Individual Lessons

Skip down to the lesson you need:

• Introduction Lesson – You don’t have to be an expert to get started
• Lesson 1: How to Listen – Find & respond to the conversations that matter
• Lesson 2: Building a Home Base – Much more than just your website
• Lesson 3: Intro to Outposts – Building out those social networks to bring more visitors
• Lesson 4: Building Your Online Champions Network – The ones who stick up for you online & tell others about you
• Lesson 5: Promoting Special Events – Key to tourism
• Lesson 6: New Ways To Do Tours – Move beyond those tour brochures

You don’t have to be an expert to get started. These lessons and videos help you understand and escalate your tourism efforts. This is an excellent lesson to share with board members and others who need a boost to “get it.”

• What is this social media stuff, and who cares?
• Explaining blogs and Twitter
• Explaining Facebook, photo-sharing platforms, and YouTube
• Video: How a city gets started in social media
• Video: How a communications director monitors Twitter
• Video: The benefits of photo-sharing

Back to lesson list…

How big are your listening ears? If you don’t know what’s being said, you can’t respond or track your online reputation. And just like a party, it makes sense to listen for a while before you jump in to the conversation.

• Google listening tools
• Listening on Twitter and Facebook
• More free and paid listening services
• Improve and refine your listening
• How to respond to what you hear
• Video: How @SeattleMaven monitors Twitter for Seattle tourism
• Video: Morning coffee with @SeattleMaven

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Your home base can be much more than your website. See how better images, video, audio, and a blog can make your presence as welcoming as home to your visitors.

• Tips for a better website
• Building a better blog
• You’ve started a blog, now what?
• Why you probably need a Facebook Page
• Using images, video, and audio to enhance your home base
• Video: Blogging lessons learned from Sheila

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If you have a solid home base, you can start reaching out into other social networks; what we call outposts. You’ve heard so much about Twitter, Instagram, and online video – how do you make them really work in tourism?

• Twitter for tourism: why and how, and an introduction
• Twitter starter pack: ideas for two weeks of tweets
• Best ways to use social photography like Instagram
• Best ways to get started shooting video
• Other outpost services you can use to reach visitors
• LinkedIn for destination marketing
• Video: How the Lynchburg, Virginia CVB uses outpost sites

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Time to build up an army of people online who can be your champions. You already have people who love your destination; now it’s a matter of helping them to share that love even more.

In a world where half of all Facebook users say they have made vacation plans based on friends’ photos, your online champions matter!

• Where do you find your online champions? (blogger and influencer outreach)
• Building stronger online relationships
• Bringing online relationships offline
• Easy ways for champions and influencers to help your destination marketing
• Videos: Learning to navigate the blogosphere, with PR expert Kami Huyse
• More videos with Kami: strategies for finding and pitching bloggers

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Special events are so important in destination marketing. How can you best get those events noticed online – where your audience is growing – and reach more visitors? How do you build excitement early, keep it up during the event, and then sustain that buzz afterward? Lesson includes a social media promotion checklist for events.

• Building up to your event
• Social media promotion during events
• Keeping the sharing & excitement going all year
• Video (all with events expert Penny Reeh): Facebook promotion for a special event
• Video:  Mobile tech for festivals
• Video:  Using social media to crowdsource an event

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You already have tour ideas and itineraries sitting around in old brochures and maps. Let’s take those online, and reach a lot more visitors with technology. Best of all, you’re taking advantage of content you probably already have.

• Audio tours and programming
• Video tours and basic video techniques
• Getting mobile-friendly (do you really need an app?)
• Connect to the web with your personal (fam/press) tours
• Interview with Pam Mandel: Better blogger/PR relationships and press trips

Back to lesson list…

Remember, each lesson includes:

• Not just a few paragraphs, but several pages of core content, often with video or audio included to help you get the important concepts.
• All the examples are straight from the tourism industry. None of this is generic.
• Each lesson includes interviews with experts in social media and tourism.
• You’ll get a takeaway/checklist document to keep you focused and moving forward.
• You can share ideas in the comments section on each page. Ask us questions there, plus see how other folks are doing it.
• Our customers also get an invitation to our private Our Town Matters Facebook Group.
• Access to the course material and the Group never expire.

Full Course

Want it all? You save money by buying the full course all at once. It includes all six lessons, plus an introduction lesson. All for $649.

Payment Methods

Add as many lessons as you like to your cart, then view your cart and check out. You’ll get emails confirming your new username and password, and getting you started with your new lessons.

PayPal plus all major credit cards accepted.

Yes, we remember how to do paper. For assistance with government purchase orders or other payment methods, please use the contact form to start the process.