Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

After our great experience holding the 140 Characters Conference Small Town in the restored Fox Theatre in Hutchinson, Kansas, I began thinking about how small towns with the right timing, venue, networks and entrepreneurial spirit can host more tech- and social media-related events.

The result of my musings was an article I wrote for the January 2011 issue of PCMA Convene (the magazine for the Professional Convention Management Association) and a guest post on the PCMA blog: “Small-Town, Not Small-Time.”

An excerpt from the post:

“Some tips on using a small town venue for digital gatherings:

1) Don’t make assumptions about which places can and can’t host. The 140 Characters conferences, for example, “are usually and most effectively held in theaters; in fact, the very first one in New York was based on the idea of [a Twitter-like] one hundred and forty characters gathering together in an off-Broadway theater,” said SmallTown’s lead organizer Becky McCray, who has also spoken at 140 Conferences in London and Detroit. “All we had to do was bring WiFi (wireless Internet) into Hutchinson’s Fox Theatre, and it was perfect.”

For the rest of the tips, see the full article about how an Art Deco theater hosted a bunch of modern geeks, in “Small-Town, Not Small-Time.”

So many small towns and rural areas fight the image of being backward, and they find it tough to draw and hold onto talent.  The web and social media changes that, and consequently can have a big impact on economic development.

For more on that, keep an eye on the next 140 Conference Small Town, again in Hutchinson, on September 20, 2011.

So simple, so straightforward, but I don’t see it often enough.

Integrate your on- and off-line destination marketing efforts. Make sure that people can find you, wherever you have a presence.

This card is the brainchild of Sarah Page, a Texas Social Media Award 2011 nominee and the LCRA (Lower Colorado River Authority) economic development expert.

The only change I’d make would be to add a QR code so that anyone with a smartphone could boot up links to any of the sites above.

But, I know Sarah is already thinking about that….in between True Blue Texas blog posts.

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Whether it’s piles of clutter in your house, hundreds of unread emails, stacks of paper, folders of photos to edit or WHATEVER….

….the techniques for getting them under control are very similar to classic military counterinsurgency strategies of Clear – Hold – Build (some would add Sustain) plus a little inkblot spreading.

Find one part of the pile, no matter how small, and clear it.

Put practices in place to keep it sorted and clear (hold.)

Spread and grow the little “inkblots of order” until they connect, and you’ll have a tidy part of the desk or section of the room.

Build habits and create techniques that bring tidiness and order into your routine, and sustain them.

Move onto the next messy pile/room/email account and clear – hold – build – sustain.  It’s even a tactic for downtown development.

To make it work, you need systems to sort incoming stuff, you must set aside administrative time to do the clearing and then have the self-discipline to hold onto your newfound orderliness.

One of my favorite references for organizational strategies is Julie Morgenstern – her blog features a recent post by a military woman in Iraq dealing with time management.

It takes planning to make even simple things go smoothly (or as I found while in the Navy, it also helps to marry a fabulous guy who shares the load.)

How do you attack clutter in your life, both digital and physical?

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One of my favorite thinkers in the social media, tech and tourism arena is Canadian consultant Todd Lucier.

We’ve only met in person a few times, but our heads are always locked in agreement on issues like the connection between mobile technology and tourism and the need for video content in your destination marketing.

Todd popped this video rant up on his site (direct link to it on Vimeo) and I think it’s a great way to illustrate his passion for dragging recalcitrant towns and businesses into understanding WHY they need to wake up to people’s desire to have simple Web access when they travel.

This Week in Tourism, November 19 – 2010 from Blue Canoe Video on Vimeo.

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The Web means you can live anywhere (even a small town or rural area) and still be connected to the world.

The Web means that any venue with good WiFi, even an historic Art Deco theater in a revitalizing downtown, can host a meeting for interesting people with something to share.

Social media means that a Kansas guy who uploads a pump jack photo on Twitter just for fun can be noticed by a smart, well-connected entrepreneur in Oklahoma, who also happens to know the guy who runs the 140 Characters Conference tech events worldwide (yes, that’s the back story on how the 140 Conference SmallTown ended up in Hutchinson, KS.)

I think this ties into all sorts of timely issues – how technology is making “flyover country” more visible and relevant in the modern world, creative approaches to economic and downtown development, the importance of rural broadband access in a connected world, the rise of the creative class outside of big cities and how Web connectivity lets you live anywhere you want to live.

I know the person in this short video below:  it’s Cody Heitschmidt, the guy who makes things happen in Hutchinson.

He is much too modest and self-deprecating, but I’ll say it  –  he sees future possibilities for his town way before others do.

I very much look forward to joining him in Hutch on November 1, 2010 when the rest of the world gets to meet him, too.

Here’s the direct link to the video, and if you want to attend the 140 Characters Conference SmallTown, use code 140disc when you register here, and save $40 off of the ticket price.

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Connect the offline and the online, and you have yourself a more effective means of communicating with your customers.

Many of this sandwich/coffee shop’s clients sit in front of these napkin holders with either a laptop or a smartphone, or both.  Why not show them where to go with that WiFi?

Props to Star Co. Coffee for this idea (and for supporting the weekly gathering of entrepreneurs, geeks and freelancers known as Jelly Coworking Round Rock.)

There is an exciting new development for anyone who has ever wondered how to attract buzz and interest to their small town or rural area….and I’ll explain what a pump jack photo (to the left) has to do with it.

The popular 140 Characters Conference series – about Twitter and other communications in the “State of Now” –  has added a location to their event lineup that previously included gatherings in Los Angeles, Boston, Tel Aviv, New York London, San Francisco and Detroit.

It’s the 140 Conference SmallTown in Hutchinson, Kansas, at the historic downtown Fox Theatre on November 1, 2010.  There was an article about it in the Wichita Business Journal:  Big-city Twitter event coming to small-town Kansas.

If you’ve ever wanted to see how small towns and their economic development can benefit from technology, join me in “Hutch,” because I will not miss this one.

How did this thing end up in small town Kansas? Because of social media connections over a photo, and a blogger familiarization tour/press trip.

My Tourism Currents business partner Becky McCray posted a pump jack photo of her own onto Twitter  Update: Becky says it was the other way around - Hutchinson business guy Cody Heitschmidt put up a pump jack TwitPic photo and Becky saw and commented on it.

Becky and Cody then kept up a friendly chatter on Twitter for months. When Cody said that he’d like to work with his local CVB and the Cosmosphere space museum to bring some bloggers to see his hometown, Becky agreed to be one of them….and convinced me to go, too, despite my general skepticism about blogger fam (familiarization) tours.

It turned out to be a smashing success and an example of great tourism outreach (plus how else would I have gotten to see artifacts from Liberty Bell 7 at the Cosmosphere?)

So, guess which town was top of mind when Becky started organizing 140 Conference SmallTown?

It was solid social networking by some of the Hutch townsfolk, pure and simple.  They’re going to bring WiFi into the gorgeous Art Deco Fox Theatre, fill it with a bunch of blogging/Facebooking/video-ing/Tweeting geeks, and connect that town to the whole planet.

“Flyover country,” my hind end.

This is truly groundbreaking; it speaks to how the Web is starting to allow us to live where we want and connect with people worldwide from wherever we want to, as long as we have an Internet connection.

Want to attend? There’s still time – use code 140disc when you register here, and save $40 off of the ticket price.

See you in Hutch!

It’s easy to see how social media and mobile devices have changed how meetings and conferences themselves are conducted (for more on that see Jeff Hurt’s Seven Tips to Make Your Conference Millennial-Friendly) but how about the idea of using social media networking to attract more conferences TO your town?

I’m speaking on this very topic at a breakout session for the Texas Travel Summit, and here are some of my thoughts….

First, The Fundamentals

1) This is really a networking issue.

Social media is simply another tool to network and connect with the people who schedule places for meetings.  Be a helpful and informative resource, and get in front of meeting planners where they are, online and off.

2)  You still must ask two basic, old-warhorse questions (social media does NOT change the need to ask them)

——–>>  Who is your market for meetings?

——–>>  What does your town have to attract that market?

3)  Figure out who plans meetings. One good place to start is associations, and there is an association for just about every trade, industry and interest that you can imagine.

Where can you find decision-makers from associations? In the US, start with the ASAE (American Society of Association Executives.) Look for information about associations in your prospective meetings market.

Another place to look is event professionals and meeting planners.

Now, the Social Media Stuff

Here are some ways to connect with these folks, using social media.

1)  Read their professional and industry blogs.

***  Start with the Alltop Event Planning channel or the Trade Shows channel.  Find a few industry blogs, keep up with them, make comments and interact with the authors. Over time, let them know that your destination is the sort of place that they’d love for their meetings.

2)  Connect on LinkedIn.

***  Go beyond filling out your personal profile (although a complete one is important) and also create Company profiles for your CVB and your Convention Center. Here’s the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority Company profile.

***  Find, join and be visible in Groups that relate to your market.

Start looking at Groups like the DMAI (Destination Marketing Association International) empowerMINT Group for CVBs and Meeting Professionals, MPI (Meeting Professionals International,) the Association Resource Group, PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association,) Event Peeps (for Live Event Industry Professionals,) Corporate Event and Meeting Planners and the IAEE (International Association of Exhibitions and Events) Group.  Just pick a few for active participation or you won’t be able to keep up.

***  Pay attention to, and provide assistance when you can, in LinkedIn Answers – a Q&A section of the site – particularly in response to questions and activity in the Conferences and Event Planning section.

3)  Go find the meeting planners and associations on Twitter.

Use the LinkedIn list above and find @ASAECenter, @MPI, @CVBConnect, @PCMAConvene, etc. on Twitter. Interact, say hello, retweet their good stuff.

Here’s where you can really dig in:  hour-long, regularly scheduled hashtagged Twitter chats. Introduce yourself at the start and watch the tweets fly on the topic of the day.

There are two chats you should know about and possibly join when they happen….

• #assnchat for associations is Tuesdays, 1-2 pm CST.
• #eventprofs for event planning professionals is Tuesdays, 8-9 pm CST and Thursdays, 11 am-12 noon CST.

4)  Show meeting planners your town and your conference venues with video and photos.

Videos can go on YouTube, Vimeo and your Facebook Page. Photos can go on Flickr and your Facebook Page.

• Create videos that show conference facilities in detail, inside and out and a bit of the surrounding area. Cover transportation to/from it. If you don’t want to hire pros to do this, use a handheld camera like the Flip or the Kokak Zi8 and do it yourself. Another option is making videos out of photos using Animoto.
• Create videos during a few events as they are in progress at your venues. Show actual people during an actual meeting, and include a few short interviews with people who like your convention center and your town.  Have them sell your offerings!
• Take photos, too. Here is the Flickr page for the Virginia Beach Convention Center, and the Rhode Island Convention Center photos on Facebook.

Summary

It’s not a magic bullet. It is building relationships and networks with humans and it takes time.  Social media is the tool you’re using to network. It’s a means, not an end.

Bonus:  social media profiles help your Web find-ability and SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)  Hurray! You’re making people AND Google happy. Even better, it helps your disabled folks find you online because it helps meet Web accessibility standards.

Any town can do this….the possibilities for hosting meetings are pretty endless.

How else do you think that the 140 Conference SmallTown tech conference ended up in Hutchinson, Kansas?

Update: here’s the presentation as it was presented at the TTIA Texas Travel Summit 2010 – the slides about blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter and Videos/Images have embedded links that you can click through.

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When your organization is called a “Convention and Visitor’s Bureau” or “Tourist Board,” it’s hard to see why you should reach out to locals as part of your destination marketing strategy.

What’s the point, right?

They don’t stay in hotels, they don’t “count” in the statistics of people coming in to visit your town (a measure of how well you’re doing) so why bother?

Here is why – because in today’s more connected world, it is critical to realize that your locals have online networks with worldwide reach.  You never know who they know on Facebook, Twitter or through their blog.

Locals don’t stay in hotels, but their visiting friends and relatives do.  Locals recommend your restaurants, shops, museums, parks and music venues to visitors. They talk up the wonders of your town and region….or, well, they badmouth them.

Why does the Austin, Texas CVB have a relatively easy job of selling their city? Partly because tech-connected and very vocal locals NEVER shut up about how great it is there! From the online silence of some of the other cities, you’d think there was no other worthy town in Texas. There’s even a Twitter hashtag appended to tweets about great things in and around the Live Music Capital of the World – #WhyAustin.

The Ripple Effect of spreading buzz and excitement about your town starts with the people who live right down the street.

I had a CVB ask me recently how to start connecting with bloggers. I told them to go to Google Blog Search and type in “YourCity blog” and see what pops up for blogs about/written by locals in that town.  When I did it, I found some really trenchant, well-written blogs by locals. No, they aren’t travel or parenting blogs (the current flavor-of-the-month that many PR people are looking for) but I found posts that indicated the authors really care deeply about that town.  The CVB should know those guys.

You connect with your local newspapers, TV and radio stations:  add to that mix your Web-based content publishers (yes, whether they themselves realize it or not, they are writers and publishers, too.)  Look on Twitter for people who list their location as your city. Find them on Facebook. Ask around.

Then, have them into the CVB and get to know them.  Tell them what you do, what you want visitors to know and how they can help by becoming your online champions.

Two examples:

1)   My own Round Rock (Texas) CVB had some local bloggers and social media-savvy people in for a casual weekday breakfast taco gathering recently and a chat about their “Sports Capital of Texas” branding efforts.  They also demo’d the CVB Twitter stream, Facebook Page and YouTube channel and asked for feedback and suggestions.

I attended this gathering (yes, I knew all the geeks there since I’m one of them, and many attend Jelly Coworking Round Rock with me) and it was a lot of fun. Think of it as a free focus group for market research, if “fun” doesn’t interest you.

We even started our own hashtag:  #WhyRoundRock

2)   The Beaumont (Texas) CVB has locals in on a regular basis to talk about what the CVB does, how they can help and make sure they see the town through a visitor’s eyes.

They include a whirlwind tour of some major regional attractions, many of which the locals themselves have never gotten around to visiting (I love Becky McCray’s post about this phenomenon - Never Been There.)

Here’s a video telling you more about Beaumont’s tour for locals….direct link to it in case the embed box isn’t working….

Think about how you could do something like this in YOUR town.

(This is a guest post by Jody Halsted about a cool conference in Iowa that is all about connecting and educating Midwest bloggers. I followed the conference hashtag on Twitter during last year’s version of it and was impressed, so I asked Jody to tell us a little bit more about it.)

In an effort to change the perception of the Midwest from a place to get away from to a place to explore and discover, the Destination Midwest event at the I_Blog Conference (update – now called the Social Technology Conference) will bring together Midwest bloggers and Midwest destinations for an evening of (virtual) travel, networking and the opportunity for mutually beneficial relationships!

According to the 2010 Ypartnership/Harrison Group 2010 Portrait of American Travelers, “1 in 4 family travel planners consult a blog before booking” a vacation.  According to the Edelman Trust Barometer 2010, people trust “people like them” more than TV news, search engines, and newspapers.

Blogs create community, build friendships and foster relationships. In our ever-increasingly connected world, a good blog will open your eyes to a world you never imagined and lead you places you never knew you wanted to visit!

Blogging has grown to include more than just written words on a page and is now the center of the social media wheel.  By utilizing images, video techniques, Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare and Gowalla – just to name a few – a blogger can become a tour guide, travel resource, location expert and handy reference.

The Ypartnership/ Harrison Group study also shows that family travelers are more likely to have taken a vacation in their local area as an alternative to vacationing in a destination that would have required traveling a greater distance.  By connecting with bloggers within a day’s drive from your destination, you will reach their local audience and increase your chances of being the “local area” vacation of their readers.

The Destination Midwest event at the I_Blog Conference takes place Saturday, November 6 from 6-10pm.  Space is limited to 20 destinations; cost is $250 per destination.

Update: Please visit http://socialtechnologyconference.com/ for more information on the 2012 event, or contact Jody Halsted via email (jody@iblogconference.com), Twitter (@SocialTechConf and @iatraveler) or by phone at 515-707-6547.

If your destination is interested in learning more about social media, conference tickets are available at a discount for participants in Destination Midwest.

Note: Jody Halsted is working very hard to change the perception of the Midwest from a place to get away from to a place to explore and discover through her website Family Rambling and articles she writes for other travel publications.  She loves to work with destinations and share the unique adventures that are found only in the Midwest.  As an example, she worked with the St. Louis CVC last summer; you can see the series she wrote about it here: http://familyrambling.com/index.php/exploring-st-louis/usa.