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.

(In our Tourism Currents course – which is now open to new enrollments! – we call your online fans and supporters “online champions.” Please join us to find out more about using social media tools for connecting with visitors.)

Spend some time in the online world, and you’ll rapidly discover that those “online influencers” who all the marketing folks are chasing are only a part of the digital communications story.

Even worse, tourism PR and marketing is often fixated only on travel bloggers because they see them as an alternative to something they’re familiar with: print travel writers. They do not appreciate the possibilities offered by niche blogs, or the Long Tail’s impact on travel.

If you look beyond the Hype-o-Meter, there are plenty of people who blog sporadically, if at all, but have a significant online presence in other ways….

• Photography with Flickr
• Video on YouTube or Vimeo
• Podcasting on iTunes or Blog Talk Radio
• On Facebook
• On Twitter

There are even people who are active and engaged in old-school forums and bulletin boards, like this forum on geocaching (and geocachers love to travel to new places to look for stuff.)

If you scoop them all up and dump them in one big “blogger” category like some of your less-savvy marketing peers are doing, you won’t have a complete picture of how to find those online champions.

Be smarter than that; have a more complete picture of the online space where you’re trying to compete for attention.

Welcome to this edition of the Carnival of Cities, where we tour the world in a single blog post.

Thanks very much to the Perceptive Travel blog for hosting the last edition; I’m still sorting out who will host the next one (am a bit behind on the email stack; sorry.)

If you’d like to host on your blog, please contact me at Sheila “at” sheilascarborough “dot” com. Thanks!

Off we go….

Cities in Africa

Cape Town, South Africa Brian Spencer presents Best Sushi in Cape Town posted at Perceptive Travel Blog.

Cities in the Americas

Shediac, New Brunswick, Canada Anne-Sophie Redisch presents PhotoFriday: A Big Thing in Canada posted at Sophie’s World, saying, “Shediac, NB – the world’s lobster capital – where else but Atlantic Canada!”

Garrison, New York, USA Madeleine Begun Kane presents Get Thee To Troilus And Cressida posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog.

Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA Elizabeth R. Rose presents Santa Fe New Mexico – Top things to do and see posted at Examiner – Houston, saying, “Thanks for the opportunity.”

Anchorage, Alaska, USA Glennia presents The Anchorage Museum: A Great Place for Kids of All Ages posted at The Silent I, saying, “From our recent trip to Alaska.”

Omaha, Nebraska, USA Morgan Schwartz presents Body Scanners at Eppley Give Suburban Mom a Cheap Thrill posted at All Cracked Up by Vicky DeCoster, saying, “In between work, errands, and chauffeur service, Moms in Omaha might not have that many opportunities for excitement in their day. One Mom found the new body scanners at Eppley Airport good for a cheap thrill—and a little awkward self reflection.”

(more…)

Some of you may have noticed the orange Alltop banner on my right sidebar, the one that says “Visit MyAlltop page.”

Alltop is a site that aggregates feeds (headlines and the first part of posts/articles) from a huge variety of websites and blogs, sorted by topic.

The founders call it an “online magazine rack,” and it is one of the best tools we recommend at Tourism Currents for finding bloggers in many different niches, from big to very focused.

Travel blogs? You’ll find plenty on the Alltop travel channel.

Skiing? Sure, there’s a Skiing channel.

New York Street Food channel? Yep. Yum!

Board games? Of course; get your chess, backgammon and other board game news on the Board Games channel.

There’s a tourism industry Alltop channel too; I helped to set it up with recommendations from experts like Todd Lucier, Sarah Page and Lara Dickson.

Wondering how to find and connect with relevant bloggers for your destination or attraction? Start with Alltop.

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.

There is a fascinating discussion going on right now regarding roles, authenticity and marketing on the social Web.

It’s being shouted and whispered, and no matter what anyone says (including big mouth me) no one has the “correct” answer yet, if indeed there is a “correct” answer to be had.

Warning – in this post I’m going to use the term “blogger” to mean, “A person who creates original, unique content on the social Web.”   I am well aware that not every digitally-savvy person has an active, vibrant blog (maybe they only rock Twitter or Facebook or YouTube or some other platform) but the term “blogger” seems to have become accepted terminology for someone who knows how to communicate on the Web and builds/sustains some sort of community there.

Okay, here’s the question

At what point does an independent blogger who interacts with brands lose some element of his or her “authenticity?”

To be blunt, at what point is a blogger simply another node helping a company do marketing and outreach?

Again, I do not yet fully know the answer to this question for myself, much less for the rest of the planet (so put down those pitchforks, brothers and sisters.)  What I do know after finishing up this year’s South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) tech conference is that businesses and brands want what bloggers already have, and they want it badly.

They want blogger authenticity; what pioneering political woman Shirley Chisholm called being “Unbought and Unbossed.”

Why?

Because business-as-usual advertising and marketing is seen as inauthentic (or at least, all about rah-rah good news and therefore not the whole truth) so people are turning to the “digital back fence” – word of mouth from their friends online, because it is seen as unbought, unbossed and authentic.  In other words:  the truth.

There’s a PR/marketing term for getting talked about in a positive sense without having to pay for it:  earned media.  It means that your product or service is so good that it earns your business free publicity. People will talk about it of their own volition, which is seen as more authentic than paying them to say good things, i.e. paid media or advertising.

What is the best way to, well, earn this “earned media?”  One of the current answers seems to be to connect with digital influencers and bloggers at events like SXSWi.

From Jay Baer’s excellent post 13 observations from South by Southwest (SXSW) we have this snippet:

“There was also a lot of talk (especially among the big brands) on operationalizing social media, and creating true best practices for how to thrive in a real-time world where every customer is a reporter.”

Um, “operationalize?”

Yes, that basically means to take social media seriously and use it to drive sales and increase business, while measuring your Return on Investment (ROI) from those efforts.

Congrats, blogger, you are now part of a marketing plan; a node to drive sales and increase business for a brand.

Nerds As Nodes

I’m not saying whether this state of affairs is good or bad, only that it is what it is, and we’d better continue to acknowledge and talk about it.

There has been a power shift.

Brands have money, but bloggers hold most of the marbles.  Yes, you, blogger – the one trying to figure out how to pay your electricity bill – you hold most of the marbles in the new balance of power.

Brands want access to what you’ve worked so hard to build at 3 a.m. in your T-shirt and sweatpants:  authentic influence and community.

The question is, how many marbles do you trade with brands in order to pay the bills?  Is there a way to make money legitimately without you or your community feeling that they’ve bought your voice?

You’d better be thinking about these issues.  When you’re comfortable with the answers, go for it, but please do take the time to think, and I mean till your head hurts.

Or, don’t think about it. Fine. Take any and all goods/offers and run all the way to the bank, but don’t be surprised if you wake up one day with a pile of freebies and toys and a reputation (that you can’t shed) as a shill.

Respect what you’ve built online and always, always guard it fiercely.

Ask the brand and ask yourself the uncomfortable questions before unwittingly finding yourself in the Fire Swamp battling Rodents of Unusual Size.

Brands Are Not the Booger Man

Brands and businesses, please know that I understand your position, too.

You have products and services that you’re proud of and you want your business to grow, because it’s a good business, right?

I’m in the same position;  as a trainer and consultant myself, I have no problem telling our Tourism Currents clients that outreach to bloggers can be an integral part of their destination marketing – we call it “finding your online champions.”  I myself have been the target of such outreach efforts by tourism organizations, and they resulted in a few blogger press trips where I did a lot of thinking about my own comfort level as a “node.”   :)

Here’s my takeaway for brands….if a blogger is excessively accommodating, you’ve just been had.

Guard your brand’s reputation fiercely, too, because you’ve worked hard and you don’t need to toss it all away on “buzz” and “viral” crapola from a greedy digital snakeoil salesperson.  They can take their marbles and go home, in that situation.

I do not know all the answers, but I know enough to ask questions. Thanks for listening, and I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

This past Sunday evening’s #blogchat discussion on Twitter caught my eye – the topic was dealing with and avoiding blogger burnout.

You can get the full transcript of the tweets here (great for giving people a sense of how an hour-long hashtagged topic-specific “talk” on Twitter can work) but here are a few of my favorite ideas from host @MackCollier‘s very helpful summary blog post about the chat:

**  Switch things up and try doing a podcast or video post - @mtlb

**  Bring in new bloggers or have others do guest posts - @eric_urbane

**  Try using an editorial calendar for your blog - @jdebberly

**  Keep a notebook with you to jot down post ideas - @lorieahuston

**  Check out your blog’s archives to see if you can find a new take -@amanda_pants

David Armano (@Armano on Twitter) said, “Ok, honestly, try really short posts to avoid burnout. Worked for me recently because it cut to chase.”

I like the suggestion to go super-short and to the point, almost tweet-ish, rather than the “standard” 300-500 word post.  I saw something similar in another tweet recently (can’t remember the source) which said that you need to quit trying to win a big ol’ Pulitzer Prize with every post. Just get a meaty thought up there and move on.

Short is OK.

For an obsessive rambler like me, that’s very helpful advice.

Here’s a handy resource that was tweeted during the chat:  10 things to do when you feel you have nothing to blog about.

When it comes to blogging, pay particular attention to suggestions for organizing your ideas.  I’ve found that when my thoughts are laid out in a list of possible posts or in an editorial calendar, my biggest problem is finding time to write about everything that interests me!

Yesterday, I sat down and began writing a post for one of my two travel blogs.

It was a post topic that I’d been meaning to cover for years, an annual January literary event at a museum.  Every year I’d blow it and forget to write the post until it was too late, but this year I put a big fat star on my calendar for the end of December, so I wouldn’t forget.

There was no problem finding updated information about the event, and I was particularly pleased to find that the museum also has a blog, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter stream, YouTube channel (only one video, but hey, a start) and lo and behold, a Flickr photostream.  I linked to all of them in my travel blog post, because that’s the power of the Web – the simple act of linking actually helps you pull other blogs and sites up in search rankings, because linking to a site increases its authority in search engine algorithms.  Hey, my whole job these days is tourism and social media, so I love to shine a light on great places.

I ran into trouble when it came to finding a good photo and video to go in the post.   A photo or some sort of graphic is almost a must-have for a compelling travel post, and embedding a short video of this particular event into my post would also make it more intriguing and attractive to possible visitors.

When I don’t have a photo of my own, I always go to Flickr and look for images with the appropriate Creative Commons alternative copyright license (need more ideas for finding photos? Here’s how to find local photos for your tourism projects.)

Since the museum has a Flickr account for their own pictures and a Flickr Group Pool for others to contribute their personal photos, I figured I’d have an embarrassment of riches for wonderful pics.

No such luck….I struck out in the Group Pool and even though the museum had plenty of nice photos taken at the annual event, I couldn’t use any of them in my blog post because they all had the default Flickr Creative Commons license of “All Rights Reserved.” For this particular travel blog (which is ad-supported and for which I’m paid per post, so I consider it commercial) I needed an image with one of the least-restrictive CC licenses, simply “Attribution.”

That means that when I use the photo in my own content, I give attribution/credit to the original photographer, and I also link the photo in my post back to its original URL page on Flickr.  Confused?  Just look at the Whistler’s Mother spoof photo above in this post. Mouse over it to see the attribution, and click it to go to the source page.

Yes, if I contacted the museum and asked, they might let me use one of their photos, but it was New Year’s Eve and I wanted to post that day. I didn’t have time to wait around playing “Mother May I.”  I’m a blogger and I want it now, and I want it at 2 a.m. if that’s when I’m writing the post.  You can see our obsession with speed as either a total pain in the neck or a totally great opportunity to get the word out, fast.   I vote for Option B, of course.

If you want me or any other wired writer to have great material to highlight your destination, help us out.  Make it easy for us to toot the bloggy horn about your destination, attraction or event.

Give at least some of your Flickr photos the simplest license, “Attribution,” or even “Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs” would work for many blogs. Put a link to your photostream on your Web site or blog, to help us find it. While you’re at it, put a nice selection of available-for-media-use pics under the Media tab on your site. Yeah, ’cause we are media – even though you may never have heard of us, I guarantee you want our coverage and links.

Give us a few decent videos to help show off your goodies, about two to three minutes long, with titles and credits that say who you are and list your URL.  Make sure we can embed them, whether you use YouTube or some other service like Blip.tv, Viddler, Vimeo, etc.  They do not have to be professionally produced, but they do have to be interesting, with decent audio, and easy to embed.

Most bloggers could care less about email blasts (“delete, delete, unsubscribe, delete” describes much of my day) or pretty Flash-based Web site pages that we can’t link to or some giant press packet on a CD.  I know exactly what I want to write about and I do it on my own schedule.

Learn to think like a blogger and provide those nuggets that help us tell your story, because we want the world to know about you.

Feel free to let me know in the comments if I’m off my rocker and missing some obvious impediment, or if you have additional thoughts. Thanks!

Update:  Kudos to the museum! After I asked them on Twitter to switch some of their photos to a less-restrictive license, they did it, so here is the blog post that I updated to include two of their images and here is their whole set from the event.

Blog Carnival

carnival of cities

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Welcome to this edition of the Carnival of Cities, where we tour the world in a single blog post through the eyes and words of contributing bloggers.

The focus is on any aspect of one, single city (or a fair-sized town.)  Any blogger is welcome to submit a post for possible inclusion. It’s normally posted every other Wednesday, but I was tied up with another project yesterday.

I’ve been running this blog carnival off and on since February 2007. It’s often found on the “host blog” (currently my BootsnAll Family Travel Guide) but like any carnival it moves around, and other bloggers take turns hosting.

Today I’m hosting it here on Sheila’s Guide so that my tourism and travel readers can see a wide variety of blogging topics and talent.

Off we go….

Cities in the Americas

San Juan, Puerto Rico BW presents La Bombonera Old San Juan posted at Visit The Coqui, saying, “one of the most popular places with locals and visitors to grab a quick snack or a hearty meal in Old San Juan.”

Washington, DC Jon presents Celebrate New Year’s in 1960s Mad Men Style posted at The PlanetEye Traveler – Washington DC, saying, “Here’s a fun was to spend New Year’s Eve in Washington, DC.”

Los Angeles, California Peter Kimmich presents Top 5 Los Angeles Breakfast Restaurants That Won’t Break the Bank posted at TryOurLA, saying, “Some of the favorite local breakfast spots in Los Angeles.”

New York, New York A NY Nerd presents Crocodile Lounge Trivia Night posted at Nerd-NY, saying, “A review of a really fun quiz night in New York City.”

Washington, DC Jack Norell presents Holocaust Museum, Washington D.C. posted at Eyeflare – Travel Articles and Tips, saying, “DC’s Holocaust Museum is one of the more sobering institutions in a city which has a wealth of reminders of human folly and pain. Well worth a visit and the impact will remain with you for a long time.”

Bogota, Columbia Filip Ziolkowski presents Colombia, Bogota, Streets of Candelaria vol.1 posted at South Central North America, Asia, Australia, Europe: Backpacking around the world, saying, “Round the world in Bogota.”

Tallahassee, Florida Joe Manausa presents Erwin Jackson Asks Tallahassee To Demand More posted at Tallahassee Real Estate Blog, saying, “The Tallahassee City Commission cooked up a plan to give themselves an unlawful raise by calling it something else. They called it “deferred compensation.” Yet they deferred no compensation, they continued to cash their fully-funded paychecks, and they each received an additional $22K per year!”

Burlington, Vermont Miss Magpie presents Downtown Charlie Brown posted at FindandGoSeek.net, saying, “Just a few family friendly things I love about Burlington, Vermont.”

Cities in Africa

Swakopmund, Namibia Emily Hutto presents Swakopmund posted at Global Osmosis.

Cities in Asia

Taipei, Taiwan Sander presents Wanhua Buddhist Festival posted at Searider Zander, saying, “Here’s what’s happening in Taipei recently. You probably won’t get to hear about this kind of festival unless you live here yourself, as you kind of have to have grown up here to know about it – unless someone tips you off.”

Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Jonny presents Museums in Saigon posted at Vietnam Travel, saying, “A blog post covering the museums of Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City. Cheers! Jonny.”

Cities in Europe

Madrid, Spain Andy Hayes presents A Foodie’s Guide to Madrid posted at Sharing Travel Experiences, saying, “Hungry? Look no further than Madrid, where we’ve got every meal of the day covered (and more!).”

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg Mark presents 1000 Years in 100 Minutes (Luxembourg) posted at Travel Wonders of the World, saying, “A wonderful walking tour of historic Luxembourg City.”

Frankfurt, Germany Martin Andrews presents Amazing Cheap Discount Travel Deals To Frankfurt Germany posted at Globe Cheap Travel.

Vienna, Austria ivanisko presents A Report from Vienna posted at Bookstore Guide, saying, “In the latest addition to our ‘Reports’ section we explore the English language bookstore scene in the city of Vienna.”

San Sebastian, Spain Jeanne presents San Sebastian Tapas Or Pintxos posted at soultravelers3, saying, “We’ve had great tapas all over Spain, but think San Sebastian has the best tapas crawl!”

London, United Kingdom Victoria Wallop presents Christmas Past posted at It’s a small world after all, saying, “A very special musuem in East London celebrates Christmas traditions from 1600 to the present day.”

That concludes this edition, and thanks for visiting.

Please submit your (one, non-spammy) blog post to the next edition of the Carnival of Cities using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

For those of you who are interested in really ramping up your blogging skills, I’ll be participating in a Webinar next week called the Girlfriend’s Guide to the Business of Blogging.

Conference organizer Debbie Lawrence saw me on Twitter – I don’t shut up much there, either  - and was kind enough to invite me to speak.

There are lots of sessions, all online, across three days (Tuesday, December 8 through Thursday, December 10) all for only US$15.  You can even earn a free ticket through their affiliate program.

Speakers include Michael Martine (Remarkablogger) Julie Gallaher (travel site Things You Should Do) a TweetNote keynote by Charles J. Orlando (he’ll be talking about “How to Build a Sustainable Brand from Scratch—for Less Than $250/mo”) and a lively bunch of others.

My speaking session is scheduled for Thursday, December 10 at 9 am EST (yes, that’s 8 am my time in Texas. Blargh. I hope my coffee is strong!)

It’s called “Let’s Get Visual: How Flickr and YouTube Can Amp Up Your Blog.”

We’ll talk about shooting basic video with a Flip camera or using the video function on most digital cameras, minor editing using software like Microsoft’s MovieMaker (which comes with most PCs) and then uploading to YouTube and embedding back in a blog post. We’ll also discuss the importance of images to the power of your blog’s content, and ways to find great photos through the Creative Commons alternative copyright on the Flickr photo-sharing site. Finally, and very important for human and Google-y search, we’ll talk about how to title, describe and tag both videos and photos so that they can help drive traffic to your blog.

You can read more about Flickr in my guest post Every Picture Tells A Story on the Girlfriend’s Guide blog, and I hope you have time to attend some or all of the webinar sessions. I think it’s a ton of good information for an incredible price, and even better, a portion of the proceeds go to the American Stroke Association in honor of blogger Anissa Mayhew, who recently suffered a devastating stroke.

See you next Thursday?