LinkedIn Groups could be a lot more valuable to their members if there weren’t so many jerks – or genuinely clueless people – showing up who only drop links to their own blog posts, or promote their own webinars.

Call me crazy, but….

There should be discussions in the Discussions.

What is the answer to this problem?

Clear rules and self-policing, before your Group members leave in disgust.

Make Rules Crystal-Clear

I recently gained Manager access to a Group for a professional organization – the Association for Women in Communications – and these are the Rules (or guidelines or whatever you wish to call them) that I’ve created and posted.  I also sent out a Group Announcement email with them, as well.

They’re in plain English; feel free to tailor them to your own Group as needed.

“This is a professional development and discussion group for the AWC (Association for Women in Communications.) You do not have to be an AWC member, or a woman, to participate.

The rules are: be nice. Bring value to the discussions. Be helpful. Encourage one another. Highlight trends. Share case studies and resources.

If all you do is show up and drop links to your own webinars, blog posts or job info, expect to have your items flagged “Promotion” or “Jobs.” ANY Group member can flag items, and should feel free to do so. Self-policing is the most effective way to keep spammers at bay.

Keep self-promoting, and you’ll get a private warning from the Group Manager (currently the AWC HQ staff in Alexandria, VA and Sheila Scarborough, member of the AWC National Board of Directors.)

Keep doing it after a warning, and we’ll block you from the Group.

Obviously, if you roll in here with abusive, sexist, racist or otherwise obnoxious language, you’ll get blocked as well.

We’re professional communicators from around the world. Let’s make this Group worthy of our abilities. Questions? Email members@womcom.org or Sheila at sheila@sheilascarborough.com   Thanks.”

Hat tip to Liz Strauss for the “be nice” rule – it’s worked well for years on her Successful Blog.

Anyone can “Flag as Promotion” or “Flag as Job”

In most Groups, anyone – not just the Group Manager – can flag a post as “Promotion,” “Job” (either looking for one or announcing one) or “Inappropriate.”

Make sure you enlist the support of all Group members in moving the above items out of Discussions and to the sections where they belong.

Promotion is fine….in the Promotions section.

Job-hunting is fine….in the Jobs section.

Reaction to the Guidelines

Within 30 minutes of posting clear rules and emailing all Group members about them, this arrived:

“THANK YOU!  I  quickly stopped reading the group and stopped notifications because of all the spam. I did not leave because I hoped it would be redeeming itself in the future.  THANK YOU for putting up guidelines.”

Also, this question:

“What about posting notices of purely social networking events? I’m the president of [redacted professional org, not AWC] and from March to October, we hold “Dutch treat” casual get-togethers for people in the Chicago area. No speakers, no recruitment, no business pitches, just an excuse to go out for drinks and appetizers with others in the profession.”

My response was that such announcements still need to go into Promotions, particularly for a non-AWC organization in a city where we don’t have a chapter (yet.) I told the sender that my number one priority right now is fostering discussions, not announcements, however “nice to know” they might be.

Sometimes, you’ve gotta be the hardass. It’s usually worth it.

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You know that part of CVB that deals with meetings? CVB stands for Convention and Visitors Bureau, after all.

How can you find and connect with the right people and encourage them to consider your destination or venue for their event, when there are so many social media channels – blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter – and so little time?

Join us for a special Tourism Currents webinar on Wednesday, May 18, 2011 starting at 2 pm Central, and we’ll show you how to book more meetings using focused and intelligent social networking with the event planners you want to reach.

We’re excited to be partnering with DMAI (Destination Marketing Association International) and their empowerMINT one-stop RFP service for meeting planners, to bring you this online session. It’s part of a series of interesting educational events leading up to our Tourism track at this year’s BlogWorld and New Media Expo West 2011 (Los Angeles CA, Nov 3 – 5.)

The webinar includes an hour with me, my Tourism Currents co-founder Becky McCray and our (always entertaining!) insights into social networking to connect with meeting planners, then 30 more minutes of Q&A….90 minutes of solid info.

Sound good?  Let us help YOU fill those meeting spaces!

Here’s the Book More Meetings webinar info and signup page - the event is FREE for empowerMINT members and $47 for others.

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At a recent  gathering for some Chamber of Commerce staff, I heard one of them say that his boss is rather dismissive of any time spent on the Chamber’s Facebook Page, yet if the Chamber is not successful on Facebook, that is seen as a failure.

Rock, meet Hard Place.

I’d love to tell that boss that if Facebook is part of an organization’s communications strategy, then interacting with customers or prospects on Facebook is work. It is not “goofing off.”

Welcome to the modern world – Facebook for business is work. It is part of that Chamber communicator’s job to connect with not only Chamber members, but also people in the community who might become members, including hardworking entrepreneurs who may have never considered the Chamber as an asset for growing their business.

The Chamber should be the hub of business development and economic growth in a community, and one way to interact with the community is through social media channels like Facebook.

The boss needs to get a clue, and if he or she isn’t careful, they’re going to see brain drain by staff members who understand the social Web.

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We tell tourism clients all the time that they need to occasionally go where the geeks are to really stay up to speed on social media tools and culture.

One of the conferences that we recommend attending at least once is the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) tech conference held every March in Austin, Texas. In 2010 it outsold the SXSW Music festival (generally much better known) for the first time.

With all of the hype and hoopla and buzz about social media influencer outreach, it’s inevitable that some stupidity will ensue.

Enter this video, a guide from A Bajillion Hits for How to be South by South Best….and of course, don’t do as he does OR as he says….

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When someone asks me about social media in the hospitality industry, I usually mention the Roger Smith Hotel in New York, AJ Bombers restaurant in Milwaukee and the blog written by Hawaii-based Outrigger Hotels.

Then I wish that I knew more examples.

That problem was just partially solved by this excellent presentation on Slideshare by Lara Dickson, a designer and social media marketing expert based in Vermont. It’s also included in her own blog post, Social for Hospitality 101.

It covers all that any hotel or restaurant needs to know about getting started using social media tools for marketing, and it’s full of ideas and examples.

Thanks a bunch, Lara!

Direct link to the presentation Adding Social Media to Your Hospitality Marketing Toolkit.

How would your 25-year-old self react if he or she heard you say, ”I’m too old to figure out all of this technology and social media stuff?”

Think about the words that might be used.

“Age has nothing to do with it.”

“You’re smart; what’s the problem?”

“You only need to be willing to learn and try.”

“If you can’t see the little smartphone screen, then put on some of those reading glasses you guys use.”

“But you love to write….tell stories….talk on the phone….see a good movie or TV show….meet people….share photos….  Is this so different?”

“Has this really happened to you? Why?”

Why, indeed.

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We are excited to announce that doors are now open for another round of online classes at Tourism Currents.

There are usually three problems with most social media training:

• It is too basic and generic
• It is too advanced and nerdy
• ….or it is well-balanced, but not tailored to a specific industry

Tourism Currents is different. Here are more details about why we get straight to the heart of real tourism results.

My co-founder Becky McCray and I run a unique, high-energy learning community that is hyper-focused on teaching tourism and hospitality industry professionals how to use that big pile of social media tools (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) to more effectively tell the stories of their destinations and attractions.

We get specific about topics like how to use Twitter for fall foliage reports, how to use Facebook to promote your festival and what’s important for a successful blogger press trip/fam tour.

Compelling stories convince people to visit your town. The social Web is the ideal place to tell those stories (it’s made for the tourism little guy, too) and it connects with others who love and support you….we call them your “online champions network.”

Our courses help you make sense of it all.

They are organized to provide basic social media overview information to those who need it (through a quick Intro Workshop or a three-part All the Basics course) or more advanced how-to specifics to those who are ready for it through the three-part Results Multipliers class (which dives deep into unique destination marketing topics like mobile-friendly tours.)

If you are geared up to really make things happen for the long haul, the Tourism Currents six month Full Course combines the Basic and Multipliers, then throws in the Intro Workshop as a bonus.

Every course is a combination of multi-part lessons, exclusive videos with experts and a wrap-up printable checklist, plus there’s a member forum for detailed discussions.

We hope you’ll join us soon at Tourism Currents!

The Austin American-Statesman launched the Texas Social Media Awards last year, and I’m humbled to tell you that the 2010 award winners were just announced and I’m one of the awardees.

Thanks very much to the judges on the Statesman staff and to those who supported my nomination.

It is truly an honor to be recognized in such a constantly-changing space and with so many other fine people.

From the paper’s article about the Awards:

“In the year since the awards were first held, social media sites increasingly have become a part of daily life. ‘We’ve gone from people who were early adopters and having fun with the technology to people using it for business and nonprofits in ways I’ve never even thought of before,’ says American-Statesman social media editor Robert Quigley.”

I sincerely hope that my work in the social Web is helpful to the tourism and travel communities.

Take a gander at the list of awardees to appreciate the variety of folks, and allow me to give a special shout-out to a few of them….

1. Michelle Greer – last year’s overall winner and one of this year’s judges. A tireless advocate of using tech for worthy causes and an expert on cloud computing with Rackspace.
2. Jennifer Navarrete – A good friend and occasional business colleague, Jennifer is the driving force behind much of San Antonio’s tech scene, plus she’s a dynamite podcaster at (among other shows) Tech in Twenty.
3. Dara Quackenbush – Dara is a PR professor at Texas State, and I love watching how she brings her students into modern PR, done right. Here’s her class blog where they practice what they learn.
4. Jenn Dearing Davis and Hayes Davis – They tweet and tell us about good deals, on CheapTweet. They appreciate all of us on a budget. They are super-nice. Drawbacks = none.
5. Mando Rayo – He investigates the local taco scene, then blogs about it on Taco Journalism.  He told me that my best local taco joint is Juarez Mexican Bakery, and when Mando tells me where to go, I go. I eat. I’m happy.
6. Hugh MacLeod – He draws quirky cartoons at Gaping Void. He does marketing for a South African winery from his location in Alpine, Texas; hey, it’s the Web so it makes sense to me.

I’m thrilled to be in such company, and thanks again for your support.