Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

At the recent TACVB (Texas Association of CVBs) annual conference in Lubbock, my business partner Becky McCray and I negotiated a trade show booth for our Tourism Currents online course in social media for tourism as part of our speaker fee.

The only problem was that we had never put anything in our marketing budget for booth decorations or signs. We’ve never planned on doing trade shows; such events are probably one of the most expensive ways to market (booths often cost $500 and up) and our network seems to be building pretty well via word-of-mouth, social networking, current customers and our speaking engagements.

How could we put together something engaging without looking, well, cheap and pathetic? We’re a startup, but we have some pride! We decided to shop my stash of personal possessions for decorations, and not sweat the small stuff.

I was the only person at the trade show because Becky wasn’t able to arrive from Oklahoma until the conference opening reception.  I’ve never done a trade show in my life; it was homework time.

First, I read an old article that I’d torn out of Inc. magazine and saved just in case I ever needed it – How to make the most of trade shows.  A quick trip through the article archives of the TSEA (Trade Show Exhibitors Association) was also helpful, and I like Make Your Booth Stand Out at a Trade Show from The Entreprenette.

Based on that research and my own experience as a trade show attendee, I could see that we didn’t need to get too fancy with the booth, but it did need to be eye-catching. We needed something to fill physical booth space since our main product is online training.  I looked around my house for things to use – as a globe-trotter, I’ve done a lot of shopping over the years and have figured out how to find travel souvenirs when you’re on a budget.

Here’s what we did:

***  Assess the amenities already provided. We would have a skirted 8 foot long table, head sign with our company name, two chairs and a waste paper basket.  There was power available.  We also ended up with a terrific location, right by the trade show entrance.

***  The table was pulled back into the booth about 2 feet so that I could stand in front of it. I never used the chairs because it’s best to stand up to chat and engage with your visitors. Wear comfortable shoes and a perpetual smile when you’re the “booth babe.”  :)

***  Pick a color scheme.  Our Tourism Currents website designed by Kim Fenolio has a lot of blue in it, so I brought my blue-and-white patterned table runner (originally purchased at Pier One) and two blue tablecloths – one from Kenya, one from Egypt to fit the conference travel/tourism theme – to drape over one of the chairs and over one side of the side drapes. There are a few touches of orange on our website, so I wore an orange jacket.

***  Fill empty space.  I brought a large, tall blue-and-gold cloth umbrella that I’d bought years before on a Navy port visit to Bali, Indonesia. When opened, it looked festive, matched the color scheme, fit the travel/tourism theme and drew a lot of interest. Driving my little Hyundai sedan to Lubbock with a pole running up the middle seemed a small price to pay (I can fold down part of the back seat to accommodate long items. I’ve even gotten a Christmas tree into that car.) I was also going to buy and blow up a bunch of blue balloons at a local grocery store to fill space, but the umbrella did enough.

***  Give people something to fiddle with.  I used what I had – my bag full of tech accessories became a “Geek Gear” display. Many people picked up items, looked at them and asked questions about my external webcam, pocket video camera, tripod, Skype headset, etc. I had to trust that the gear wouldn’t walk off, and none did, but you have to know your audience. I also set out a bowl of Werther’s hard candies brought from home, guarded by a small plastic Japanese Godzilla doll just for fun.

***  Nice colorful flyers (mostly blue) run off at a Lubbock FedEx/Kinko’s were our only out-of-pocket expense:  US$38.32 for 60 of them, which was about 30-40 too many. Becky designed the flyer to include course information and a discount code for the TACVB event, plus some info and another code for our upcoming tourism workshop at BlogWorld and New Media Expo on October 14.

***  Stack of business cards.  I already had plenty, made by moo.com, which lets you do a lot of customizing and use many different photos on the backs. I use the regular business card-sized ones, not the mini ones that fall out of card decks too easily and annoy me.

***  My laptop, with tabs already open to our Tourism Currents course details page, our Facebook Page and our Twitter stream.

***  A clear plastic glass brought from home, about half full of water with a light up party reusable “ice cube” in blue floating in it (originally from our family trip to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida awhile back, because, why not?) It was colorful and and caught the eye.

That was it.

The most important thing I did – besides chat with people who came by the booth that day – was to follow up the next week via email with everyone who had left me a business card.

And yes;  it resulted in new paying customers for our business.

Most of you know that I’m really big on getting “the ungeeked” to go to one or two tech-related conferences or events per year.

There is no more effective way to figure out how people are using technology and mobile devices right now to communicate; it’s the best market research you can do and it will put you way ahead of competitors who are still scratching their heads over Twitter (which really burst on the scene at SXSWi 2007, the South by Southwest Interactive tech conference, one of the world’s largest.)

I recently wrote a guest post about this on the BlogWorld and New Media Expo blog – Go Where the Geeks Are: Why Tech Events Matter for Tourism and Travel - in support of the all-day tourism workshop that we’re doing at BlogWorld on October 14.

Meantime, the Panel Picker is now open for SXSWi 2011 in March – one of the unique things about “South by” is that part of the panel selection process is pubic voting and commenting on the proposed panels. You can give your feedback whether you’re attending SXSWi or not; there is a quick and painless registration process to do so.

I’ve proposed a panel with myself and two other speakers – my Tourism Currents business partner Becky McCray and travel/tourism entrepreneur Andy Hayes.

It’s titled Tourism Catches On: Old Industry Meets New Media.

Issues we plan to talk about include:

1. How does story and relationship work with new marketing online?
2. Can destinations work with online review sites or is it all out of their control?
3. What roadblocks hold tourism organizations back and how can they be overcome?
4. How can small staff groups possibly implement all these new tools when all this old work still has to get done?
5. What’s coming next in tourism and destination marketing?

If you have a moment, I’d really appreciate your votes, comments and feedback on our Tourism Catches On panel proposal.

Technology is for everyone – we want more mainstream industries and interest at SXSWi and we hope you do, too.

We are excited to announce that doors are now open for another round of online classes at Tourism Currents.

There are usually three problems with most social media training:

• It is too basic and generic
• It is too advanced and nerdy
• ….or it is well-balanced, but not tailored to a specific industry

Tourism Currents is different. Here are more details about why we get straight to the heart of real tourism results.

My co-founder Becky McCray and I run a unique, high-energy learning community that is hyper-focused on teaching tourism and hospitality industry professionals how to use that big pile of social media tools (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) to more effectively tell the stories of their destinations and attractions.

We get specific about topics like how to use Twitter for fall foliage reports, how to use Facebook to promote your festival and what’s important for a successful blogger press trip/fam tour.

Compelling stories convince people to visit your town. The social Web is the ideal place to tell those stories (it’s made for the tourism little guy, too) and it connects with others who love and support you….we call them your “online champions network.”

Our courses help you make sense of it all.

They are organized to provide basic social media overview information to those who need it (through a quick Intro Workshop or a three-part All the Basics course) or more advanced how-to specifics to those who are ready for it through the three-part Results Multipliers class (which dives deep into unique destination marketing topics like mobile-friendly tours.)

If you are geared up to really make things happen for the long haul, the Tourism Currents six month Full Course combines the Basic and Multipliers, then throws in the Intro Workshop as a bonus.

Every course is a combination of multi-part lessons, exclusive videos with experts and a wrap-up printable checklist, plus there’s a member forum for detailed discussions.

We hope you’ll join us soon at Tourism Currents!

Over at our Tourism Currents learning site (are y’all reading our monthly free newsletter on social media for tourism?) Becky McCray and I are PUMPED to announce a new initiative….

The two of us will teach a one-day workshop for CVB, DMO and other tourism folks on October 13, 2010 as part of the BlogWorld and New Media Expo tech conference at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This is a big deal because we’re always telling clients and Tourism Currents members that to really understand what’s going on with tech and social media, you have to “go where the geeks are” – events like South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi,) BlogHer, SOBCon and BlogWorld – and be immersed in how they communicate.  I’m always chuckling when I listen in on non-geek conferences via Twitter hashtag and hear them exclaiming over tools and methods that they’re hearing about for the first time, but I was exposed to 12-24 months earlier at some nerd fest.

Tech and social media stuff moves fast; you need to keep up in order to make intelligent decisions about whether to incorporate something into your marketing efforts.

We wanted tourism people to check out BlogWorld because it gives them a chance to connect with thousands of bloggers, podcasters and other online content creators (plus there’s a travel blogger track kicking off the day after our workshop in addition to food bloggers, sports bloggers and more.) These are your potential online champions; the people who are fans and supporters of your destination or attraction and who can help spread the word about you online.

Rather than have people come to such a huge event and be rather overwhelmed, we’re working with BlogWorld founder Rick Calvert (a travel enthusiast himself) to design a social media seminar that will introduce tourism folks to our “geek world” and how it can upgrade their communications work.

In addition to our daytime classes on the best ways to connect with online influencers, we’re planning networking meetings, tweetups and possibly “speed dating” sessions to help destination marketers network with the people who can provide them with online coverage.

This is still in the very early stages so I’ll let you know when we get more details worked out, but put October 13, 2010 on your calendars!

My Tourism Currents co-founder Becky McCray and I decided last month to make our monthly newsletter fully available for anyone to view on our website, without a login (although we still take signups for you to get it first, via email.)

We’re pretty proud of our work and thought you’d like a quick update on the last two issues:

• April 2010 – LinkedIn for tourism – Most everyone is on it, but many wonder how to really use it….we talked about the LinkedIn social networking site and how it can help you for tourism and destination marketing. Includes some Twitter hashtag tips, travel writer/blogger info and our recent Tech in Twenty interview about Tourism Currents.

• May 2010 – Social media and tech conferences for tourism pros - What is one of the best ways to figure out tech and social media? Go OFFline to attend a tech or social media conference.  We give concrete, detailed suggestions for the most useful events to attend in order to learn plenty of things that can help with destination marketing (to say nothing of some pretty amazing networking and brand-building for your town, region, city or attraction.)  We also included some tips to amp up your LinkedIn profile, as a follow-up to April’s newsletter.

We are reopening our online classes later this month (multi-part lessons, videos, a forum, live Q&A with us – all about social media and tech for tourism.)

I’ll put up a post here the minute we’re open, or you can get on our Early Bird list. Thanks!

My business partner Becky McCray and I spent a few minutes during the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) tech conference getting social with Jennifer Navarrete and Luis Sandoval, Jr. of the Tech in Twenty show.

We had a great time talking about how social media can help tourism organizations tell the stories of their destinations.

Please excuse my apparent cud-chewing; I was popping throat lozenges to avoid coughing during the taping.  Although I don’t get sick very often, the annual March SXSWi nerd whirlwind always seems to do me in.  :)

The direct link to the show is here if you can’t see the box below.  Thanks very much to Tech in Twenty for having us stop by, and to the ever-charming Albert Maruggi for being the videographer for this episode.

Last week I enjoyed spending 30 minutes on Blog Talk Radio with Australian entrepreneur and coach Des Walsh.  He has a regular program called Des Walsh and Friends, with a wide variety of guests all discussing some aspect of technology and business.

The noteworthy advantage of Blog Talk Radio (or any “Internet radio” service) is that not only can you listen live, but the shows are usually archived if you can’t be there at broadcast time, plus they’re also downloadable for later listening on your iPod or other digital audio player.

It gives radio/audio the worldwide reach that it never had before, as I discussed in this post about online radio and destination marketing for the Beaumont (TX) CVB.

Des and I talked about my background in travel, how Becky McCray and I launched Tourism Currents to teach tourism professionals about social media, and why businesses need to ensure a strong Web presence as customer search and interaction preferences shift online.

I loved having a fun chat with someone halfway around the world, and the time zones worked in my favor since it was afternoon my time, but very early morning for Des.  :)

Here is our episode:  talking social media, travel and tourism with Des Walsh.

(This is cross-posted on my BootsnAll Family Travel Logue.)

Although my business partner Becky McCray and I were rather hammered by an ambitious schedule of conferences and workshops across the country during October, the good news is that we’ve gathered tons of useful information and insights for the lessons, videos and newsletter that we offer our online learning community at Tourism Currents.

The next Lesson, “How to Listen Online,” is being posted as we speak and will be fully available to paid members by Friday, November 6.

This month, we’re excited to include some very helpful video interviews with Ann Peavey, who tweets for Seattle Tourism as @SeattleMaven.  I shot the video while in Seattle during the Association for Women in Communications (AWC) conference (salmon taco or awesome coffee, anyone?) and can’t wait to share it with you. Ann is a real pro and a dynamite, fun person; you’ll love seeing how she’s mastered Twitter to show off her city!

The bottom line is this – once we finish editing and uploading all of this terrific content,  we are going to close the doors to further paid Tourism Currents members until the next class cycle in Spring 2010.

We’ll still accept more free newsletter-level members, but anyone who wants access to all of our lessons and videos will have to wait until the next class.

Our reason?

We said at our launch in September that we want to keep class sizes manageable, and we want to move our members through the content as a group so that no one feels left behind or overwhelmed by having to play catch-up.

Those who are already paid members are all set and don’t need to do anything else except to continue learning useful social media tips for their destination marketing.

New sign-ups and those who are already at the free newsletter level have until THIS FRIDAY, November 6, to upgrade to our paid Just the Basics level ($45/month for 6 months) or our Regular level ($75/month for 6 months) so that you can really dive into all of our training materials.

We think that these are exceptionally reasonable prices for this kind of detailed, tourism-specific learning material; in fact, we know you can’t beat it anywhere else, because we’ve snooped around to look.  :)

These are the organizations and people that we think would find our training particularly helpful:

• Convention and Visitor’s Bureaus (CVBs)
• Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs)
• Main Street, historic preservation and heritage trail organizations
• Parks, nature preserves, botanical gardens and other nature/outdoors-related attractions
• Public Relations professionals who do tourism work
• Chambers of Commerce
• Those with niche focus like agritourism, culinary tourism, arts/culture, sports/adventure and educational travel
• Festival and event planners
• Attractions, museums, lodging etc. that depend upon tourist traffic
• Historic highways and scenic byways
• State and city governments who do marketing and outreach related to tourism

Please do consider joining us to start learning – this stuff moves fast and frankly, your tourism organization can’t afford to dawdle. Don’t wait until Spring 2010 let us help you become social media savvy!

Interested?  Sign up here or go here to read more and see if Tourism Currents is right for you.

Thanks for your support.

Such a deal we have for you….

My business partner Becky McCray and I are very proud of the content we’ve pulled together on our Tourism Currents membership site – tons of resources in our first, introductory lesson focused on social media for tourism professionals.

However, only our paid members can see most of it  –  access to our monthly Newsletter and the option to join our Flickr Group Pool are free with sign-up, but everything else is reserved for paying members.

While we think that our insights are well worth US$45 or US$75 a month (at the two least expensive membership levels) for such detailed, specific content spread over six months of lessons, we understand that budgets are tight and people want to ensure that they’ll get their money’s worth for their investment.

So, we decided to throw open the doors, lift the pay firewall starting right NOW (just after 11:45 CST on Tuesday, September 29) and as long as you register for the free Newsletter-level membership, you’ll have access to ALL of our content, including the stuff you’d normally pay for, until 12 midnight on Friday, October 2.

Here’s how you get in:

Right now, you’ll see the full Introductory lesson, with three huge text lessons, three video interviews, tons of examples specifically for tourism and extras in the Resources section….without paying a cent!

But wait, there’s more. A blender! Ginsu Knives!

Sorry, not really, but as another bonus during the Open House, you can also upgrade to a Regular membership for the Just the Basics price.

Here is what you get at the Regular level, normally $75 per month:

• Access (along with other members) to a monthly one-hour live video Q&A/round table discussion with Becky and me,  concentrating on the lesson topic for the month. You want to “pick our brain?” Here ya go!
• Access to all lessons – a new one each month – including video interviews and takeaways/checklists.
• Access to the Tourism Currents Member Forum.
• Monthly newsletter and access to full newsletter archives.

During the Open House only, you’ll get this for US$45 per month instead of US$75 per month.

Simply register at the paid “Just the Basics” level during the Open House timeframe, and we’ll manually upgrade you to “Regular” level on our site’s back end.  (Almost as nerdy as it sounds.)

This offer is strictly limited, and ends midnight CST on Friday, October 2, 2009. Period. Finito.

We think we have good stuff. We want you to check it out. It’s that simple.

Thanks very much for your interest and support.

We did it.

Our Tourism Currents online learning community launched on September 9 – Becky McCray and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

We’re offering a newsletter, monthly training lessons, exclusive video interviews with experts in the social media and tourism fields, a member’s Forum plus live hour-long video Q&A sessions.

These are the organizations and people that we think would find our membership site particularly helpful:

• Convention and Visitor’s Bureaus (CVBs)
• Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs)
• State and city governments who do marketing and outreach related to tourism
• Main Street, historic preservation, heritage trail and historic highway organizations
• Parks, nature preserves, botanical gardens and other nature/outdoors-related attractions, including scenic byways
• Public Relations professionals who do tourism work
• Chambers of Commerce
• Those with niche focus like agritourism, culinary tourism, arts/culture, sports/adventure and educational travel
• Festival and event planners
• Attractions, museums, lodging etc. that depend upon tourist traffic

If you’d like to know more, go here to see if Tourism Currents is right for you.

Thanks for your support!