Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

(This is a guest post by Jody Halsted about a cool conference in Iowa that is all about connecting and educating Midwest bloggers. I followed the conference hashtag on Twitter during last year’s version of it and was impressed, so I asked Jody to tell us a little bit more about it.)

In an effort to change the perception of the Midwest from a place to get away from to a place to explore and discover, the Destination Midwest event at the I_Blog Conference will bring together Midwest bloggers and Midwest destinations for an evening of (virtual) travel, networking and the opportunity for mutually beneficial relationships!

According to the 2010 Ypartnership/Harrison Group 2010 Portrait of American Travelers, “1 in 4 family travel planners consult a blog before booking” a vacation.  According to the Edelman Trust Barometer 2010, people trust “people like them” more than TV news, search engines, and newspapers.

Blogs create community, build friendships and foster relationships. In our ever-increasingly connected world, a good blog will open your eyes to a world you never imagined and lead you places you never knew you wanted to visit!

Blogging has grown to include more than just written words on a page and is now the center of the social media wheel.  By utilizing images, video techniques, Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare and Gowalla – just to name a few – a blogger can become a tour guide, travel resource, location expert and handy reference.

The Ypartnership/ Harrison Group study also shows that family travelers are more likely to have taken a vacation in their local area as an alternative to vacationing in a destination that would have required traveling a greater distance.  By connecting with bloggers within a day’s drive from your destination, you will reach their local audience and increase your chances of being the “local area” vacation of their readers.

The Destination Midwest event at the I_Blog Conference takes place Saturday, November 6 from 6-10pm.  Space is limited to 20 destinations; cost is $250 per destination.

Please visit http://iblogconference.com/destination-midwest for more information and to register for Destination Midwest, or contact Jody Halsted via email (jody@iblogconference.com), Twitter (@I_BlogConf and @iatraveler) or by phone at 515-707-6547.

If your destination is interested in learning more about social media, conference tickets are available at a discount for participants in Destination Midwest.

Note: Jody Halsted is working very hard to change the perception of the Midwest from a place to get away from to a place to explore and discover through her website Family Rambling and articles she writes for other travel publications.  She loves to work with destinations and share the unique adventures that are found only in the Midwest.  As an example, she worked with the St. Louis CVC last summer; you can see the series she wrote about it here: http://familyrambling.com/index.php/exploring-st-louis/usa.

Most of you know that I’m really big on getting “the ungeeked” to go to one or two tech-related conferences or events per year.

There is no more effective way to figure out how people are using technology and mobile devices right now to communicate; it’s the best market research you can do and it will put you way ahead of competitors who are still scratching their heads over Twitter (which really burst on the scene at SXSWi 2007, the South by Southwest Interactive tech conference, one of the world’s largest.)

I recently wrote a guest post about this on the BlogWorld and New Media Expo blog – Go Where the Geeks Are: Why Tech Events Matter for Tourism and Travel - in support of the all-day tourism workshop that we’re doing at BlogWorld on October 14.

Meantime, the Panel Picker is now open for SXSWi 2011 in March – one of the unique things about “South by” is that part of the panel selection process is pubic voting and commenting on the proposed panels. You can give your feedback whether you’re attending SXSWi or not; there is a quick and painless registration process to do so.

I’ve proposed a panel with myself and two other speakers – my Tourism Currents business partner Becky McCray and travel/tourism entrepreneur Andy Hayes.

It’s titled Tourism Catches On: Old Industry Meets New Media.

Issues we plan to talk about include:

1. How does story and relationship work with new marketing online?
2. Can destinations work with online review sites or is it all out of their control?
3. What roadblocks hold tourism organizations back and how can they be overcome?
4. How can small staff groups possibly implement all these new tools when all this old work still has to get done?
5. What’s coming next in tourism and destination marketing?

If you have a moment, I’d really appreciate your votes, comments and feedback on our Tourism Catches On panel proposal.

Technology is for everyone – we want more mainstream industries and interest at SXSWi and we hope you do, too.

This is a video tag sort of QR code; you can point your smartphone’s camera to it and with the right app (usually a barcode reader but in this case the Microsoft Tag app) some sort of content will pop up.

Content can be everything from some text describing the item that the code is on, to a URL that will open in your phone’s browser, to the coolest thing – a little video playing on your phone.

I can think of some imaginative ways to incorporate these into your downtown walking tour’s historical markers, for one thing.  My Canadian friend Todd Lucier and I are on the same wavelength about QR codes these days….here’s his recent blog post QR Codes: making interpretive signs come to life.

What ideas do you have? Please share in the comments!

As a visitor to your town, staying in one of your member properties, here is what I’m thinking these days….

Full-service hotels need to rethink what “service” means to the traveler.

My idea of a wallet-worthy full service hotel does NOT include:

• Charges for WiFi, which invariably has a weak signal because you don’t have routers and boosters on every floor. I expect free WiFi like I expect the TV to work (and it’s a lot more important to me.)
• Charges for parking – except for big urban hotels, where space is at a premium and parking fees are more acceptable.
• Those tacky $6 bottles of water in the room.  See Chris Brogan’s Man on the Go open letter to the hotel industry about that….
• No breakfast, not even a muffin and cup of coffee. No, I won’t pay $15 plus tip for your overpriced Continental delivered to my room. That’s not pampering; that’s highway robbery. No, I don’t have time nor interest in eating an equally overpriced plated breakfast in your cavernous-yet-always-empty restaurant downstairs.

No, your fancy sheets, 48 pillows and giant flat screen TV do not make up for the above. Making me join your loyalty program for such benefits seems pretty cheesy, especially if I don’t plan to stay at your properties much in the future.

I’m not that into you, and neither is my wallet.

The Hampton Inn and Suites down the road has you beat on all fronts, and I’ll join their loyalty program because I actually feel LOYAL to them for their high-value lodging experience.

Have you heard? There are some problems with the economy these days. Even expense account travelers, your favorite cash cow, are looking for value.

Get with the program.

In Houston recently, I was so peeved about being charged for parking that I took the time to add a Tip on Foursquare about how to find the free parking garage around the corner. Ironically, my check-in to add the Tip was enough to make me Mayor of the hotel.

If only I really was; the things I would change….

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.)

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…)

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.

In the continuing effort to convince visitors that the Gulf Coast is worth a trip right now despite horrific oil spill news, the Alabama tourism folks have a new July 4 weekend promotional video featuring chef Lucy Buffett (yes, Jimmy’s sister.)

It has a down-home, “support what you love” feel that I like a lot. Visitors can also consult status reports on the Beach Facts blog.

Here’s the direct link on their YouTube channel if you can’t see the embed box below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzMO4kQOI5k

How can you make a fun biker event even better? More effective integration of social media platforms.

Don’t bolt them on as an afterthought – tie them together and ensure that they feed off of one another.

I was traveling through Front Royal, Virginia recently before a short drive down to Luray. At the local visitor’s center (while putting up a TwitPic of the nice staffer helping my Dad) I noticed a poster for the Motorcycle Grand Tour of Virginia.

According to the website, bikers can enjoy….

“A motorcyclist’s dream tour of the Commonwealth! The ride includes stops at 82 destinations and tourism attractions all across Virginia. The more places you visit, the more fun you’ll have as you collect points for special prizes….The program kicks-off April 10, 2010, and official Virginia Grand Tour passports must submitted by Nov. 1, 2010.”

This year’s special emphasis is recognition of the 75th Anniversary of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I’d been thinking about bikers and tourism because of Joanne Steele’s excellent post on her Rural Tourism Marketing blog – are motorcycles a good match for your rural tourism town?

What I like about Virginia’s tour is that social media channels are included in the communications effort.

What They’re Doing Right

There is an active Motorcycle Grand Tour of Virginia Facebook Page, with people who are excitedly talking about picking up their Tour passport stamps at various stops (there are over 500 registered riders,) telling stories about their experiences and uploading photos of their bikes in different towns.

There is a Tour Twitter stream at @MotorcycleVA, too, plus a Forum within the main website.

3 Suggestions for Improvement

The efforts would be even more integrated if the Facebook logo, link and feed activity widget were included on the website, so that people didn’t have to hunt around themselves on Facebook to find the Page. It’s the most mainstream social media channel right now, and if you want people to interact with your organization there, then cross-pollinate that presence on your other sites.

I’d love to see a much more interactive tour map, with photos and links back to at least the CVBs of each destination town….the current Tour map is a static JPG photo.  Again, Joanne Steele to the rescue with her RippleNW post about how to create a customized Google Map.

Finally, when I checked with my Android smartphone, I found that the main Tour website is not optimized for mobile users, which I’m sure includes a lot of those riders out on the road.

I’m not a biker myself, but I am certainly a fan of backroads and Virginia has some gorgeous ones. I wish the Tour great success!

Here is CouchSurfingOri, a traveler on Twitter, asking for information about a local coffee shop:

And here is what he decides to do when the right folks who could give him an answer don’t happen to see his tweet, or see it but don’t have the information needed:

He goes to the community review site Yelp to find answers from other travelers.

Do your CVB, DMO and Chamber of Commerce members know about Yelp, or are they “too busy” for such things? Naturally, we can’t be everywhere all the time, but we need to be in the important places.

If your visitors are looking for information on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, it does your members no favors to ignore that and hope it will go away.

Hmmm, I sense another section being added to our Tourism Currents lessons about online presence….