Do you have great places to eat in your town that visitors might find a bit intimidating or even scary?

“We want to go where the locals go!” say many of your visitors.

Except when they get there, maybe they are uncomfortable about being in a not-very-fancy part of your town, or perhaps they see a rather scruffy exterior that leads them to wonder, “Will I be welcomed inside?” or “Is the food really THAT good in there?”

As destination marketers, we know that it’s easy to show off the “pretty places” but can be trickier to celebrate the equally-wonderful culinary tourism partners who are slightly rougher around the edges.

Maybe they’re in unexpected locations like out at the small town Kansas airport, or they create delicious sandwiches that you buy in the back of a liquor store, or they make awesome fried chicken in gas stations.

This is when you need to shoot video, and plenty of it.

If there was ever a time to “show, don’t tell” it is when marketing your unique, unusual, unexpected places to eat.

Make your visitors feel comfortable, welcomed, and confident that they’ll have a positive experience.

Spread that information across multiple digital marketing platforms, too, to reach a variety of audiences.

Shoot horizontally for regular YouTube, regular Facebook Page posts, and LinkedIn Page Posts.

Shoot vertically for Instagram and Facebook Reels, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube Shorts.

Make it quick, fun, informal, and encouraging. Take away the doubts and worry.

As an example of how to approach this, here is a guy we first learned about at the TBEX conference for travel media – Gerald Gruenig.

Gerald made a name for himself simply by running around Louisiana and enthusiastically eating at all sorts of places.

Look at his quick, fun YouTube Short video about the food at Creole Lunch Box in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana:

Go shoot some video, y’all!

14 Years in Business

It’s true.

Last month (September 2023) we celebrated 14 years in business providing workshops and training in social media and digital marketing for tourism, hospitality, and economic development.

Wooooo!

If we can help you and your staff and your partners to be more effective with your digital tourism marketing, then you will attract more visitors, guests, and customers to your town.

Any problem with that? 😊

We didn’t think so.

It’s still budget season for some of you, so make sure you budget for us.

Here are six different ways that we can work together.

Do you have a unique eatery that needs a little extra marketing love to convince visitors to go there? Let us know about it in the comments.

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We also have 3 free downloads on topics including social media measurement and content repurposing.