The social web – its impact amplified and strengthened by the ongoing explosion of mobile communications – is truly a gift for destinations, attractions, hospitality, economic development and businesses that depend upon tourism.

Social media gives you the communications muscle, the power, the platform to tell your story to the entire world, and then invite them to visit you and be a part of that story.

We want to do more to help you succeed with these extraordinary opportunities….teach more, guide more, report back from the future (and the current trenches) more, offer more to teach you what you need to know, when you need to know it.

Today, we’re proud to announce another way for us to do that:  our training team is growing.

We’re thrilled to announce that Leslie McLellan is joining us here at Tourism Currents!

Leslie blogs at Just A Small Town Girl (you know we love that name,) speaks and writes about social communications. Her presentations on no-budget marketing were bit hits at BlogWorld and New Media Expo’s Tourism track, and at two of Jeff Pulver’s 140 Characters Conferences. She has decades of marketing, public relations and communications experience; much of that is in destination marketing, most recently for Lake Arrowhead, California.

She is also bringing additional educational expertise and training materials specifically for small businesses that depend upon tourism for their success; we think this is ideal for the many CVBs and DMOs who know that their members/partners desperately need more information and training in social media, but don’t have the time or resources to do it themselves. We can now help you more with that.

Say hi to Leslie on Twitter at @LeslieMcLellan and at Just A Small Town Girl on Facebook, and watch this one-minute introduction video from our brand-new partner (direct link to Leslie’s video on YouTube.)

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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.

There are so many exciting things going on, we decided to send out a “Special Edition” newsletter to give you a quick update.

If you’d like to connect with Tourism Currents in person (always, um, a lively event!) here’s the scoop:

**  Chicago, IL  –  We’re attending the SOBCon business conference (no, not that kind of SOB….it’s Successful Online Business) at the Summit Executive Center on Michigan Ave, May 4-6.

The conference itself still has a few seats left, but there’s also a SOBCon 2012 kickoff party on Thursday, May 3 sponsored by Social Media Club Chicago, at Loyola University’s Kasbeer Hall, 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm. It’s open to anyone and we’d love to see our Midwest friends there.

Tourism Currents will make a big announcement at SOBCon, but we can’t tell you more than that right now….:)

**  Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia  –  Sheila will speak twice, plus a possible shirtsleeves/hands-on session, at the MITBCA (Malaysia International Tourism Bloggers Conference and Awards), May 8-9.

She’ll discuss how tourism organizations can find and connect with online publishers other than travel bloggers, and how social media can help even the smallest destinations play in the “big time” to reach visitors. At least one day she hopes to work with Tourism Malaysia to explore some of the country for her own blogs and print work.

We’re excited to see more online media events happening in Asia, especially those related to tourism and hospitality. Even better, this event is free – register here for MITBCA 2012.

**  New York, NY  –  Becky and Sheila will speak together on a Podcasting track panel at BlogWorld & New Media Expo East, at the Javits Center in NYC, June 5-7.

They’ll join Mark Tafoya and Jennifer Iannolo from Culinary Media Network to talk about how, with the right content and audience, podcasters and bloggers can work with tourism organizations.

You know we love BlogWorld – we’ve run a Tourism track at two different BlogWorld conferences – but we’ve never been together at the New York one. Becky is also speaking during the concurrent Social Media Business Summit about Small Town Rules: How Big Brands and Small Business Can Prosper in a Connected Economy.

If you’re on the East Coast (or anywhere, really) you should consider attending BlogWorld East 2012 in New York.

**  Keystone, CO  –  Tourism Currents is now a proud sponsor of the TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange) travel blogging conference at the Keystone Resort and Convention Center in Keystone, CO June 15-17.

Sheila spoke at a previous TBEX as a travel blogger, but now she’ll also be wearing her Tourism Currents business hat. We find that more and more, we serve as a unique bridge between the tourism industry and the online publishing worlds, because we understand both of them. More details to follow on our specific sessions.

One of the best ways to meet online publishers is offline, at conferences like TBEX where hundreds of them gather. We hope to see our Rocky Mountain friends at TBEX, plus many others.

Whew!  There’s gonna be some coffee/Red Bull-chugging moments in the next few weeks to power through all this excitement, but we wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Give us a shout at Tourism Currents on Twitter or on our Facebook Page or down in the comments here if we’ll see you in person at one of these events, or somewhere else in the world, and thanks so much for your 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.

"Off with her head!" Happy birthday, Sheila!

Sheila is taking a month off from being our main newsletter author. She spent time traveling with her family and celebrating her birthday. She’s all full of travel-y goodness about West Texas. Just ask her about it.

So I’m at the newsletter helm today, and as weird as it feels to say it, I’m taking this chance to talk about my first book, which just launched. It’s not a tourism book, but it’s perfect for small business and big business folks. And Chapter 7, all about Build Your Local Connections, is very relevant for tourism. If you’re interested, take a look here: Small Town Rules. Thanks for allowing me that short announcement.

We need some executions

In my travels so far this year, I’m seeing a lot of buzz about the latest thing, the Pinterest support groups, and QR codes everywhere. What I’m not seeing a lot of is good execution.

In a world polarized among those enamored with the next new thing and those scared by it, you can stand out by being the one doing:

• quality, well-executed work
• with a few focused tools
• matched to the goal
• and as a part of your overall plans.

That’s enough to keep all of us busy. Sure, play with the new tools to learn them, but remember that visitors are watching.

Let’s take QR codes, for example

I’ve been watching as QR codes spread out into wider use. They make an appearance at almost every event I attend now. But I see very few that are useful.

At a recent meeting, the agendas were paperless, distributed by QR code. Fine idea, but plagued with execution errors:

• The codes were printed on recycled paper and the texture made them hard to scan.
• Neighboring graphics were too close and interfered with scanning, too.
• There was no alternative to the QR codes: no short or long URL attendees could use to locate the agenda.

I got riled up, and I wrote a short guide to avoiding these promotion-killing QR code mistakes. It could come in handy the next time an eager person volunteers, “Hey, you should put a QR code on that!”

What is the plan?

• Not having even a simple strategic marketing plan.
• Not integrating social media as only one part of that plan.
• Setting up Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts and blogs without any particular goal in mind, or metrics to measure success or failure, and then letting them sit unattended for weeks and months.
• Having only one person doing everything social, then when they become ill, or go on vacation, or take another job, nobody else has a clue how to continue.

These are some of the big basic mistakes, and we see them way too often.

We haven’t mentioned the little irritants that happen all the time, too ….

• Not responding to Facebook questions, comments and tags, or blog post comments.
• Not having anyone keep an eye out for “@” mentions on Twitter, especially on weekends or holidays when people are traveling, or at night when they’re out and about in your town.
• Not having helpful things like itineraries on your website, grouped by interest, instead of a data dump alphabetical listing of restaurants and attractions that visitors have to sort through.

It’s so easy to be distracted by the latest shiny object, or what the next town over is doing, but you must stay focused on your strategy and execution of the basics before worrying about anything else. It is critical to your success.

Get your Basics in Line

Truth is, you already know you need to do these things. You need some way to make yourself make them a priority. That could be a trusted peer holding you accountable or a commitment to professional assistance.

If you’d like some help deciding on the best social media services for your destination, attraction or lodging, and then integrating those services into your overall marketing plan, we do offer one-on-one coaching and support packages.

We can help you see your online presence with fresh eyes so you can fix the basics, feel more in control of your communications efforts and be ready to try those new social media tools in a more thoughtful, planned way. We have no agenda other than to give you the knowledge and resources you need to reach the visitors you want; we’ll “teach you to fish” and then get the heck out of your way!

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You know, each month, Sheila lists out ALL our online presences. Instead, let me point out just one…

Need a speaker on social media and tourism? Look no further.

• Our Speaking Page has all our topics.

We’re going to continue our tradition of making the March newsletter a “tourism scouting report” for you, about trends you can use now and what we see over the horizon in social media and technology for destination marketing.

It makes sense because March is SXSWi – South by Southwest Interactive – one of the largest tech and digital media conferences in the world.

We both usually attend, but Becky had a conflicting speaking engagement this year so it was up to Sheila to sift through and glean some insights out of 5 days of panels, keynotes, social events and 20,000 geeks all converging on Austin, Texas.

Here are a few takeaways….

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Impressions From SXSWi 2012 – What’s New

1.)   Have a strategy. Most of the noise is about tactics – and yes, Facebook is a mere tactic, not a strategy – but there is not nearly enough discussion about tying the tactics and tools to an overarching communications PLAN. For too many organizations, even big schmancy ones with fat budgets, the answer to “Why are you in social media?” is “Um, because everyone else is.” Not good enough, sports fans.

(PS. Yes, we know that it seems incredible that something as basic as strategy has gone out the window. Trust us: for many, it has.)

And ROI?  One SXSWi panel practically blew up on the topic of how to measure the ROI of social media. Yes, you need a return of some sort on the time/money investments that you make in social communications. You need a return on ANY investment, right? Decide on a goal or goals that you want to achieve. Decide on how social media might move you toward those goals. Measure whether it does or not. There’s your ROI.

2.)   Visuals matter. The crazy-fast growth of digital bulletin board Pinterest in tourism demonstrates the power of imagery. Does that mean you must run like a headless chicken to set up a Pinterest account, “because everyone else is?” No. It means that you do need to spend more time thinking about how images can best showcase your destination, though.

You can do this right now, as you build your home base website and blog; always be thinking how to incorporate photos and/or video into your storytelling.

For example, Sheila’s travel blog post about the Carpet of Flowers in Brussels, Belgium is mostly a photo, with only a few explanatory lines of text. That’s fine – why go on and on using text to talk about flowers when a photo is so much more effective?

3.)   All kinds of services and connections are growing out of knowing where we are, via the GPS in our mobile devices.  What restaurants are near us, via “social discovery apps” like Yelp and Foodspotting. What hotels are near us when we wander into a strange town late at night. What gas stations are near us on road trips.

Location is important. Local search is important. Don’t let things like apparently silly badges and Mayorships on Foursquare blind you to the reality of the magic lantern of mobile for your visitors and guests.

4.)  Just because you can market to people in the middle of their online social life doesn’t mean you should.

If you are tired of sales pitches, spammy intrusions and exhortations to “vote for our _____ in the _____ contest!”, then so are your visitors and customers.

Be sensitive to that fatigue. There are plenty of folks who are not, and buying into social web hype without thinking it through will bite them.

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What Still Works

You already know the hard part: how to tell compelling stories about your town.

How to get people excited about what you can offer.

How to make people feel welcome.

How to answer questions and give directions and listen to feedback.

Websites, email, social media tools – they are all another way to be hospitable, and that still works.

There is nothing….nothing….coming out of any tech conference that will change that.

You may need a little training and education in using some of the new digital tools, but being hospitable? You can do that in your sleep.

What’s “new and exciting” is that the tools are largely free, very powerful and have worldwide reach across many demographics.

Are budgets tight? Do you need to reach new visitors? Social media can be one answer to these problems.

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In a Nutshell: Why Tech & Social Media Help Tourism

After a great day at Dell Headquarters participating in their SXSW Unconference event, Sheila had a few pithy words about Tourism Currents and social communications in this video:

Direct link to the video in case you can’t see the embed box below.

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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.

Two items were up for bids at a silent auction fundraiser for a tourism industry association.

Item One  –  a donated quarter page, full color ad in the Sunday Travel section of a major metropolitan newspaper. Minimum bid: $3,600. The ad’s retail value was listed as $10,500. For one ad. Running one day. In print only, in a paper with 30% of its readership online (as of 2010; it’s no doubt grown since then.)

Item Two  –  a donated seat in our online course in social media for tourism, the full support version with Intro module, six multi-part lessons, videos on best practices, summary checklist plus seven 30-minute phone or Skype sessions with one of us throughout the course. Minimum bid: $320. Retail value is $1100. Attendees can take the course at their pace and have immediate access to all the lessons, plus connecting with the two of us for questions and feedback.

Money changes hands in both transactions, and both items raise funds for the tourism association’s causes, but which purchase is a better deal for the buyer? Which one enriches the CVB, DMO or hospitality buyer most directly?

The Power of You and Your Knowledge

We are not saying that an ad buy is a waste of money (we just ran a successful ad campaign ourselves, for our Facebook Page.)  There are lots of ways to build an integrated marketing plan that can include advertising. We also know that people have wildly varying agendas for silent auction purchases.

Let’s consider in general, however, why spending some money and time on training for yourself (and/or the staff in your town or attraction or hotel) is not a nice-to-have. It is a necessity these days to keep up with the pace of change.

It is not a question of whether you can learn to be a more effective social communicator. Of course you can. You know your town better than anyone. The social web lets you tell your story to the whole world. Don’t be intimidated by the tech-based tools….blogs, Facebook, YouTube, whatever….they are not nearly as important as your friendly, welcoming voice.

And yes, it only takes one knowledgeable, enthusiastic person to keep a destination top of mind with visitors and at the forefront of the industry.  One woman in Lake Arrowhead, California. One man in Guysborough, Nova Scotia. One woman in Faro, Yukon. One guy and his woodchipper in Fargo, North Dakota.

Make Your Money Work For YOU

We do wonder, though, why some people are willing to spend a minimum of a $3600 for a one-day shot at getting in front of possible visitors, but they are reluctant to fork over $320 to help themselves and their organization navigate the biggest change in communications since websites and the printing press.

Part of the answer, of course, is that we are all human.

It is easier to spend money on the print ads that you’ve always bought and that no one really questions (“No one ever got fired for buying IBM“) than it is to spend money and personal time on something that you know is critically important, but is competing for your attention with ringing phones, piles of email, preps for that upcoming festival, meetings and oh, the need for some sleep occasionally.

But you must invest in yourself and what you know. You must think long-term. The visibility of your destination, attraction or hotel depends on it.

Feed your head.   Our help is right here, 24/7, in any timezone.

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See Your Place Through Fresh Eyes, Like a Visitor

To improve your visitor or guest experience, it’s important to be able to see your destination, attraction or lodging with fresh eyes.

Want to know how they experience your town with a mobile device, for example?  BE the visitor. Load up a vehicle with 3 staffers, each carrying a different type of smartphone or tablet, and drive into your town from the outside as though you’ve never been there.

Start with the basics.  Do the highway signs make sense? Is it clear how to get downtown, to your attractions and to your Visitor Center?

Then, have everyone pull out his or her phone or tablet.  Do simple local searches on each device’s browser, for the information that visitors want  -  ”restaurants in XYZ,” “places to eat in XYZ,” “hotels in XYZ,” “things to do in XYZ.”  What comes up?  Do the results make sense? Local search is changing the travel game, but you have to see what the traveler sees to know what needs to be done to improve the information they get.

There are many other ways to see things anew.

Try the Kansas Sampler Foundation 8 Rural Culture Elements  –  Architecture, Art, Commerce, Cuisine, Customs, Geography, History, People  -  as a guideline for discovering your town as a visitor might discover it.

Read this excellent post by S. Anthony Iannarino, on how to keep the beginner’s mind and why it will keep you (and your visitor/guest experience) from getting stale and ineffective.

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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.

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.