January 2011 – get serious about social media marketing for tourism

The punditry has begun – 2011 is the year that people will get serious about marketing with social media!

They’re awake now. Really.

Even as early as spring 2010 there was growth in tourism marketing dollars going to social media. The whole US state of Indiana ramped up their social media marketing in response to budget cuts. The same thing is happening in Las Vegas and Nevada as a whole. Heck, Forbes even said that Florida’s entire tourism industry was saved by social media marketing (using tools like beach videos) in the aftermath of the disastrous BP Gulf oil spill.

Now, we’re gonna put the hammer down and market the heck out of these channels. It’s not new media anymore, so let’s quit being starry-eyed and really get hot (including combining social media and mobile so we can grab people right in their purse or pocket, right?)

Hmmm, not so fast….let’s think about our approach.

Remember when email was new and wondrous and you could communicate with people instantly instead of waiting for the postal carrier? How AWESOME was that?

Today, most people’s email is often stuffed with incoming junk that buries the useful items. They sorta ruined it. It’s become such a grind – a pain in the posterior. It wasn’t all marketers ruining things, mind you; it was also Great Aunt Julie forwarding stupid jokes and coworkers forwarding urban legends without checking them on Snopes first, but still….

It’s as though we’d found a big, open, pristine beach with plenty of room, and now it’s a cheek-by-jowl Coney Island madhouse (with drunks trying to invade our beach blanket….those are the spammers.)

Before social media grows even more, we’d like to plant a flag that the tourism industry, at least, will make every effort not to ruin our visitor’s social media communications by junking it up with excessive and spammy marketing. That’s not what we teach in our Tourism Currents course, and it never will be. It’s a fine line, but we know you know how to walk it.

The Respect the Internet conference last month talked about this subject, and we’re seeing more posts about who really benefits from social media (and a “benefit” is not a pile of marketing shoved in your direction.)

Let’s be careful out there, shall we?

Connect, but thoughtfully and mindfully.

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The Open Mic is Back!

Hey, what are you doing at about 7 pm CST on Tuesday, January 11?

We’re going to have some fun with another online “Open Mic”/Open Comment Night chat here on Tourism Currents – the topic is jumpstarting your 2011.

Remember our tourism tips from the Nov 2010 Black Friday Open Mic?

Yeah, so don’t miss this one. Stop by and chat awhile down in the post’s comments. We’ll remind you about it on Twitter and Facebook, too.

Update:  Here are all the tips and discussions from Open Comment Night – enjoy!

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Integrating Social Media With Current Strategies

Do you have a strategic plan or a marketing plan?

If you do, that’s the place to start with social media. It doesn’t matter whether you are planning for a small business, a tourism group or an economic development organization. You start in the same place.

1. Get out your plan and look over all the goals. Which ones lend themselves to social media? Can you see goals where social media would help?

2. Now, write the action steps that put social media to work on those goals.

For example, if your goal is to become an authority on your niche, your daily action might be to find and tweet five relevant links, or to answer two related questions on LinkedIn.

3. Next, put those action steps on a index card, like a checklist.

4. Finally, set a scheduled time for your social media activity. Maybe the first thing in the morning, or 30 minutes after your lunch. Follow your checklist.

There you go …. a four-step way to integrate social media into your existing plans, and to do it without giving up your entire life to do it.

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Oh, The Humanity!

Have you read the Cluetrain Manifesto? It has been public for ten years, and it’s still relevant and ahead of its time.

Here’s a quick summary, out of the Introduction:

“The idea that business, at bottom, is fundamentally human. That engineering remains second-rate without aesthetics. That natural, human conversation is the true language of commerce. That corporations work best when the people on the inside have the fullest contact possible with the people on the outside.

And most importantly, that however ancient, timeless, and true, these principles are just now resurging across the business world. The triggering event, of course, is the advent of a global communication system that restores the banter of the bazaar, that tears down power structures and senseless bureaucracies, that puts everyone in touch with everyone.”

Isn’t tourism a form of business and commerce? Don’t you think these principles apply to your tourism efforts just as much as any big corporation’s sales?

Tourism hasn’t fully adopted these concepts yet, but then, neither have the corporations who were the original targets.

You can read the whole thing online: http://www.cluetrain.com/book/index.html

Print it out. Nail it to the door of your boss, your CEO, your board president or whoever is holding your group back from moving on this.

What would you put in your tourism manifesto?

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