Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

As a member of the Travel Insights 100 group of travel aficionados on UpTake, I’m looking forward to seeing all of the results of the latest member survey, asking us two questions:

• What trends or predictions do you forecast for the next year within the travel industry? and
• What are the dumbest moments in travel during the past year?

We could answer both questions or just one, so based on my talk at the recent Social Media Breakfast Austin, I chose to tackle the future. Here’s what I said in response to the Insights survey question….

“I predict the mainstreaming of social media into travel, helped along considerably by the cross-generational adoption of Facebook and the explosion of mobile/smartphones.

Not only is Grandma on Facebook, she’s going to figure out that her Blackberry (or iPhone or whatever it is) just put the Internet into her purse as well.

Lordy, now she can upload photos of her grandkids to her Facebook page while riding through “It’s A Small World After All” at Disney World!

Not within this year, but soon enough, social media is going to be “the way we do things” and will be as accepted and ubiquitous as email. No one advertises their services as an “Email Guru,” do they?

Mobile is going to explode because there are going to be multiple handset options available across all of the major carriers, thanks to Google’s Android (I don’t think Palm can recover their dominance, nor Windows Mobile, unless they do something extraordinary very soon. RIM/Blackberry and maybe Nokia have more of a fighting chance for impact.)

Go, Grandma, go!”

I’ll pop up an update post when the rest of the Insights results come out later this week.

I’m often asked by tourism professionals what I would recommend as a good first step in learning how to communicate with social media.

More and more these days, I immediately mention a Facebook Page.

By that I mean a Facebook “Fan” or “Business” Page for your tourism-related organization, not a personal page (although you must have a personal account/page in order to start a Fan/Business Page.)

Why do it?

• Social networking dominance – over 300 million worldwide Facebook users as of this writing.  Go where the people are, because….

• Your prospective visitors are probably there already. Facebook is no longer a “young person’s thing” – the fastest-growing demographic is aged 35 and older (with a big spike from women over 55….women outnumber men on Facebook.)

• It’s free. Whose destination marketing budget doesn’t love that?

• It’s a flexible platform to post not only written news and updates, but also the all-important photos and video. More importantly, your Facebook fans can also share their thoughts/photos/videos about your destination or attraction, so it’s great for building a sense of community (one that has worldwide exposure.)

• It allows information and content to spread rapidly. For example, if I do something as simple as “Like” or “Comment” on a Wall post on the American Indian Cultural Center Museum Facebook Page, that will show up in the Home page news feed of everyone who follows me on Facebook, and it also shows up on the Wall of my personal page.  If I do that while signed in as Tourism Currents (we have a TC Facebook Fan Page) it does the same thing.

• It’s hooked right into the explosive growth of mobile and smartphones. This is a no-brainer, folks.  Worldwide Facebook mobile usage is up 300%….combine that with the sense that we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of mobile/smartphone growth across the board.  You need to be in this space. Like, yesterday.

Now, I know this sets your hair on fire and you’re ready to go sign up for a Page right now, but the next step is to make sure that this fits into your organization’s communications and destination marketing strategy.

This isn’t play (although it IS fun!) – this is professional communicating.  It needs to be integrated into your overall marketing plan along with the press releases or brochures or billboard buys, but remember, the social Web is different.

It is two-way, social communications with human beings; if you just pour stuff out into a broadcast pipe like you may be used to doing, your Page will fail. Your fans want to interact with you, not read your regurgitated press releases, so get some responsive personality in there.

Think of your Facebook business page as a “digital storefront” extension of your “home base” website.  Try not to clutter it up too much, show up regularly to say hello and interact, and make sure that your fans and customers can find the page.  Put prominent links to it on your home page, in your email signatures, mention the Page occasionally on Twitter and blog about it.

Need some kick-off ideas for your posts?  Here are 30 content ideas for your organization’s Facebook Fan Page.

Now, go knock ‘em dead (and leave a comment below if you have any questions or further suggestions – thanks!)

Thanks to Facebook expert Mari Smith’s Twitter stream, I learned this morning that the rules have changed for how many Fans you need on your tourism-related Facebook page to claim a custom/vanity URL.

The requirement used to be 100 Fans, but now you only need 25.

A custom, or vanity, Facebook Page URL is shorter, more focused and appealing and easier to remember for those who are looking for your destination or attraction on Facebook.

It’s certainly not a show-stopper if you don’t have one, but it’s a nice touch if you can get it looking more clean, personalized and consistent across your various social media sites (thanks again for the tip, Mari!)

To claim your customized Page URL for both personal and business Pages, go to this link:  http://facebook.com/username.

Since I’m seeing more Facebook Fan pages like this one from Wyoming and Austin’s historic Lammes Candies Since 1885, Inc, I thought I’d better step up and get this tip out there to you quickly….

Go get that URL!