Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

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.

At the recent TACVB (Texas Association of CVBs) annual conference in Lubbock, my business partner Becky McCray and I negotiated a trade show booth for our Tourism Currents online course in social media for tourism as part of our speaker fee.

The only problem was that we had never put anything in our marketing budget for booth decorations or signs. We’ve never planned on doing trade shows; such events are probably one of the most expensive ways to market (booths often cost $500 and up) and our network seems to be building pretty well via word-of-mouth, social networking, current customers and our speaking engagements.

How could we put together something engaging without looking, well, cheap and pathetic? We’re a startup, but we have some pride! We decided to shop my stash of personal possessions for decorations, and not sweat the small stuff.

I was the only person at the trade show because Becky wasn’t able to arrive from Oklahoma until the conference opening reception.  I’ve never done a trade show in my life; it was homework time.

First, I read an old article that I’d torn out of Inc. magazine and saved just in case I ever needed it – How to make the most of trade shows.  A quick trip through the article archives of the TSEA (Trade Show Exhibitors Association) was also helpful, and I like Make Your Booth Stand Out at a Trade Show from The Entreprenette.

Based on that research and my own experience as a trade show attendee, I could see that we didn’t need to get too fancy with the booth, but it did need to be eye-catching. We needed something to fill physical booth space since our main product is online training.  I looked around my house for things to use – as a globe-trotter, I’ve done a lot of shopping over the years and have figured out how to find travel souvenirs when you’re on a budget.

Here’s what we did:

***  Assess the amenities already provided. We would have a skirted 8 foot long table, head sign with our company name, two chairs and a waste paper basket.  There was power available.  We also ended up with a terrific location, right by the trade show entrance.

***  The table was pulled back into the booth about 2 feet so that I could stand in front of it. I never used the chairs because it’s best to stand up to chat and engage with your visitors. Wear comfortable shoes and a perpetual smile when you’re the “booth babe.”  :)

***  Pick a color scheme.  Our Tourism Currents website designed by Kim Fenolio has a lot of blue in it, so I brought my blue-and-white patterned table runner (originally purchased at Pier One) and two blue tablecloths – one from Kenya, one from Egypt to fit the conference travel/tourism theme – to drape over one of the chairs and over one side of the side drapes. There are a few touches of orange on our website, so I wore an orange jacket.

***  Fill empty space.  I brought a large, tall blue-and-gold cloth umbrella that I’d bought years before on a Navy port visit to Bali, Indonesia. When opened, it looked festive, matched the color scheme, fit the travel/tourism theme and drew a lot of interest. Driving my little Hyundai sedan to Lubbock with a pole running up the middle seemed a small price to pay (I can fold down part of the back seat to accommodate long items. I’ve even gotten a Christmas tree into that car.) I was also going to buy and blow up a bunch of blue balloons at a local grocery store to fill space, but the umbrella did enough.

***  Give people something to fiddle with.  I used what I had – my bag full of tech accessories became a “Geek Gear” display. Many people picked up items, looked at them and asked questions about my external webcam, pocket video camera, tripod, Skype headset, etc. I had to trust that the gear wouldn’t walk off, and none did, but you have to know your audience. I also set out a bowl of Werther’s hard candies brought from home, guarded by a small plastic Japanese Godzilla doll just for fun.

***  Nice colorful flyers (mostly blue) run off at a Lubbock FedEx/Kinko’s were our only out-of-pocket expense:  US$38.32 for 60 of them, which was about 30-40 too many. Becky designed the flyer to include course information and a discount code for the TACVB event, plus some info and another code for our upcoming tourism workshop at BlogWorld and New Media Expo on October 14.

***  Stack of business cards.  I already had plenty, made by moo.com, which lets you do a lot of customizing and use many different photos on the backs. I use the regular business card-sized ones, not the mini ones that fall out of card decks too easily and annoy me.

***  My laptop, with tabs already open to our Tourism Currents course details page, our Facebook Page and our Twitter stream.

***  A clear plastic glass brought from home, about half full of water with a light up party reusable “ice cube” in blue floating in it (originally from our family trip to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida awhile back, because, why not?) It was colorful and and caught the eye.

That was it.

The most important thing I did – besides chat with people who came by the booth that day – was to follow up the next week via email with everyone who had left me a business card.

And yes;  it resulted in new paying customers for our business.

I’ve been experimenting on my new smartphone with location-based services like Gowalla and Foursquare, and have begun leaning hard towards Gowalla as my favorite of the two, particularly since it led me to pies in Houston.

The “killer app” for tourism with Gowalla is the Trips feature; anyone can create a Trip of favorite sights or attractions around a town or region, plus Gowalla has partnered to make branded Trips with organizations like National Geographic, Vail Resorts, the Austin American-Statesman (here’s their Off-Leash Dog Parks, a great idea for visitors and locals alike) and the European Green Capital of Stockholm.

When you boot up Gowalla on your smartphone and select Trips, it shows you nearby Trips based on your location, which it knows from your smartphone’s GPS. I always saw lots of Austin Trips, but nothing for the town where I actually live about 20 miles north: Round Rock.

So, I decided to make my own Trip. Anyone can make up to 10 of them.

Here’s how to do it….

• Decide what would make a good Trip for visitors or locals in your area. Think about a theme and some prospective candidates for checkins. Your downtown walking tour that already exists? Local food places? Historical sites?
• Go to the Trips frontpage on Gowalla, and look to the right side for a big long oval “Create Your Trip” button.
• Fill in the blocks for “Trip Name” and pick the type of Trip from the drop-down menu. There are lots of options. If you have a bunch of different places of different types (like I did for my first Trip) pick Standard.  There are special badges for each.
• Follow the directions:  write up the Trip Details (keep it punchy and succinct – it will mostly be read on smartphone screens) then start picking places by either finding them through Gowalla’s Search or looking at places where you’ve already checked in.
• If you can’t find a Spot, create it yourself! Here are some guidelines for creating a Spot.
• When you get to the descriptive page for your desired Spot, look to the right at the drop-downs for Actions. One of the options is “Add to Trip,” so do that.
• Keep going until you have a reasonable number of places added to your Trip. You must have at least 3 but no more than 20. You can edit the descriptions of Spots in your Trip.
• Polish it up and publish, then put the link on your websites, Facebook Page, announce it on Twitter, etc.

I’m working on a second Trip now, with local places where I like to eat (it will have the Foodie badge.)

Branded badges with your logo require graphics assistance through Gowalla; email Team Gowalla directly at businesses {at} gowalla.com to discuss.

It’s that easy; go jump in!

(Update: I’ve since figured out that my Trip can only be seen on the phone app by people that I’m friends with on Gowalla, although anyone can see it on the main Gowalla website. This is rather problematic since I’m only connecting with people that I really, really feel that I know on location-based services like Gowalla, for obvious security reasons.  I would think that for branded trips by a CVB, coordinated through Gowalla, it would be a little looser, but I’m not certain. More investigation to follow.)

Are you responsible in some way for a festival or special event, and would like to get jump-started using social media to promote it?

I always advise including social media as an integral part of your overall marketing plan, not sticking it on as an afterthought, but sometimes you do need to push the train forward a bit even if all the track isn’t laid to the end.

Hey, it worked for the US Transcontinental Railroad….

If your festival or special event is coming up quickly, here are some things you can do to enhance your online presence, and then you’ll have a platform to build on more thoughtfully for next year:

1)  Get a Facebook Page.  Not a Group – a Page. Give more than one person administrative access to it. Your event logo is fine as an avatar. Put it in the Organization-NonProfit category; that’s probably the one that applies best to festivals.  Fill out the Info section thoroughly, with event dates, location and times, simple directions from the main access points, links to your website and any other social media sites you have, and a contact email and phone number.

Put up a few Wall posts, especially some photos and short videos from last year’s event if you have them, and get the word out to your networks that some “Likes” of your Page would be appreciated. Once you get to 25, um, “Likers,” you can switch the Facebook URL to a more personalized one with your name.

Connect with your local CVB, DMO, state tourism office, town government, Chamber of Commerce and the businesses that sponsor your event, at a minimum.

Here is why special events expert Penny Reeh likes Facebook (direct link to the video on YouTube if you can’t see it below)

2)  Get a Twitter account. Make sure it’s something that approximates your event name, but is not too long (that uses up valuable characters and you only get 140 per tweet.)  Make sure that more than one person can tweet from the account, and that you’re set up to tweet from mobile devices.  Don’t worry about amassing a ton of followers right away; many won’t be the right folks anyway (unless you want to lose weight with acai berries.)  You want people who care about and want to connect with your event.

See the Texas Book Festival – @texasbookfest – as an example.

Connect with your local CVB, DMO, state tourism office, town government, Chamber of Commerce and the businesses that sponsor your event, at a minimum.

3)  Create a hashtag for your event.  You don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to do so. A hashtag is a unique identifier for tweets related to your event, plus it can go in the descriptions of Flickr photos, YouTube videos, etc. Pick something short.

Take a look at #TBEX (a travel blogger’s conference) tweets as an example of a very engaged bunch following a hashtag.

Make sure your followers know to use it; if you can get folks to use it, it will be easier to monitor your event as it occurs (I use hashtags all the time to follow conferences from a distance.)

4)  Start thinking visually about coverage.  Not a photo or video expert? Don’t let that stop you. Simply think hard about what sort of compelling visual opportunities may be coming up in your event….backstage excitement? Anything you can catch up close in rehearsal? Fun moments at the cotton candy concession?  Get that digital point-and-shoot camera in your pocket and remember to use it liberally, including the video function that most of them now have.

Photos and videos are popular and evoke emotion and interest. They really amp up your Facebook Page and can also go up to Twitter via services like TwitPic and TwitVid.

If you have a smartphone, learn ahead of time how to shoot a photo and upload it from the phone to Facebook and Twitter. You can’t beat the ease and convenience of such coverage.

5)  Tell your fans and supporters where to find you online.  Put it up on posters, at the event entry and exit points, print it out on flyers and the festival map, announce it on the PA – let visitors know that you’d like to hear from them (before, during and after the fun) on Facebook and Twitter, and that they can post their best photos and video to your Wall.

Did that about cover it for quick-launch?

I’ll be speaking at the 2010 TFEA (Texas Festivals and Events Association) annual conference this week about social media for special events;  say hello if you see me there, or please leave a comment below if I missed a good tip.

Just released yesterday:  a 31 second video from Florida tourism that encourages visitors to check the Florida Live site for real-time updates on beach conditions (an example of using social media for crisis communications.)

The gist is that there are hundreds of miles of Florida coastline, so visitors should not assume that every inch of it is oil-covered.

Here is the direct link to the “Need to Know” video on YouTube if you can’t see the embed box below.

You know I’m getting a bit more into video production for CVBs and tourism organizations, and I want to ensure that you understand how important it is to optimize your video content for SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)

Great videos that are never found are just….nice.

The video below features Greg Jarboe telling you a little bit about how to increase your chances of being found – here’s a helpful article on press release and video SEO on Jarboe’s own site.

Hat tip to State of Search, who interviewed Jarboe at the International Search Summit in London this month.

Here’s the direct link to the video on YouTube, in case you can’t see the embedded box….

We are used to seeing handicapped parking spots and curb cuts, but how many of us think about the accessibility of the Internet – specifically travel and tourism Web sites – to those with disabilities?

As I discussed in an earlier post (Can you see this? Let’s talk Web accessibility) I’ve become a convert to the importance of making the Web accessible to everyone, including those who cannot hear or see very well.

By the way, if you are young now but plan to live to old age, come to grips with the realization that you won’t be able to see or hear as well as you do now. Web accessibility matters to everyone, eventually.

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?

I’m trying two different tools to make my own content more understandable and easier to use.

Perhaps you can find some useful ideas here for your own site….

1)  BuzzVoice.  Look at the right-hand sidebar on this blog; you’ll see a little phone-looking icon (we call it a widget) created by a company called BuzzVoice.

It uses text-to-speech software to turn my written words into spoken English, so a visually-impaired or dyslexic person can still absorb my content.  Thanks to this post about BuzzVoice by Jason Falls, I’m helping out with the software’s beta-testing.  Your feedback is, of course, most welcome down in the comments for this post.

Is something like this only for the visually-impaired? Nope; another benefit is that people who have long commutes, road trips,  workouts or who simply love audio content can “listen” to my blog posts on iPhones, iPods/MP3 players & other mobile devices (and now on the new iPad.)

To share the Sheila’s Guide talking widget on Facebook, Twitter & other social sites, just click the “Grab This” button at the bottom of the widget (you can embed it like you do a YouTube video.)  You can subscribe to the vocals as an RSS feed or as an iTunes audio feed.

The software doesn’t “translate” perfectly, of course, and it’s an electronic voice rather than my own, but still, it’s a step ahead for allowing multiple ways for readers to enjoy the site.

2)  Video captions.  A service to help you with automated video captioning is now available for all YouTube users, so I’m trying it out on a few of my own videos.

I’ve been schooled by Web accessibility expert Glenda Watson Hyatt on the importance of video captioning for the hearing-impaired (here are some captioning tips on Glenda’s blog) but until this machine transcription service, it was “too hard” and “took too much time.”

To request a machine transcription (the software for it was created by a deaf Google engineer) go to the Edit function of your selected video and look for the tab labeled “Captions.” Click that, and ask for an (English only) machine transcription if it’s not already been done.

You’ll get an .sbv file to download and edit.  I recommend opening it in WordPad for better formatting. You’ll see the words lined up with the time that they were said in the video; you’ll also see that the speech-to-text technology is….er….not terribly accurate.

No matter:  at least you have a time-synched rough draft transcript to work with, right?

Rename the “captions.sbv” file something like “Smithville downtown video transcript.sbv” and go to work – edit the file to make the text match what is actually said in the video.

It is much easier to edit a video when the speaker is clear and speaks slowly; since I tend to speak quickly when I narrate my own videos, I am a pain to edit.

When the .sbv file is ready, upload it back on the same Edit page for the video, and it will automatically be entered into the video.  Watch the captioned video all the way through to make sure everything is correct.  If there is a problem, go back to editing, remove the old file and re-upload your corrected one (it will again be automatically added to your video.)

Here is one of our Tourism Currents videos with captioning: 60 Seconds on Blogger Outreach with Zoetica Media’s Kami Huyse.

Are there SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits to adding this caption text to your videos? My very preliminary research indicates that the jury is still out on SEO benefits of YouTube’s captions, but at least now you have a transcript that you might be able to add to the video description or place into your own blog post below the video’s embed box (and that text WILL be indexed by search engine bots.)

More importantly, actual humans appreciate captions. Here is a video from the California School for the Deaf High School (here’s a direct link to it on their YouTube channel) with students explaining why they’re so excited to have more captioned video content – I dare you to watch it and not realize the power of Web accessibility:

One of the great benefits of hanging around with tech-savvy people at events like Social Media Breakfasts, tweetups, SOBCon, etc. is that I’ve picked up some very helpful tools for communications and information sharing.

These are in the “toolbag” of just about everyone who is active on the social Web….

1)  Skype (with headset) – Skype is the telephone of the Internet. This basic “let’s talk” tool costs nothing to download and install on your computer, and you can use it for free one-to-one conversations or group conference calls around the world.  I’ve used it for almost two years with a monthly business mastermind group, plus one-off calls like a recent one with my fellow Perceptive Travel Blog writers (scattered across Tennessee, New York, Texas and New Zealand.)  You can use Skype with your computer’s built-in microphone, but there are feedback/audio problems. Buy a $20-30 headset at an electronics store before that first call (I use a comfy one from Logitech that plugs in via USB port.)

2)  Google Docs – Again, free. All you need is a Google account (which also gives you the well-regarded Gmail email, another geek staple.)  Google Docs allows you to share and edit a document, simultaneously if you’d like, across multiple users. No more emailing that .doc or PDF back and forth!  You can also create presentations, forms and spreadsheets. Did I say:  free?  You can also password protect your creations.  How do Becky and I run Tourism Currents? We use Skype video meetings and Google Docs.

3)  Webcam – You may have a webcam (Web camera) already installed at the top of your screen or monitor, or you can buy an external one that you plug in (I use this one from Logitech.)  With a webcam you can livestream to the Web using UStream (geeks are always livestreaming stuff) and you can also do Skype video calls.

4)  SlideShare – After a presentation to a techy audience, I almost guarantee that someone will say, “Will this be up on SlideShare?”  Don’t look at them blankly; have an account set up and upload your presentation slides.  No more emailing huge Power Point slide files.  SlideShare costs nothing; here are my uploaded presentations.  Here’s what you get on SlideShare when you search for presentations on tourism and social media.  Nice, huh?

Did I miss any obvious ones?  Please chime in with your suggestions in the comments.

It’s been a painful few weeks for me as a relatively new online video enthusiast.

My trusty Flip Ultra pocket video camera made it pretty simple to learn how to create basic little movies for my family travel blog, the Perceptive Travel Blog and to shoot interviews for Tourism Currents.

(If you haven’t started shooting video for your organization, stop right now and read tourism marketing expert Todd Lucier’s first post in a 3-part series….How to Invest in Video: Shooting Video. Why? Because your visitors like to watch videos to learn more about your destination, and search engines return videos pretty high in results if they’re titled/tagged/described fully.)

When I began shooting for the Round Rock CVB recently, I used their FlipMino HD camera.  HD = High Definition.  It’s got to be better to go with higher quality stuff, right?

Yes, but….

First, HD video is very unforgiving of the shakes and jiggles, so I’m using my tripod a lot more and I’m very conscious of image stabilization.  HD files also take up a lot of storage room on your computer’s hard drive.  Those issues are no big deal, but I’ve run into challenges with editing.

My Dell Latitude is a few years old and runs Windows XP, thanks to my local PC Doctors service shop who advised against “upgrading” to Vista.  The Latitude has never had any difficulty handling editing using the included Windows Movie Maker software. HD, however, is a different story, as this excellent PC Magazine article will attest – Video Editing for the Masses.

If you’re thinking of shooting HD, be aware of the following issues:

1. The file extension is different and may not be recognized by your video editing software.  My installed version of Movie Maker can’t “see” the new .MP4 files from the Flip HD, and the latest version of Movie Maker (that can work with MP4) won’t work with my XP. Technology awesomeness!
2. Technology crises always happen at 9 pm on a Saturday night when you’re alone – at least, they do with me.  When I saw I had a mess, I put a call out to my video-savvy Twitter followers, who quickly gave me software suggestions.  Hurray for helpful networks.  No, I can’t “call the IT people” because that’s me.  Freelancer awesomeness!
3. Adobe Premiere Elements was recommended by several (thanks, Dwight Silverman at the Houston Chronicle‘s TechBlog) but I found it crash-prone (corroborated in several user forums.) I never could even launch the 30 day free trial and finally had to uninstall it.  The real problem became clearer when….
4. ….I then bought (for about $100 at Best Buy) and installed Pinnacle Studio Ultimate HD (thanks for the tip, Omar Gallaga – he’s the Austin American-Statesman Digital Savant.)  Pinnacle didn’t crash and nicely corrected several problems in a few of my video files – harsh sunlight, funky audio – but playbacks kept stuttering and everything just seemed “gummy.” Turns out that when I actually read the Pinnacle system requirements (d’oh!) my laptop has insufficient RAM and the processor is too slow.
5. To handle the two videos (plus lots of B-roll) that I’ve shot in HD, I’ve now installed the Pinnacle software on my family desktop PC, which has a more powerful processor (but the same amount of RAM as the laptop, so cross your fingers for me.)  I’m copying all the HD files on my laptop onto a 500G-capacity Seagate external hard drive, then dumping them from the Seagate onto the desktop so I can try to make everything work properly on a better platform. You can’t transfer such big files by email or sticking them on a thumb drive (without losing your mind) so I went with the big digital shovel.  Tech logistics awesomeness!

Bottom line? If you want to roll with HD, it’s not enough to shoot it. That part is deceptively easy. You need a high-powered, pretty recent computer with capable software to edit it unless you’re always going to be content to upload directly online (i.e., can shoot without error and never want to change it much.)

If you’re like most tourism organizations, your budget probably doesn’t allow you to run out and buy more powerful computers – including Macs, with the excellent iMovie editing software, unless you already have them. The answer, then, is to stick with lower-resolution video until you can get the editing horsepower you need.

The trusty lower-resolution Flip Ultra and I will hit the road tomorrow to shoot the next Round Rock video, and my laptop is breathing a sigh of relief.  Something tells me its days are numbered, though….

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!