  Audio updates with a service like Cinch.fm

**  Short videos shot with the phone, like those made by Tom Martin for Talking With Tom – strike while the iron’s hot!

**  Livestreaming video to the web with a service like Qik.

Also remember to periodically act as a visitor would, and do some local searches using your phone, including trying to navigate your own website. Are things easy to find? Does your Event Calendar work well on a mobile device?

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Get More From Location-Based Services

Here’s how you can fit location-based service updates into your busy life….

A single visit content bonanza:  go to one of your locally-owned partner/member restaurants, check in on Foursquare and leave a tip, add them to your ongoing Foursquare List of local eateries, upload a photo of a favorite dish to Foodspotting, shoot a quick video of the chef making something and then take a few photos of the interior, exterior and waitstaff/owner.

Voilà: mega content!

From the 17 November #tourismchat on Twitter (one of the most valuable professional development hours you can spend, we think) here are some examples of good uses of location-based services:

—->>  Visit Savannah’s Craft Beer in Savannah Foursquare List.

—->>   Visit Baltimore’s Foursquare Page.

—->>   Visit Philly’s Foodspotting list of great Philadelphia hoagie sandwiches.

—->>   The Japanese Food Scene in Columbus, Ohio (brand-new on Foodspotting!)

And here’s another resource on location-based services:  Location-Based Marketing for Dummies by Aaron Strout and Mike Schneider.

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Have you connected with us in your favorite places? If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter. Say hi to Tourism Currents on….

• Our Facebook Page – we love your comments.
• Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
• Our LinkedIn Company profile – follow us.
• Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics!
• Our Delicious bookmarks on tourism – great research tool.
• Our YouTube channel – video about and from the tourism industry.

Don’t miss these goodies, either:

• Our free Idea Book download.
• The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
• ….And the online course in social media for tourism that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.

We’re all only human, wanting those magic beans.

Magic beans to lose weight. Magic beans to make money. Magic beans to be more organized.

And don’t even get us started on magic marketing beans, especially online.

How hard could it be, right? Start up a Facebook Page, blab some on Twitter, shoot a few videos, say a lot of stuff like “viral” and “paradigm” and “join the conversation” and “ROI” and…. excuse us while we go punch a wall.

Connecting with humans and building genuine relationships – that is hard work, and if you are doing that to build knowledge of or interest in your destination/attraction, it may take a long time to see an actual “head in bed” hit the pillow. It’s the nature of the business in tourism and hospitality.

We’ve never glossed over that in our online education offerings or our speaking engagements: there are NO magic beans.

This is why we love our lineup of presenters for this year’s BlogWorld and New Media Expo Tourism track;  these are real people – genuine experts/gurus/ninjas – working hard to make their towns more visible online through smart ideas, trial and error, triumphs and a love for other people, including their wonderful visitors, customers and guests.

No beans.

Just for you.

Will we see you there?

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How to Avoid Missing BlogWorld

Not going to BlogWorld Expo this year would be a mistake. You would miss out on:

• A full track of tourism-specific sessions
• A few thousand bloggers and online publishers you want to meet
• Access to consultants and vendors who do the things you need done

Four How-To Tourism and Hospitality Sessions

Key Points:

1. With Foodspotting, destination marketers are able to look beyond Facebook and Twitter to connect with consumers in new ways and to better promote the destination’s food scene to people already looking for good food.
2. Social photography engages residents and visitors both online and offline (in “real life”!). Photo walks are a powerful way to do that; in fact, LA, Inc. is organizing a BlogWorld Photo Walk on November 2, starting in the Millennium Biltmore Hotel lobby. Follow on #WeWalkLA

When: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm (PDT) Saturday, Nov 5, Room 150C

Avoid Missing Out

You can avoid missing all that in one of three ways:

1. Pick up a one-day pass.

Most of the tourism sessions are on Thursday, and one-day passes are only $377 (and you can use our discount code TC20 for 20% off). If you can get yourself to LA, it makes terrific sense to attend live and in person. Register online at the BlogWorld Expo site.

The full access pass is a better deal, if you can swing the $1,297. (Hey, take 20% off that, too, with TC20.)

2. Skip the travel with a Virtual Ticket

The “BlogWorldExpo Virtual Ticket” includes video recordings of all four of the tourism sessions listed here and over 100 additional sessions. BlogWorld has added a bunch of extras to the Virtual Ticket to make it feel as close to “being there” as is possible when you’re at home in front of your computer.

You get the essence of BlogWorld even though you can’t be there in person. Check out the BlogWorldExpo Virtual Ticket program (and here’s a post on how to seriously rock the BlogWorld Virtual Ticket.)

3. Really have zero budget? Invest your time in following the hashtag: #BWELA on Twitter.

It’s not the same as being there, and it’s not the same as a virtual ticket that gives you recordings, but it is a chance to catch the short-and-sweet highlights from those attending.

We really appreciate that BlogWorld’s founder Rick Calvert trusted us to launch the first-ever Tourism track at BlogWorld last year.

It’s exciting that we’re back this year – we hope you can join us in person, virtually or at a minimum, on the hashtag.

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Have you connected with us in your favorite places? If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter. Say hi to Tourism Currents on….

• Our Facebook Page – we love your comments.
• Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
• Our LinkedIn Company profile – follow us.
• Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics!
• Our Delicious bookmarks on tourism – great research tool.
• Our YouTube channel – video about and from the tourism industry.

Don’t miss these goodies, either:

• Our free Idea Book download.
• The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
• ….And the online course in social media for tourism that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.

Do you ever wish that there were two or three of you to get everything done?

Mercy, we do, too (and really, who doesn’t?)

We think that “work smarter, not harder” is one of those annoying clichés that sounds good until you realize that you’re already a smart person who is working hard, and there is no more blood in the turnip.

There is, however, one way to ensure that at least what you are doing online can spread further – learn to think like an online publisher.

Every single piece of content that you create can go to more than one place, and it will reach different audiences when you do so, especially when you stagger the publication timing.

The photo that you see is of the two of us plus friend and supporter Cody Heitschmidt at the 140 Characters Conference SmallTown tech event in Hutchinson, Kansas on September 20.  As people, the three of us can accomplish so much more when each of us multiplies the others’ efforts. Meantime, all of the blog posts, photos, video, Foursquare/Gowalla checkins, tweets, etc. that were created before, during and after the conference are often doing double and triple communications duties.

Let’s talk about how….

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Make Once, Use More Than Once

Whenever you create something, start thinking about where else you can use it. Remember, you’re an online publisher with multiple platforms at your disposal, and they have worldwide, 24-hour-a-day reach. You’re a media titan!

Let’s take photos, for example.

If you take a really good photo, always ask these questions:

1 )  Can this, along with a few descriptive sentences, become a stand-alone blog post?

2 )  Can this, along with a few descriptive sentences and tagging of both the people and the organizations represented in it, become a Facebook Page status update?

Note:  if you can’t tag a photo on Facebook that is sent from your phone (the various apps and Facebook mobile site are not always very user-friendly or capable) then post the information untagged and go back in later on a computer and simply Edit the photo to add tags as desired.

3 )  Can this be shared on Twitter using photo-sharing services like TwitPic or YFrog?

4 )  Can this go up on a Flickr photo-sharing page? Can it also be added to any Flickr Group Pools that you’ve joined (like, oh, the Tourism Currents Flickr Group Pool where we share cool destination/attraction pics?)

5 )  Can this go into a rotating gallery of photos on a website?

6 )  Can this, if taken with a phone, be added to checkin services, i.e., attached to a Spot in one of Gowalla’s Guides or to a Place on Foursquare?

7 ) Can this be added to a custom Google Map of your area, as we discussed in our Idea Fair free webinar?

See?

Think like the publisher you are.

This is an excerpt of 7 of 9 photo suggestions from our latest Two Pages of Terrific – “Create Once, Use Many Times – How to Think Like an Online Publisher.”  It’s one of several quick, snappy educational solutions that we offer for download. If you like it, there’s more where that came from in our Tourism Currents online Store!

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 Blog Mentions

It’s great to see more and more tourism and hospitality organizations starting a blog, which is a superb way to keep rolling out fresh multimedia content. If the blog is part of your domain name, it also brings huge SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits.

Most importantly, if it is on your domain, YOU own and fully control it, not Facebook or Google.

Drop by, wave hello and leave a comment with these folks:

**  8 Great Towns (Hamilton County, Indiana)

**  Walla Walla, Washington

**  Roger Smith Life from the Roger Smith Hotel, New York City

**  The Fox Cities blog (18 Fox River communities in Wisconsin)

**  In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas (a big birding destination, among other things) the McAllen TX blog

**  State of Kansas tourism

Hey, we know we’ve missed some up-and-comers, so please speak your mind and tell us your favorites down in the comments.

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Great Educational Content Plus Thousands of Bloggers:

That’s BlogWorld & New Media Expo, Los Angeles CA Nov 3-5

We are getting REALLY excited about our Tourism track offerings at BlogWorld West in LA in November.

Want some details on our speakers and sessions? Here you go….

**  Social Photography: A Picture is Worth 140 Characters

Whether it’s food, architecture, people or attractions that best represent your destination, a photo is the most simple and effective way of promoting it via social media. Learn best practices in social photo sharing (including Foodspotting and photowalks) then try it yourself in an interactive forum.

Speakers:  Caroline Bean, National Media Relations / Social Media at Greater Philadelphia (PA) Tourism Marketing Corporation, and Bill Karz, Director, Online Marketing at LA INC / Los Angeles (CA) Convention & Visitors Bureau

**  Budget? What Budget? One-Person Social Media Marketing with Zero Money

Are you a single-person marketing department who is operating on a shoestring, yet you still want your destination, attraction, lodging or restaurant to be discovered and visited by travelers? Here’s how to do it with the same 24 hour day that the “big boys” have.

Speakers:  Doug Anweiler, Vice President at Authentic Seacoast Resorts, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Leslie McLellan, Director of Marketing and Tourism for Lake Arrowhead, CA

**  You May Not Win an Oscar, But Your Videos Won’t Stink, Either

Ready to start, or up your game, in online video? Learn what sort of basic equipment you’ll need, how to handle lighting and audio, how to “think like a videographer” with storyboarding and visual storytelling tips, and finally how video can rock your SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) Some hands-on time will be included for you to practice.

Speaker:  Brian Matson, Marketing Director at Fargo (ND) – Moorhead (MN) Convention & Visitors Bureau

**  Fitting It All In: How to Integrate Social Media Campaigns with Your Overall Marketing Strategy

Short-term social media campaigns are a lot of wheel-spinning unless they are designed to meld with and support an overall strategy and larger goals. Don’t get caught up in the unfocused pursuit of Facebook Page Likes and Twitter followers; let’s discuss how tactics/short campaigns can support your entire marketing effort, digital and non-digital.

Speaker:  Shanna Smith Snyder, Director of Communication at Abilene (TX) Convention & Visitors Bureau

Doesn’t all of that sound amazing? We think so, too!

Get more info and register on our BlogWorld Tourism track info page, and see you in the City of Angels November 3-5.

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Have you connected with us in your favorite places? If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter. Say hi to Tourism Currents on….

• Our Facebook Page – we love your comments.
• Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
• Our LinkedIn Company profile – follow us.
• Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics!
• Our Delicious bookmarks on tourism – great research tool.
• Our YouTube channel – video about and from the tourism industry.

Don’t miss these goodies, either:

• Our free Idea Book download.
• The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
• ….And the online course in social media for tourism that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.

Late-breaking news….tonight (11 Sept at 8 pm CST) we are going to be hosting one of the biggest, most active Twitter chats….#Blogchat!

Run by social media strategist, trainer and speaker Mack Collier, it’s a fast-paced hour of discussion on Twitter about the topic of blogging. The hosts rotate or if there isn’t a host, it’s “open mic.”

We’ll host #Blogchat with our personal Twitter names @SheilaS and @BeckyMcCray (although I’m sure each of us tweeting as @TourismCurrents will also chime in periodically.)

The topic is blogger connections - we’ve discussed this previously in our Online Champions webinar – and will include:

1 – How do bloggers that have publishing and content-creation skills find companies and organizations that are looking to hire them?  And when they do find the companies, how do bloggers pitch themselves?

2 – How do companies and organizations that want to hire content creators find them AND how do they vet their skills?  Also, how do they determine an acceptable compensation rate?

Go to Twitter’s search engine and type in the hashtag #Blogchat a bit before 8 pm Central; you’ll see the hashtagged tweets already rolling. Jump into the Q&A with your thoughts!

The chat moves quickly, so if you already have a Twitter account you may want to try a more powerful tool to keep up - TweetChat, created by our Texas-based friend Brooks Bennett. You log in with your Twitter account, put in the #Blogchat hashtag and you can see everything auto-refresh. If it gets too crazy, there’s a Refresh Speed tab with a slider so you can pick a slower refresh rate.

Hope you can join us!

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Have you connected with us in your favorite places?

If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter.

Say hi to Tourism Currents on….

• Our Facebook Page – we love your Likes and comments.
• Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
• Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics!
• Our Delicious bookmarks on tourism – great research tool.
• Our YouTube channel – yay! for video.

Don’t miss these goodies, either:

• Our free Idea Book download.
• Our free Idea Fair webinar plus course Open House demo.
• The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
• ….And the online course in social media for tourism that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.

(You’re in the right place!)

Every once in a while we like to throw open the doors and have a little party at our place, and since September 9 is the 2nd Anniversary of the day we launched Tourism Currents, this week is a time for celebrating!

We were inspired by Liz Strauss’ world-famous Open Mic and Open Comments nights on her Successful Blog (where Becky and Sheila first met, come to think of it) so here’s a chance to hang out, chat and get smarter about tourism, hospitality, economic development and social media.

The topic is Back to School – tell us what you learned on your summer vacation, bring something to Show and Tell, or ask us and the crowd that one question about something you really need some help with – we want you to leave the chat and connect better online right away with your visitors and customers.

But because it’s a conversation among friends, we’re bound to get off topic….and that’s OK!

Here’s how it works: you add your comments right on this post down below and hit Refresh in your browser to see updates. It’s a conversation held in the Comments section. If you like Twitter chats and #tourismchat, you’ll love this.

More good news:  we’re also going to host a free webinar this Thursday, September 8 at 2 pm CST – it’s an Idea Fair of helpful tips and guidance plus an Open House for our online course, so you can go behind the scenes and see for yourself what our multi-part lessons look like and all the great stuff your peers and friends are learning about using social media to tell their stories to the world.

Go here to sign up for the Thursday Idea Fair webinar – thanks!

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Have you connected with us in your favorite places?

If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter.

Say hi to Tourism Currents on….

• Our Facebook Page – we love your Likes and comments.
• Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
• Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics!
• Our Delicious bookmarks on tourism – great research tool.
• Our YouTube channel – yay! for video.

Don’t miss these goodies, either:

• Our free Idea Book download.
• The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
• ….And the online course in social media for tourism that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.

What others often call “blogger outreach,” we like to call “finding your online champions” …. people who love your town as much as you do, but probably have no idea what goes on at a CVB, DMO,  Tourist Board or hotel/lodging organization.

See, the word “blogger” doesn’t always encompass all of the ways that people create and publish online content.

Too much focus on finding bloggers means that you are missing all sorts of people – including those right under your nose in your own town – who might support your destination or attraction in many other ways:

**  Facebook photos, videos, tags or status updates

**  YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Ustream or Qik videos

**  Cinchcast, Audioboo or BlogTalkRadio audio and podcasts

**  Tweets, including video and photos posted on Twitter

**  Gowalla, Foursquare or Facebook Places checkins and photos (including the ones that are shared on Twitter and Facebook)

**  Yelp or Google Places reviews

**  Reviews (hopefully thumbs up) on StumbleUpon

**  Good old-fashioned forums, bulletin boards and email

**  Helping your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by linking to your content

Read on for more ideas!

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When Becky spoke at the Revitalize Washington conference about finding and connecting with online champions, the audience was made up of people from towns of all sizes. A quick survey of the room showed that they understood the power of online conversation to drive visits.

While they were thinking of ways to get more online mentions from strangers, however, many of them had overlooked the power of their existing champions. It turns out that all of them knew of people who either live in their town now, used to live there but are now scattered across the globe, or had family connections in town/were regular visitors like snowbirds, and on top of that were also active online.

A quick search of town names in directories like Twellow and Local Tweeps turned up powerful online publishers that the locals had not connected with (or maybe just not yet, but Becky thinks they headed straight over to do that right after her session.)

One of the most obvious places to look for your existing online champions?  Your website and blog comments, your Facebook comments, people who connect with you on Twitter, your YouTube channel subscribers and even your Flickr friends.

How about your existing email newsletter list? Many email service providers will go through your list data and tell you where your subscribers have social media accounts. MailChimp, for example, calls it Social Pro and will layer publicly available social network information onto your list.  Why not offer something special to your newsletter people who are also big Facebook-ers or photography enthusiasts on Flickr?

If you listen, your champions are out there talking. It’s your opportunity to listen and connect.

Worth remembering from the last time we talked extensively about online champions, in our Jan 2010 newsletter:

Let’s get one thing straight:  there can certainly be a mutually beneficial relationship here, but don’t view local bloggers as another broadcast funnel for your marketing (like buying a TV spot or newspaper advertorial blow-in.) Bloggers are not interested in being anyone’s mouthpiece …. and we say that as fiercely independent bloggers ourselves.

Notice that two of your three prospective outreach “local” subjects (the ones who used to live there, or who come back regularly because of family ties or the seasons) may not be located anywhere near you; they may be across the International Date Line or in an opposite hemisphere.

No, we haven’t forgotten how to read a map, but we know that the social Web lets you leap geographic boundaries. Your most effective online champions may live halfway across the globe, but if they have an Internet connection, it does not matter.

One more thing ….

Don’t just look for travel bloggers. We know it’s a tough habit to break from the old days of trying to get attention from travel magazines/newspaper sections and travel writers, but the Web is a lot bigger than that. You simply want people who love what you offer and know how to network and connect, and that includes food bloggers (maybe your equivalent of Austin’s Taco Journalism,) wired history buffs, crafting or quilting fanatics or fans of microbreweries.

PS Some of the best analysis we’ve read lately about blogger/brand relationships comes from the fashion industry. Take a look at this from Fashionably Marketing – How To Fix the Broken Relationships Between Bloggers and Brands.

Want even more help plugging into the online publishing world?

We offer an on-demand webinar – Finding Your Online Champions - a recording plus slides that covers:

**  Resources and guidance for sifting and finding the right sort of online publishers among the thousands out there

**   Tools and techniques for evaluating whether someone is a good fit to work with you

**  How to best approach and connect with bloggers and other champions of interest to you

**  Why outreach to niche online publishers and smaller audiences may reap bigger dividends for you than trying to chase high-traffic sites and worrying about Klout scores.

Additionally, an individual module from our online course, Lesson 4 – Building Your Online Champions Network discusses this topic in considerable detail.  Yes, we now offer our lessons for individual sale in addition to our full six-week course.

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Have you connected with us in your favorite places?

If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter.

Say hi to Tourism Currents on….

• Our Facebook Page – we love your comments.
• Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
• Our LinkedIn Company profile – follow us.
• Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics!
• Our Delicious bookmarks on tourism – great research tool.
• Our YouTube channel – video about and from the tourism industry.

Don’t miss these goodies, either:

• Our free Idea Book download.
• The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
• ….And the online course in social media for tourism that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.

What is the best way to integrate social media into the rest of your communications work?

If we were taking bets on one of the questions that we get more than almost any other these days, it would be that one.

In fact, our new multi-product online education Store has a Two Pages of Terrific download on “Finding Time for Social Media” as you attempt to fit Facebook status updates, tweets and video shoots into your daily routine, and in the near future we’ll probably create more items that address this integration issue.

The good news is that simply talking about integration means that tourism and hospitality professionals are moving away from seeing social media as some mildly freakish, brand-new thing, and are realizing that it is an outgrowth of what they’ve always done: connect with visitors and guests.

Make no mistake, though; the social web is notoriously disinterested in organizational charts, wire diagrams and hair-splitting between marketing and PR.  Visitors want answers to their questions, they want them RIGHT NOW and your job title is the least of their concerns. This means that your entire organization needs to redouble its efforts to provide customer service training across the board, for all members, because these days you never know where someone is going to plug into your CVB, DMO or Tourist Board through a tweet, a Facebook comment, a Flickr photo or a YouTube video.

The right hand MUST talk to the left.

This is a leadership and management challenge, as it has always been since, yes, before even the telegraph or the telephone, much less email and social media.

Integration means that not only must social communication be woven into the fabric of your daily work, it also means that you must bring at least a basic understanding of the tools into your entire office so that you can serve customers more effectively.

Yes, even your Visitor Center volunteers and greeters. Yes, even your 60-something receptionist …. in fact, especially your receptionist, often the first in-person point of contact for queries.

—->  Everyone should know the URL of your website. We wouldn’t state this obvious thing if we didn’t have to. Sigh.

—->  Everyone should know your Facebook Page URL, and know at least what the Page looks like and how it works.

—->  Everyone should know your Twitter handle, and should visit the stream occasionally to see what you’re talking about with visitors.

—->  Everyone should know about your latest blog posts, and be able to direct queries there.

And so on. Get out of the knowledge silos – the social web has no patience for them and neither should you.

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Flummoxed by SEO?

If you are creating content online, you want people to be able to find it. That means optimizing it for search engines, aka Search Engine Optimization, aka SEO.

We can help with that!

Our next Tourism Currents webinar is with Andy Hayes of Travel Online Partners, and it’s all about SEO “for the rest of us.”

Please join us on Tuesday, July 26 at 2 pm CST for a 90 minute webinar plus live Q&A – Tourism SEO Basics: Gaining Traction and Getting Sales.

Of course, the slides and a recording of the webinar will be available for you afterwards, for review or if you can’t make it in person.

Go here for the SEO webinar signup.

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Two days and four ways to make an impact online

We’re continuing preparations for the Tourism track at BlogWorld and New Media Expo in Los Angeles, CA November 3-5, and we’d love to have you join us!

No other event gives you these four incredible opportunities: social media education for you, networking with thousands of bloggers and content creators, contact with the latest social marketing vendors and a connection with the new online audience.

Our confirmed Tourism track speakers for 2011 are:

• Caroline Bean, National Media Relations / Social Media at Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation
• Shanna Smith Snyder, Director of Communication at Abilene (TX) Convention & Visitors Bureau
• Doug Anweiler, Vice President at Authentic Seacoast Resorts
• Brian Matson, Marketing Director at Fargo (ND)-Moorhead (MN) Convention & Visitors Bureau

We will be closely integrated with the Travel track this year, and are also planning “speed dating” sessions so that you can more easily connect with bloggers who might be interested in your destination, attraction or lodging.

Recently announced BlogWorld conference keynote speakers include Peter Shankman and Amber Naslund.

Use our code TC20 for 20% off of the price of any pass, and go here for more info and to register.

****************************************

Have you connected with us in your favorite places?

If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter.

Say hi to Tourism Currents on….

• Our Facebook Page – we love your comments.
• Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
• Our LinkedIn Company profile – follow us.
• Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics!
• Our Delicious bookmarks on tourism – great research tool.
• Our YouTube channel – video about and from the tourism industry.

Don’t miss these goodies, either:

• Our free Idea Book download.
• The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
• ….And the online course in social media for tourism that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.