Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

Over a six week period (1 December 2011 through 17 January 2012) we gained 137 new Likes/fans for our Tourism Currents Facebook Page. That is a 101% increase over a similar time frame from the previous year.

We did not buy Facebook ads or Sponsored Stories. We did not run a contest. We only did one thing differently …. we started interacting more on our own Home page (News Feed) with other Pages that we’ve Like’d.

That was it.

Sure, our Tourism Currents Page doesn’t have massive numbers of supporters, because we have a deliberate, laser-targeted focus on social communications for the tourism and hospitality industries.  We’d rather have a small number of people from CVBs (Convention and Visitors Bureaus) and Tourist Boards who really care what we say on Facebook, and then maybe check out our online Store, than thousands of random button-clickers who we never see again.

Facebook is like blogging and most other human interaction – if you want attention, you must give it. If you want your updates to be noticed, you need people to Like, Comment and Share them; that means they must remember that your Page exists.

How We Did It

As a Tourism Currents Page Admin, I switch from acting as my personal Sheila Scarborough profile to acting as the Tourism Currents Page. You can switch roles when you’re logged into Facebook; look for a little arrow at the top right of your screen next to “Home”.  The options available to you will drop down. If you are an Admin for many Pages, there is a small gray slider bar at the side of the dropdown box, although sometimes it doesn’t show up.

At least once a day, for about 10-15 minutes, I go to the Home page/News Feed acting as Tourism Currents. I click the Sort —> “Recent Stories First” dropdown arrow option on the upper right side. That puts my Home page status updates in chronological order, without regard to Facebook’s EdgeRank, which by default sorts the News Feed into the “Highlighted Stories First” setting. I want to see fresh, new, unfiltered updates. I also want my interaction to be noticed and not buried with 573 later Likes and Comments.

Then, I skim down and “like” interesting status updates, plus leave a comment on the ones where I have something useful to say.  I know that many other Page Admins are a lot like me; they notice and investigate those who actively respond to their content. Likes and comments help increase the visibility and EdgeRank of individual updates, so not only am I calling attention to Tourism Currents, I’m also helping other people’s content get more attention.

As the screenshot above shows, once I started doing this consistently, we gained 137 new Likes in six weeks.  For a Page with 895 Likes (as of this writing) that’s a nice little jump.

Numbers Aren’t The Point, Though

Excessive focus on getting more fans or supporters is useless bean-counting, unless it’s combined with actively engaging those people and getting them interested in and talking about your destination, attraction, lodging, service or product.

At a minimum, you should have a tab on your Facebook Page for easy signups to your own email newsletter.

You’re not in business to build an empire for Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg …. you want to own your own data.

We use a Facebook app tied to our Tourism Currents MailChimp email account to encourage newsletter signups right on our Page.  To see how it’s done, here’s how to add a MailChimp signup form to Facebook; your email provider probably has a similar procedure.

I disagree with some of the current advice to increase the frequency of your Facebook posting because of the new Timeline format.  Making more noise and spewing even more content for busy people to have to plow through is not a sustainable communications tactic.

To get Likes, be a Like-er yourself, and then have a plan for what the heck you’re going to DO with the community you build.

One of my favorite thinkers in the social media, tech and tourism arena is Canadian consultant Todd Lucier.

We’ve only met in person a few times, but our heads are always locked in agreement on issues like the connection between mobile technology and tourism and the need for video content in your destination marketing.

Todd popped this video rant up on his site (direct link to it on Vimeo) and I think it’s a great way to illustrate his passion for dragging recalcitrant towns and businesses into understanding WHY they need to wake up to people’s desire to have simple Web access when they travel.

This Week in Tourism, November 19 – 2010 from Blue Canoe Video on Vimeo.

(If you like this post, please consider subscribing to the blog via RSS feed or by email – the email signup box is on the right sidebar near the Search box. Thanks!)

Such a deal we have for you….

My business partner Becky McCray and I are very proud of the content we’ve pulled together on our Tourism Currents membership site – tons of resources in our first, introductory lesson focused on social media for tourism professionals.

However, only our paid members can see most of it  –  access to our monthly Newsletter and the option to join our Flickr Group Pool are free with sign-up, but everything else is reserved for paying members.

While we think that our insights are well worth US$45 or US$75 a month (at the two least expensive membership levels) for such detailed, specific content spread over six months of lessons, we understand that budgets are tight and people want to ensure that they’ll get their money’s worth for their investment.

So, we decided to throw open the doors, lift the pay firewall starting right NOW (just after 11:45 CST on Tuesday, September 29) and as long as you register for the free Newsletter-level membership, you’ll have access to ALL of our content, including the stuff you’d normally pay for, until 12 midnight on Friday, October 2.

Here’s how you get in:

Right now, you’ll see the full Introductory lesson, with three huge text lessons, three video interviews, tons of examples specifically for tourism and extras in the Resources section….without paying a cent!

But wait, there’s more. A blender! Ginsu Knives!

Sorry, not really, but as another bonus during the Open House, you can also upgrade to a Regular membership for the Just the Basics price.

Here is what you get at the Regular level, normally $75 per month:

• Access (along with other members) to a monthly one-hour live video Q&A/round table discussion with Becky and me,  concentrating on the lesson topic for the month. You want to “pick our brain?” Here ya go!
• Access to all lessons – a new one each month – including video interviews and takeaways/checklists.
• Access to the Tourism Currents Member Forum.
• Monthly newsletter and access to full newsletter archives.

During the Open House only, you’ll get this for US$45 per month instead of US$75 per month.

Simply register at the paid “Just the Basics” level during the Open House timeframe, and we’ll manually upgrade you to “Regular” level on our site’s back end.  (Almost as nerdy as it sounds.)

This offer is strictly limited, and ends midnight CST on Friday, October 2, 2009. Period. Finito.

We think we have good stuff. We want you to check it out. It’s that simple.

Thanks very much for your interest and support.