Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

And now there are four….

In addition to the speakers that I announced in my first post about the BlogWorld and New Media Expo West 2011 Tourism track – the Abilene (TX) CVB and Authentic Seacoast Resorts in Nova Scotia – I’m now very excited to confirm that Caroline Bean from Visit Philadelphia and Brian Matson from Fargo (ND) – Moorhead (MN) CVB will be joining Tourism Currents at this year’s BlogWorld conference in Los Angeles, November 3-5.

I’ve known Caroline for years in my travel blogging hat, and met Brian for the first time in person at last year’s Symposium on Social Media in Tourism (SoMeT.)

Track topics and details coming soon, on this BlogWorld and tourism info page….

Nowhere else can you get social media education specific to tourism and hospitality PLUS the opportunity to connect with 8000+ bloggers and podcasters (we’re planning a blogger/CVB speed dating session, too.)

See you there!

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Welcome to the Carnival of Cities blog carnival, where we tour the world in a single post, via submissions from a variety of different blogs, all about any aspect of one, single city (or fair-sized town.)

The previous edition was here on Sheila’s Guide and the next edition will be hosted on the Perceptive Travel blog on Wednesday, February 23.

Any posts from blogs by tourism organizations (CVB, DMO, Tourist Board,) hospitality or economic development organizations are particularly welcome, as long as they’re about something in one city or town!

If yo would like to host a future Carnival edition on your blog (March 9 and March 23 are still open, and I could certainly use the help because March is crazy for me) please contact me at Sheila “at” sheilascarborough “dot” com. Thanks!

Off we go….

Cities in the Americas

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA Nicole presents Experiencing Egypt at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis posted at Arrows Sent Forth, saying, “The ‘Take Me There: Egypt’ exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis allows kids to experience life in an Egyptian village through hands-on play.”

Nashville, Tennessee, USA Alethea Hutchison presents Viva Nashvegas! posted at I’m Domestic…not Dead!, saying, “The way Nashville views celebrity.”

New York, New York, USA Madeleine Begun Kane presents Snow Job (A Limerick Duet) posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

(A CVB blog – Yay!)—> Spokane, Washington, USA Teresa Ide presents My New Neighborhood Bar posted at Spokane Insiders’ Blog.

Seattle, Washington, USA Byteful Travel presents The Radical Act of Kindness that Floored Me when I visited a Seattle Farmer’s Market posted at Byteful Travel, saying, “What would you do if someone you’d never met walked up to you and gave you a gift, completely unexpectedly? I had to face this amazing reality one sunny day after I’d just stumbled into the Queen Anne farmer’s market (where I discovered an amazing new fruit, a ‘pluot’). And the entire experience reinforced in me how magical travel can truly be.”

Orlando, Florida, USA Jennifer Miner presents Spring Break Vacation in Orlando – 5 Tips to Save Time posted at The Vacation Gals, saying, “Spring break in Orlando’s big theme parks can be frustrating, what with all the crowds and long lines. Here are 5 tips to help save time at Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando.”

Ojai, California, USA Andy Hayes presents California’s Secret Sunshine Valley: Ojai posted at Sharing Travel Experiences, saying, “Want to know the secrets of the Ojai Valley?”

Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA Apryl Chapman Thomas presents Spotting Winter Wildlife (and Possibly Whales) in Virginia Beach, Virginia posted at Southern Hospitality Magazine Traveler.

Kualoa, Oahu, Hawaii, USA Jennifer presents Kualoa Ranch – Oahu, Hawaii posted at Two Kids and a Map.

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA Sarah V. presents Beignets! posted at Wandering Off.

(more…)

For me, content is either preplanned or is triggered by something that bothers me and I simply HAVE to blast out a post.

I often ask myself, “What is driving me nuts right now, or what makes me happy just thinking about it?” and that becomes fresh content.

Several ways to keep feeding the beast….

1)  Use a monthly or weekly editorial calendar, particularly to help you write seasonal, holiday-related or event-specific blog/Facebook posts or tweets.

Why do you think that “get organized” articles come up every January, and “get ready for bikini season” stuff arrives in women’s magazines like clockwork in April or May? Soup recipes in November, fruit tart recipes in July and August….all of it is evergreen content, re-done every year. Same with those “how to get the most out of XYZ Conference” posts you see before events, followed by link-heavy “Here’s what I learned at XYZ Conference” afterward.

In our very first Tourism Currents newsletter, we talked about editorial calendars for content planning, because it’s that important to have a strategy for what you publish.

2)  Have some way to track the random insights that pop into your head; they often become popular posts if you move fast to articulate your unique point of view on a topical issue. Some people use electronic services like Evernote to record them; I use a notepad and pen (which always boot up.)

Also keep some notetaking device near your bed, because it’s amazing how many ideas will occur to you as you’re falling asleep.  No, you will not remember them in the morning. Trust me.

3)  Which key words and phrases are people using to discover answers in your industry? What are they asking about on LinkedIn Answers, on Quora, on Twitter, in person at conferences, etc? Your answers to those questions are all potential blog posts. Include the keywords in your headline; that’s great SEO because you are using exactly the same “How do I….?” words that people are typing into search engine boxes, and bots like to bring back results that exactly match queries.

That’s what I did for this post – I did a quick analysis of the phrases people use when they do a search about how to blog, then wrote my title.

4)  Sometimes the best posts are images or video, with just a little text.

Always have a camera with you, and periodically scroll your archives for photos or videos that were buried and never edited. I wrote a post about a simple integrated marketing communication example based on a photo that I’d forgotten I’d taken till I did an archive review.

5)  Never waste content. I took my answer to a blogging question on Quora and it became this blog post.

There’s one more piece of content in the can for me, my thoughts kill two birds, and the gaping maw is pacified for one more day. 

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Welcome to the December 15, 2010 edition of the Carnival of Cities, where we tour the world in a single blog post via submissions from a variety of different blogs, all about any aspect of one city (or fair-sized town.)

I hosted the previous edition on BootsnAll Family Travel, and the next host is the Trekaroo Blog on Wednesday, December 29.

If you’d like to host a future Carnival edition on your blog (January 12 and 26 plus February 9 are open) please contact me at Sheila “at” sheilascarborough “dot” com. Thanks!

Off we go….

Cities in Europe

Copenhagen, Denmark Katie Sorene presents 6 Reasons Why I Love Copenhagen posted at Travel Blog – Tripbase, saying, “After a trip to TBEX Europe I fell in love with Copenhagen! Find out about the city’s penchant for cakes, fairy tales and things that work!”

Munich, Germany Elmer Boutin presents Bavarian Dream Vacation – Day 1, Munich posted at Musings of Řehoř.

Vienna, Austria Happy Hotelier presents 5 Tips for Visiting Vienna in Luxury posted at Happy Hotelier, saying, “For me Vienna is the Number 0ne destination in Europe: Old World Chic in a relaxed romantic environment”

Cities in the Americas

Detroit, Michigan, USA Dominique King presents Fill your shopping basket with regional goodies at Detroit’s Eastern Market posted at Midwest Guest, saying, “Detroit’s Eastern Market lays claim to being the largest historic public market district in the United States, and this huge open-air farmers market has a history dating back more than 160 years.”

Austin, Texas, USA My reasons why Austin Rocks: Shop the world at Tesoros Trading Company posted at Perceptive Travel Blog, saying, “I’ve shopped here for decades; great stuff at reasonable prices, and they’re online, too.”

Rancho Cucamonga, California, USA Sharlene Earnshaw presents Ontario and Rancho Cucamonga with kids posted at Suite Trip.

Linden, New Jersey, USA Khaleef @ KNS Financial presents NJ City Collects Over $1Million in 3 Months From Red Light Cameras posted at Faithful With A Few, saying, “By installing 3 red light (traffic) cameras, a New Jersey city has collected over $1 Million in only 3 months! How did they pull it off? Was it about money or safety? Read the full story and chime in!”

(more…)

In a previous post, I wrote pretty frankly about how to reach out to bloggers, and what makes us crazy.

Since I still get this question a LOT, it might be time to revisit the issue. Because the answer is simple in concept but somewhat time-consuming and difficult to execute, many won’t follow through, but here we go….

The magic bullets are these, from the perspective of one who has been blogging on various topics for almost five years now:

1)  Interact with bloggers on their turf, which usually means their blog, at a minimum, but often now includes Twitter, possibly Facebook, YouTube or Flickr if they’re an avid photographer.  You “interact” by being yourself, and leaving thoughtful comments on some of their blog posts, or bantering on Twitter, or leaving a comment on a few of their Flickr photos that you like. Be where they are, in their online neighborhoods.

Heck, get some cred and start blogging yourself, like savvy PR, marketing and communications practitioners Kami Huyse, Jason Falls, Liz Strauss, Valeria Maltoni, Tom Martin, Shannon Paul and Aaron Strout.

Don’t just parachute in and out of my email IN box or you’ll get nothing but Delete out of me.

2)  Interact with bloggers offline at the events they like to attend; it’s why tech conferences matter to non-techies.

Consider BlogWorld and New Media Expo, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), BlissDom, SOBCon, BlogHer, travel bloggers at TBEX, the Midwest’s I_Blog Conference plus numerous lower-key gatherings like Social Media Breakfast or local tweetups, Social Media Clubs and hacker groups.

We do that social networking thing IRL (in real life) too.

3)  Build a human relationship BEFORE you start lobbing pitches. Good practitioners have always known this; the social Web doesn’t change the need to “dig your well before you’re thirsty.”

Brands, think long and hard about why you want to “join the conversation” and how you want to connect what you offer and your company’s values with those “influencers” (getting really tired of this hackneyed term) who have painstakingly built independent voices online.

Bloggers, think long and hard before you let your voice and your blog become just another marketing mouthpiece.  Look for mutually beneficial relationships. Pam Mandel built one with TravelWild and several bloggers connected with Gap Adventures as “Wanderers in Residence.”

Want to know the glamorous story of how online influencers got so much, er, influence?

By busting their tails for many hours….often for little or no money in return….back when everyone thought they were nutballs (including most brands)….to create great content, be a helpful resource and do the networking necessary to become known and yes, influential, in the space you now seek to enter.

Welcome to the salt mines; here’s your pick-axe.

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One of the takeaway points at my SoMeT blogging/content presentation was to spend more time focusing on the small details of your destination. Look at the world through a mental soda straw to shed light on the unique and interesting, rather than only writing list posts (“Top 10 Beaches” blah blah) or broad overviews.

This photo is to illustrate the concept.

It was taken with a Canon PowerShot point-and-shoot camera, but using the Macro (close-up) mode, which can do some really fun stuff for you.

It is part of the patterned door of an antique pie safe at Clyde’s Willow Creek Farm, a unique restaurant and tavern in Broadlands, Virginia which is part of the Washington, DC area’s wine country (and a big thank you, preservationists for keeping our history alive in such places.)

See the poked-up holes?

Those are made by sticking a nail through the thin metal to make decorative patterns that also provide ventilation for the pies stored on shelves within.

Can you now imagine someone laboriously doing that by hand a long time ago….poke-poke-poke, but always with design in mind, like the paisley swirl detail seen in the photo?  It brings joy to an everyday piece of furniture while also serving a purpose.

Takeaway from this:   Soda straw. Get super-close. Use your camera’s Macro setting. Find those little miniature landscapes that tell a story.

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Welcome to the October 20, 2010 edition of the Carnival of Cities blog carnival, where we tour the world in a single blog post.  This is a fun way to find new voices and it can also help with link building and SEO.

Thanks very much to the host of the previous edition, Absolutely the Hague!, and I’ll be the next host on the Perceptive Travel blog on November 3rd.

Submissions are due by noon CST on Tuesday, November 2. Submit to the Carnival using this form – a recent post about any aspect of ONE, single city (or a fair-sized town.)

If you’d like to host a future Carnival edition on your blog (December 1, 15 and 29 are open) please contact me at Sheila “at” sheilascarborough “dot” com. Thanks!

Off we go….

Cities in Europe

Berlin, Germany Karen Bryan presents Berlin’s Haus am Checkpoint Charlie Museum posted at Europe A La Carte Blog, saying, “Written by Amanda Kendle of the Europe a la Carte blogging team”

Novi Sad, Serbia Emm presents Novi Sad: Liberty Square and Town Centre posted at Emm in London, saying, “Once you have visited Novi Sad, Serbia, you will see why it is so easy to fall in love with this beautiful city.”

Paris, France Mary Jo Manzanares presents Paris Pantheon: Finding Where the Bodies Are Buried posted at Traveling with MJ, saying, “History, art, and dead bodies. . . all can be found at the Paris Pantheon.”

Den Haag, the Netherlands Monique Rubin presents Duivenvoorde Castle posted at Absolutely The Hague!.

Lausanne, Switzerland JoAnna presents The Olympic Museum | Lausanne, Switzerland posted at Kaleidoscopic Wandering, saying, “I’m a huge fan of the Olympics, so I was smitten to discover the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was sort of like the Hard Rock Cafe of athletics, only way classier. The collection of equipment and memorabilia is worth a visit in and of itself.”

Leeds, West Yorkshire, England Darren Cronian presents Family friendly parks in and around Leeds posted at My Life in Leeds.

Camogli, Italy Keith Jenkins presents The colours of Camogli posted at velvet escape’s blog.

Rotterdam, the Netherlands Arwa Lokhandwala presents Museums in Rotterdam posted at NileGuide Rotterdam, saying, “A 2 day travel guide focusing on a selection of the most interesting museums in Rotterdam depicting the city’s cultural and naval heritage.”

Paris, France Jeanne presents Free Wifi Travel Office Paris – Soul Travelers 3 posted at soultravelers3, saying, “Finding great free wifi travel office in Paris”

Ohrid, Macedonia Karen Bryan presents Partying in Ohrid, Macedonia posted at Top Travel Content Europe, saying, “Based on original post by member 501Places.”

Colmar, France Lana presents Colorful Colmar posted at Monaco and Beyond.

Helsinki, Finland BLOGitse presents photos of the weekend #41 posted at BLOGitse/photos, saying, “Welcome to Helsinki!”

London, England Keith Kellett presents St. Pancras posted at Travelrat’s Travels.

Cities in the Americas

New York, New York USA Jennifer Miner presents Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Route in New York City posted at The Vacation Gals, saying, “Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in NYC is iconic to the holiday. Families with young children may be anxious about the crowds, though; here are some tips regarding the Thanksgiving Day Parade route from a former New Yorker.”

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada sheila gallant-halloran presents Fall Rhapsody in the NCC posted at Sheila Gallant-Halloran, saying, “Ottawa is Canada’s capital city – and we have the NCC (National Capital Commission) keep 90 kms of trails and parks in excellent condition in the nearby Gatineau Park – fall rhapsody”

(more…)

A long time ago (early 2006) I was a brand-new blogger just getting started growing the BootsnAll Family Travel blog.

There was a lot to learn about how to get traffic to a blog – or from a B2B perspective, how to build a blog that draws a crowd.  One suggestion on a favorite blog of mine (Free Money Finance, still going today) was to build inbound links and traffic by submitting posts to relevant blog carnivals.

A blog carnival is centered on a theme or topic; it’s hosted on one blog but usually rotates hosting duties, and it gathers posts on that topic into one blog post called a Carnival “edition.”  There’s a blog carnival site that helps to organize and standardize the submission process.

In February 2007, I was hired to run a weekly blog carnival for the now-defunct Home Turf Media – it was called the Carnival of Cities and featured blog posts submitted by lots of different blogs, all about any aspect of one, single city (or fair-sized town – we were pretty loose about that and still are.)

Through all the general Web upheaval, I kept up my involvement with the Carnival, and ended up as the owner/host of it.  Sometimes, continuing to take inputs and craft editions seemed kind of silly and outdated; so “old school,” right?

Enter the rise of Twitter and Facebook information sharing with their no follow links, and the increased challenges in building solid inbound links to one’s site for SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)  Suddenly, the chance to get legitimate, decent quality links from another blog, simply by participating in a blog carnival, doesn’t seem so old-fashioned any more.  One downside is that spammers have figured this out, too, so a lot of garbage submissions come in, but hosts are usually pretty ruthless about weeding it out or their Carnival dies.

Here is the latest Carnival of Cities edition, hosted on Absolutely The Hague! based in the Netherlands. Entries are sorted by continent and there’s a nice variety – that’s why we say that we “tour the world in one blog post.”

It so happens that this blog hosts the next Carnival of Cities; this week on Wednesday, October 20.  Given the focus on tourism and travel here, I would love to see more CVB, DMO and tourist board blogs participating.

The submission deadline is noon CST Tuesday, October 19, so get hopping and go here to submit your (one, non-spammy) recent blog post about any aspect of one, single city.

If it’s past the deadline, no worries….I’m also hosting the Carnival on November 3 on the Perceptive Travel blog. The November 17 edition will be hosted on Byteful Travel.

No one will read your blog unless they know about it, so think about submitting to mine or any other Carnival,  and also take a look at this Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) video titled, How I Use Social Media to Promote My Blogs.

It’s a simple formula, really.

To create and publish great content (blog posts, Facebook Page Wall notes, videos, tweets) you need….

1)  Lots of good ideas about something that interests you, a way to record those ideas and time to do so

2)  An editorial calendar to coherently organize and schedule the ideas – expanded into content – for publication, and time to think about and work on the calendar

3)  Structured blocks of time to create all of the great content that you’ve thought of, then organized and scheduled

Three simple things, and time ties them all together.

Number One is doing fine for me;  I have a whole notebook of blog post ideas that I carry around, and I keep notecards by the bed in case of late-night rockets of brilliance to the brain. Read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life for more insights into organizing your ideas.

I used to be pretty good with Number Two, then fell off of the planning wagon, got tired of pulling content out of my left ear at the last minute, and stumbled wearily back to the calendar.  The key is to schedule time to think through and craft the calendar, organize the content ideas and fit it all into your workflow. Go read Becky McCray’s post on the six most important things; it will help.

I am not doing so well at Number Three.

My basic schedule for keeping up with 3 blogs means a post for one of them each day, Monday through Friday (this blog is scheduled for every Tuesday and Friday. Ain’t happening, is it?)

This means I need a more functional schedule. It also means I am considering dropping one of the blogs for which I’ve run out of creative energy. In my Navy shipboard engineering days, the electricians called that “load-shedding”….dropping noncritical items off of the power grid to ensure power to vital systems and equipment.

It does not mean I need to “make time.”

You can’t “make time.”  That goose is already cooked. No one gets extra helpings of time or special favors from the Wizard of Time.

24 hours. That’s it.

As usual, strategist and thinker Chris Brogan has a thoughtful take on time. Here is the direct link to his video on YouTube if you can’t see the box below.

I found it helpful, and hope you will, too.

PR practitioners, if you remember this, you’ll be a lot less frustrated….

Unless you have a signed contract with a blogger for advertising or some sort of goods/services exchange, bloggers owe you nothing.

Nada.

Zilch.

Not one tweet. Not one Flickr photo. Not one Facebook mention. Not one blog post.

They do not owe you “buzz” just because you fed them tacos or beer at some event.

You want a tit-for-tat arrangement, go buy advertising or set up a contract that they will tweet X number of times about your brand in exchange for Y sponsorship money (or whatever.)

PR folks are paid to figure out how to build relationships with bloggers.

Bloggers are not paid to figure out PR (um, they’re usually not paid at all for blogging.) They do not blog to build your brand. They blog for themselves and their readers.

I’ve been stewing on this since reading Amber Naslund’s excellent A Dear John Letter to PR Folks. My favorite quote in her post:

“My blog is an intellectual adventure for me, not a channel for you. (emphasis added) I intend to keep it that way.”

Yes, it’s a pain, but if you want what bloggers already have, then you’ll have to do what we did – work for it.