Thanks Signalfire for featuring the video in their blog post about why social media works for CVBs and DMOs….this demonstrates why you should allow your CVB videos to be embedded on other people’s sites; it helps spread them to a wider audience.
When you make a video, always include a URL in the title or credits, so that those who see the video out on the web can find the rest of your work if they’re interested.
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This is a photo of my lap during the South by Southwest (SXSW) Global Tech Summit.
Quick photos and some tweets went up on my Android smartphone, plus special check-ins to each session on Gowalla.
Other tweets and watching the conference hashtag happened on the TweetDeck dashboard on my Dell laptop. Most Facebook business page updates for Tourism Currents or Freelance Austin came from the laptop as well.
Great quotes and insights from speakers were often captured via pen and notebook (yes, it’s true, but they always boot up) to become Facebook or LinkedIn status updates or blog posts days, weeks or months later.
Online publishing is best served by whichever tools work for you, and don’t be surprised when one size does not fit all.
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It covers all that any hotel or restaurant needs to know about getting started using social media tools for marketing, and it’s full of ideas and examples.
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Meetings are no longer one-off, terrestrial events that happen over the course of a few days and then are done until the next year.
Thanks to social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, you can (cliché alert!) extend the conversation around an event, both online and off, from January through December.
These are no longer just your standard panels/keynotes/rubber chicken lunch/trade show blah-blah-blah where “the really good stuff happens in the convention center hallways.”
These are vibrant, helpful, year-round communities in which the online interaction solidifies and grows the offline, and vice versa. This level of enthusiasm translates into more interest in the event; in the case of SOBCon, they were already registering for the 2011 version the minute the 2010 one finished, and now there’s a #SOBCon chat (you don’t have to have attended to conference to hang out there, either.)
The bar for meetings is raised. People don’t want a good thing to end, and it doesn’t have to, when you use social networking tools to sustain and grow the connections.
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As both a speaker and enthusiastic attendee at lots of conferences, I’m getting tired of the squawking I sometimes hear about people “not paying attention because they’re tweeting.” Speaker Tom Martin has some good thoughts about it in his post Don’t Tweet Me Man.
Look, I take notes on paper AND tweet. If I can pop up a Facebook post with something great you’ve said, I’ll work that in, too.
If I’m on my smartphone and nothing else during a presentation, I do find that I’m on Twitter less only because it’s so much easier to tweet from a proper keyboard on a netbook or laptop. I’m a fast typist and can keep up with the flow pretty well, but not on a smartphone keyboard.
If I can’t tweet at all (like at the Audience Conference or many TEDs) I’m still head-down and scribbling, but my paper notes become Twitter nuggets and Facebook posts later. Bottom line is, I’m getting it online no matter what.
I’m 49 years old, so please don’t lecture me about how to absorb what a speaker presents. I’ve been at it for a few decades, before presenters got the PowerPoint crutch and ever since summer debate camp in 1970′s high school, where we had to furiously take notes about the upcoming year’s topic, to four years in an honors liberal arts program (ever taken notes in a year-long, info-packed Philosophy class, or the “History of India from 1750?”) to earning my Master’s degree.
I know from note-taking.
The only difference now is that some of my notes are tweets….and speakers, I like broadcasting your wise words to the planet.
As a speaker myself, I’m FINE with it. As an attendee, that’s what I’m going to do.
You’ll be happy to know that my tech-savvy teacher husband totally disagrees with me. Twenty-plus years of wedded bliss, so I guess that isn’t a deal-breaker.
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I’ve been an AWC member since 2006 (my journalist Mom is an Member Emeritus, ever since it was an honors journalism sorority in the 1950′s) and it is chock-full of a lot of very networked communicators, many of whom are involved in some aspect of tourism or hospitality.
One benefit of our sponsorship is the chance to provide “collateral” – some swag, a printed handout or something – to be distributed to conference attendees.
Now, I was as clueless about this as I was about how to run a trade show booth on a budget, but after some thought I realized that no one wants yet another brochure or piece of paper with pretty pictures. They want useful information.
So, I rejiggered a simple Word document handout that I’d done for the Texas Travel Summit on social media resources for CVBs to attract conferences, and made it a more general “Tourism Currents favorite resources and tips for social networking.”
Why are videos and images important? Because they are great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) if fully titled, tagged and described. There is less competition for them than for text in universal search.
None of these are blinding revelations, but if every person who gets one of our handouts learns some tidbit they didn’t already know, then we’ve succeeded in not killing trees simply to get our name out there. If they contact us for more training….well, so much the better!
Tourism Currents logo, URL, Twitter names and email address at top, helpful info, all on one page – BOOM. We’re done.
What sort of ideas do you have for printed collateral that best benefits your event sponsorship? I’d love to hear from you down in the comments.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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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Are you responsible in some way for a festival or special event, and would like to get jump-started using social media to promote it?
I always advise including social media as an integral part of your overall marketing plan, not sticking it on as an afterthought, but sometimes you do need to push the train forward a bit even if all the track isn’t laid to the end.
Hey, it worked for the US Transcontinental Railroad….
If your festival or special event is coming up quickly, here are some things you can do to enhance your online presence, and then you’ll have a platform to build on more thoughtfully for next year:
1) Get a Facebook Page. Not a Group – a Page. Give more than one person administrative access to it. Your event logo is fine as an avatar. Put it in the Organization-NonProfit category; that’s probably the one that applies best to festivals. Fill out the Info section thoroughly, with event dates, location and times, simple directions from the main access points, links to your website and any other social media sites you have, and a contact email and phone number.
Put up a few Wall posts, especially some photos and short videos from last year’s event if you have them, and get the word out to your networks that some “Likes” of your Page would be appreciated. Once you get to 25, um, “Likers,” you can switch the Facebook URL to a more personalized one with your name.
Connect with your local CVB, DMO, state tourism office, town government, Chamber of Commerce and the businesses that sponsor your event, at a minimum.
2) Get a Twitter account. Make sure it’s something that approximates your event name, but is not too long (that uses up valuable characters and you only get 140 per tweet.) Make sure that more than one person can tweet from the account, and that you’re set up to tweet from mobile devices. Don’t worry about amassing a ton of followers right away; many won’t be the right folks anyway (unless you want to lose weight with acai berries.) You want people who care about and want to connect with your event.
See the Texas Book Festival – @texasbookfest – as an example.
Connect with your local CVB, DMO, state tourism office, town government, Chamber of Commerce and the businesses that sponsor your event, at a minimum.
3) Create a hashtag for your event. You don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to do so. A hashtag is a unique identifier for tweets related to your event, plus it can go in the descriptions of Flickr photos, YouTube videos, etc. Pick something short.
Make sure your followers know to use it; if you can get folks to use it, it will be easier to monitor your event as it occurs (I use hashtags all the time to follow conferences from a distance.)
4) Start thinking visually about coverage. Not a photo or video expert? Don’t let that stop you. Simply think hard about what sort of compelling visual opportunities may be coming up in your event….backstage excitement? Anything you can catch up close in rehearsal? Fun moments at the cotton candy concession? Get that digital point-and-shoot camera in your pocket and remember to use it liberally, including the video function that most of them now have.
Photos and videos are popular and evoke emotion and interest. They really amp up your Facebook Page and can also go up to Twitter via services like TwitPic and TwitVid.
If you have a smartphone, learn ahead of time how to shoot a photo and upload it from the phone to Facebook and Twitter. You can’t beat the ease and convenience of such coverage.
5) Tell your fans and supporters where to find you online. Put it up on posters, at the event entry and exit points, print it out on flyers and the festival map, announce it on the PA – let visitors know that you’d like to hear from them (before, during and after the fun) on Facebook and Twitter, and that they can post their best photos and video to your Wall.
I’ll be speaking at the 2010 TFEA (Texas Festivals and Events Association) annual conference this week about social media for special events; say hello if you see me there, or please leave a comment below if I missed a good tip.
