One of the best uses of social media is to engage the public directly, with the latest information available, when there is a crisis.
The Visit Florida tourism organization (a pretty well-oiled machine even without a crisis!) is harnessing the power of webcams, photos and live Twitter reports from humans on a new website page; it’s called Florida Live.
Rather than, er, sticking their heads in the sand about tourists avoiding the coast for fear of oil spill problems, they’re trying to gather eyewitness reports (particularly from beach areas) and make them easily searchable and accessible, so that people can see coastal destinations and make their own travel decisions.
In addition to graphics, there is a link to the Deepwater Horizon response team at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, plus links to specific CVB and DMO organizations across all of the regions in the state.
Visitors want to see for themselves. Make it easy for them.
Nice work, Florida.
Update: I noticed this tweet from Robert Reid (US editor for Lonely Planet and author of the excellent Reid on Travel blog.)
“Going to Florida? @visitflorida posting#oilspill updates, ‘real time’ photos; they promised to me they’ll keep doing even IF oil comes. #lp“
Note that even if things go bad, Florida tourism plans to let those real-time reports roll on in.
You won’t find a more powerful advocate for making the Web accessible to everyone than Glenda Watson Hyatt. She has cerebral palsy but is able to control her left thumb, so that is how she does all of her typing and work on her terrific Do It Myself blog.
All of it.
With her left thumb.
It was particularly mind-blowing when she used a variety of technologies (including an electronic voice named Kate to sync to her slides) to give a presentation last year at the Chicago SOBCon social Web conference about how to make one’s blog accessible to those with disabilities. (Here is a quick recap of Glenda’s presentation from WordPress blog publishing software expert Lorelle VanFossen.)
Glenda really opened our eyes that day to how the disabled often struggle to access the Web for work or personal enjoyment. She has a wicked sense of humor, too; we all left her presentation laughing and enlightened (and many of us, myself included, considerably chastened by our own blindness to our disabled readers.)
We learned that the blind and vision-impaired can’t see our photos and graphics because we don’t include simple coding to describe them through the ALT tag (used by screen readers) and the deaf and hard of hearing can’t hear the sounds in our videos or podcasts because we don’t caption them or provide transcripts.
The disabled travel, too, and there are millions of them. Have you thought about whether your tourism-related Web site gives them the information they need to plan a trip?
For example, even if your whole lovely historic downtown is ADA-approved (Americans with Disabilities Act that requires buildings to accommodate wheelchairs, etc.) fewer will visit if they can’t get information or trip-planning assistance from your inaccessible Web site.
“The Ever-Shifting Internet Population reports that 38% of Americans with disabilities surf the web and almost 20% of them say that their disability makes web browsing challenging. There are a wide range of estimates, but at least one in four visitors to your blog are disabled.
That’s a huge customer base you might be missing and not serving.”
The indefatigable Glenda never stops working to make the Web available to everyone.
To that end, she is launching the 2010 Accessibility 100 book with tips for simple ways to make your site more accessible, and she issued a writing challenge in support of the book launch:
“As the Web becomes more available across the world, I don’t want my little pieces of it to be inaccessible through my own thoughtless ignorance.”
Take a moment to think about whether your destination marketing Web sites market to all of your possible visitors, including the disabled.
I’ve embedded a short video below that Lorelle shot during Glenda’s talk – you can see her equipment setup and hear some of her suggestions. If you’d like to hire Glenda to work with you to improve your sites, she can do that, too.
“We are in the process of totally overhauling http://www.arizonatourism.com. Before we get too far down the road, I’d love some advice on what you think we need to include in the initial overhaul. Are there any travel sites you’d recommend we should emulate or any ‘must have’ features you’d recommend? Here is a preliminary ‘spec’ of our new home page http://www.arizonatourism.com/newindex.html…any feedback would be greatly appreciated.”
Here’s how I answered:
“I’d ensure that your social media buttons are on every page of the site, and that they’re reasonably visible. Twitter, Facebook Fan Page at a minimum, a blog would be very smart, and the ever-underrated but awesome Flickr Group Pool [for travel photos from your customers.]
Itineraries based on travel interests are always helpful: families, outdoor adventure, history, culture, foodie, Native American sites for starters.
Make up some custom Google Maps focused on trails (food, history, etc. as above.)
Mobile, mobile, mobile. You need to be all over mobile-friendly.
Incorporate music somehow – an easy but powerful way to bring atmosphere. By that I mean maybe suggested playlists (make them on amazon and iTunes and link to them from your site) NOT obnoxious music that auto-starts and makes people want to stab their computer. :) ”
A follow-up question from another Group member asked:
“I am intrigued by adding recommended playlists and would like to add one to [our CVB] http://www.minneapolis.org. Can someone direct me to an example of linking to this from Amazon or iTunes?”
I just love music tailored to a destination, so I told her:
“I’m thinking of something similar to the lists on National Geographic Traveler, though I haven’t done such a list myself in iTunes, only burning my own CD mixtape-type playlists for road trips. (Rats: the words “CD” and “mixtape” both date me!)
To find LinkedIn Groups that interest you, simply used the Search box in the upper right corner of the site and specify that you’re looking for Groups, not People/Jobs/Companies, etc.
One of the best uses of social media is to engage the public directly, with the latest information available, when there is a crisis.
