Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

To find travel bloggers (or any niche group) you need to go where they are, both on- and offline hangout spots.

Of course, don’t be that annoying, sales-y, pushy person once you get there, but I digress….

Since I started travel blogging in February 2006 and helped launch the Perceptive Travel Blog in March 2007, I’ve seen a few changes in community hangout preferences, but this recent post is still pretty accurate …. 4 ways to connect with travel bloggers besides pitching them with email.

One of the options mentioned in that post is the TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange) travel blogging conference; one is held each year in North America and another is held in Europe.

I have fingers crossed that they’ll add Asia some day!

Tourism Currents (my social media training business with Becky McCray and Leslie McLellan) is a TBEX media partner, and I’m excited to announce that I was just confirmed as one of the TBEX conference speakers for the North America 2013 event in Toronto, May 31-June 2.

My presentation topic is Twitter chats, but I’ll be taking it to an advanced level to discuss how people are growing communities and making money by running Twitter chats, and how companies are sponsoring those chats as a way to get in front of people who might be a good fit for their product or service.

I highly recommend TBEX not only to my fellow bloggers, but to CVBs and DMOs who can learn a lot there about creating content that appeals to travelers – the same ones who read travel blogs – plus have a golden opportunity to network with online travel media folks.

There are other travel blogging conferences and events, including TBU (Travel Bloggers Unite) …. TBU Rotterdam in the Netherlands is May 16-19, 2013 …. and meetups like Travel Massive and Travel Blog Camp (normally held during World Travel Market in London.)

Finding Travel Bloggers Online

Following a Twitter hashtag is a great way to keep up with online connections and discussions before, during and after conferences.

If you can’t make TBEX in person, for example, keep up with activities on the TBEX blog and follow #TBEX on Twitter. This particular hashtag is not just for the conference; it is lively year-round with people sharing travel-related news and blog posts.

The TBU Rotterdam hashtag is #TBURTM and the hashtag for all Travel Massive events is #TravelMassive.

New Blogger Databases and Professional Organizations

I need to do a separate blog post on this but some research is required first. Suffice it to say that I’m seeing more opt-in databases and professional communities coming to life in the travel blogging world.

Here are a few I’ve heard about:

**  PTBA (Professional Travel Bloggers Association) – It aims to “legitimize travel blogging as a business and facilitate business relationships within the industry.”

**  iAmbassador – The iAmbassador team “leverages the value travel bloggers offer by creating innovative marketing campaigns and events.”

**  Navigate Media Group – The Navigate Media Group team says it’s about “moving past the conventional press trip to meet your marketing objectives.”

**  Reiseblogger-Kollektiv – An interesting initiative in Europe, the Reiseblogger-Kollektiv is “seven leading travel bloggers from German-speaking countries, committed to standards of cooperation between tourism businesses and bloggers.” [Auto-translated by Google from the German.] I think I found out about them by following the ITB Berlin conference hashtag; here’s their ITB Guide for Bloggers (in English.)

**  TBEX Connect – A quasi-database project of original TBEX conference/community founder Kim Mance, this has been in the works for awhile but hasn’t fully launched yet. See more at the TBEX Connect website.

**  (Update 13 April) – Agencies are building their own talent lists; here’s the Think! Social Media Blogger Pool sign-up.

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Screenshot of what a CVB or DMO Twitter stream looks like when it is auto-posted from Facebook

This is what a Twitter stream looks like when Facebook updates are automatically shared as tweets (screenshot doctored to spare embarrassment.)

Because of the 140 character limit on Twitter, most Facebook updates are too long, so they are cut off and the reader must go to Facebook (via the dead-giveaway “fb.me” URL) to read the rest of the post. Other tweets are just links going back to Facebook.

Does any of this gibberish look helpful to a visitor who is trying to connect with a destination on Twitter?

There is no indication that this account is interacting in any way with its Twitter followers, or doing anything but staying in one-way broadcast mode via the auto-posting megaphone….and that is totally ineffective in social media.

You wouldn’t run a radio spot on TV.

You wouldn’t submit a brochure as a magazine ad.

Don’t ruin your power to tell your destination’s story to the world by “saving time” with auto-posting. Craft the content to fit the platform.

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Of all the social media tool and channel options that bombard us daily, the most indispensable, cannot-live-without ones for me are my blogs….and Twitter.

An early tweet from BL Ochman that the “suits” don’t get social media. A lot of them still don’t.

My good friend (since 1978!) and tech mentor Dwight Silverman, editor at the Houston Chronicle and author of TechBlog, encouraged me to start blogging, get on Twitter and get a smartphone, all of which have been game-changers for me. Thank you for all of it, Dwight.

The blogs are the linchpin of most of my writing and publishing efforts; they would be the last URL standing for me in case of a social media neutron bomb, because I own them and control them.

Twitter is not something that I can own or control, but my passion for it is almost as strong as my love of hitting that Publish button on a blog post.

There is simply no other social media channel that works as well for business development, research, worldwide networking, professional development and good old friendships. Layer over all that the ability to easily connect with my entire network while on the move, via a mobile device….well, Facebook and the others can’t really touch it.

How social media has changed how we interact with content – a Mike Driehorst tweet

Today marks my 5th year on Twitter (I started the @SheilaS account on September 25, 2007) and while most tweets “age out” and disappear after a week or two, there is one way that you can still find them – hit that gold star and Favorite the tweet.

David Armano tweets updates and insights from 2008 SXSWi (South by Southwest Interactive.) Love the Yahoo! reference, the urging to start a Facebook profile and the lack of budgets for the social media “fad.”

I’m very sporadic about Favoriting, but fortunately I did it a lot in my early Twitter days. This morning I scrolled all the way back through my Favorites, reading them with plenty of chuckles, amazement at some of the more prescient tweets and with an overwhelming feeling of affection toward all of the now-familiar people and friends I’ve followed (and eventually met in person, including my business partner of three years, Becky McCray.)

Originally I’d planned for this post to feature select Favorited tweets from across all five years, but I couldn’t get out of the stack past April 2008.  I love all of these little windows into people’s thoughts or I wouldn’t have Favorited them in the first place.

These are the earliest of my Favorited tweets that I could find. Particularly like the Knol observation from danah boyd (years later we’re looking at a moribund Google+ and Knol is long dead) and the still-accurate comments from Mack Collier about community and Twitter as an RSS replacement.

These screenshots of tweets show the diversity of discussion topics, viewpoints, useful links and occasional silliness; it’s no different than being in an online chat room or IM group, but one that is full of hand-picked interesting people (because you pick who to follow.) As the saying goes, if Twitter is boring for you, it’s because you’re following boring people.

Across 3 January days; Google search tip, insights from 08 Presidential campaign, Apple smack talk and @technosailor very accurate assessment of Twitter as communications method.

I was struck by how many of these tweeps I still follow – some of the very first ones, found mostly by following people who I recognized from their writer bylines, or from a conference or on the recommendation of people I trust: “Oh, you HAVE to follow so-and-so; they are so smart/funny/interesting/helpful.”

Podcasts, what is really King, widgets, WTF is your job and @LPT having Dell meetings in Second Life. Yes, I miss Second Life. Don’t knock it till you try it.

There IS the problem of disengaging with a group of such intriguing people….

Stop being interesting, Twitter! Tim Walker tries to resist.

And this is so true….

It’s not called the World Wide Web for nothing; many’s the time I’ve known I’m up too late as the Aussies on Twitter begin to say Good Morning.

Then there’s the random bit of unexpected humor in a tweet stream that totally brightens my day….

The original Wonkette on the 08 elections, sesame-seeded deodorant, Brogan, dissing press releases. Gawd I love Twitter.

Who knew that there would be actual, paying jobs doing this stuff? Well, there are. It’s simple relationship-building and communications by other means. Thanks to the web, a good communicator can be an asset to any company, anywhere in the world, and that person doesn’t have to even be located with the company. It’s what they call working “anywhere, anywhen” in Small Town Rules.

Corvida is smart, smart, smart. Plus, she’s always had amazing hair.

This grouping below ends with a rather plaintive tweet about how Twitter is as “freeing as blogging used to be.” I think back in the early days of social media, some felt that new platforms would by default replace others, but over time we’ve seen that there’s room for a lot of different places to gather on the web. There are plenty of people whose only social media interaction is on mobile photo-sharing sites like Instagram or Foodspotting – does that mean that “Facebook is DEAD?!”  No, of course not.

Music tech advice pre-Spotify, discovery of the power of online work to impact offline opportunities like speaking gigs and excitement over Twitter when it was new and shiny.

So, what’s the ROI for me and my livelihood of five years of tweets?

Let’s see….a successful social media training business, quicker access to the news as it happens and faster, better news analysis, travel to China on a blogger trip that laid important groundwork for me professionally, plus a diverse network all over the planet that has helped me with everything from where the transportation engineers hang out on social media (for a speaking gig that I landed through Twitter) to business connections and friendships out the wazoo.

Also, laughs when I needed them the most, from fabulous people like this who share my love of bourbon and distaste for BS….

Jason Falls back when 666 worried him; as of today he has 58,694 followers.

(Hat tip for my post title to the real internet Wayback Machine.)

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If you have great ideas, stories or case studies to share, there are two speaking proposal deadlines coming up this week….

**  SXSWi (South by Southwest Interactive) digital/tech creatives conference in Austin, Texas in March 2013. It’s only the biggest technology-related annual conference on the planet….20,000 of the most interesting geeks you’ll ever meet.

The unique PanelPicker process peer voting means that you need a really punchy title and great description for your presentation, in addition to – DUH! – knowing what the heck you’re talking about.

Proposal deadline: Friday, July 20, 2012.

**  140 Characters Conference/State of NOW Small Town in Hutchinson, Kansas on November 8, 2012. This event is a series of short presentations (no slides – yay!) on how the social web intersects with small towns and rural areas.

Proposal deadline: Friday, July 20, 2012.

Will I see you there?

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Does your organization have a plan in place for content creation and social media monitoring during holidays and weekends?

You know….that time when people travel to your destination, stay in your hotel, look for things to do, places to eat, etc.?

Is someone “answering the social media phone” during those times?

Customer Service

The social web is a place to put content, sure, but it is also becoming a place where you must be ready to provide customer service.

Visitors and guests expect that someone will answer their questions and respond to them even when it’s your “day off.” It’s not much fun for the destination marketer or hotelier but it is what it is; you’ve got to plan for it.

Working one person to death on social media because everyone else waves their hands helplessly and says, “Oh, but I’m not a techie!” is horse manure.

I’d say, cross-train your staff in social media for tourism to build a deeper bench.

Answer The Social Media Phone

Holidays and weekends are a massive opportunity to:

1)  Make solid connections with new visitors.

2)  Reconnect with and welcome those former locals who are returning home for a visit.

3)  Reconnect with and welcome repeat visitors who are not new to your destination/hotel, but ARE new to your Facebook Page, Twitter account or blog.

4)  Chat online with those “expats” who aren’t physically in town but are talking on social media about their memories of you; they would love it if you’d say hello in response.

You can build a whole army of supporters who will go back home and sing your praises, online and off.

Or, you could “not answer the phone.”

Your call.

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In today’s world of free, easy-to-use networking tools with worldwide reach, associations and other fee-based groups (like a member-based DMO) must prove their value over and over to those who pay membership dues.

I was acutely conscious of this when I joined the AWC (Association for Women in Communications) National Board of Directors in the fall of 2011;  I asked the Board to let me see how we could use social media tools to foster a better, more valued sense of AWC community at the national level.

One of the things I really wanted to do was to start an #awcchat on Twitter.

Those of you who know me, know that I’m a big fan of Twitter, where I’ve been @SheilaS  since September 2007.

It’s one of the most powerful professional development tools I’ve ever encountered, particularly because of the regularly scheduled Twitter chats on many different topics. For my own business, #tourismchat is invaluable. The US National Trust for Historic Preservation runs #builtheritage. For farmers, ranchers and rural people, it’s #agchat. For bloggers it’s #blogchat. And so on….

I wanted a place to discuss general communications issues, and I wanted it to involve not only AWC chapters and members, but anyone who wanted to participate. By making it an open chat, it could not only nurture the current AWC community, but might also draw new members and make people more aware of us.

The Board agreed, so I canvassed the people I know who run chats, got some advice and set up an @AWCchat Twitter account as a first step.

[For the rest of this post, please see The Best Hour of Your Week: #awcchat on Twitter on the AWC Austin blog, and thanks for your interest!]

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This is a guest post by Chris Fancher, educator and speaker. He’s also my husband, and I thought his recent experience at a destination was worth sharing, so I pestered asked him to give me a writeup.

Sometimes you just need a little help from a local.

Earlier this month I attended EduCon 2012 held at the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) in Philadelphia. The last time I was in the city for any length of time was in the early 90′s, and I have never been there for more than 4 or 5 hours.  I knew that when I arrived at the airport, I would need to figure out how to get to my hotel and then to the conference venue.

My first thought was that the hotel would have information about getting around town and, at a minimum, would have straightforward directions on their website for traveling from the airport to the hotel. But, I was sadly mistaken – I couldn’t find anything labeled “how to get here” or “directions.”

Another option and a great resource is the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation;  Caroline from the GPTMC tweets at @VisitPhilly.  I did the “Hi, I’m looking forward to coming to your town” tweet and she quickly said Hi back, and said I should ask for anything I needed and she’d be available to help.

The last option I looked at was the EduConcierge from the EduCon web page. Since the conference is being held at a high school, they use students for their concierge staff….and they are amazing.

They had already created directions to the subway from each of the four main conference hotels. They had directions posted for driving into the city, getting in from the airport and even arriving via the Amtrak station.

The student running the @EduConcierge account tweeted that they had upgraded their EduConcierge Central website and those following the account should look it over. I did, loved what I saw and I thanked them in a tweet. They immediately said, “No problem!” and told me they were there for us any time, so I asked about the walk from my hotel to the Science Leadership Academy. They said it was a short walk of 6 blocks and that they walk it all the time. They also suggested that if it is cold or there is bad weather, I could take the Trolley.

The next thing I knew, they had sent a Twitpic of the Trolley line map from the station with arrow annotations explaining that I could walk above ground to the station, or I could go below the street through another route to get to the station.

That simple Twitpic, as they say, was worth a thousand words.

I now had an idea of not only the direction to the conference from my hotel, but I also knew how to get to the Trolley station above or below ground.

Why can’t hotels and CVBs also provide this simple assistance to their guests?

It took only a few minutes to take the picture and annotate it with arrows, but it saved me hours of frustration from trying to figure these things out on my own.

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What can city people learn from rural folks?

If my own experience is any indication – a TON.

Thanks to a diverse social network that includes interesting people in small towns and rural areas, I’ve learned so much over the last few years about the hopes, dreams, troubles and blissful moments of people who live in what I used to call “out in the middle of nowhere.”

They’re more tech-savvy than you’d think …. I recently found an AgChat Foundation Facebook discussion about the hot new Pinterest social sharing service and how farmers might use it for “agvocacy.”

You know that ongoing discussion about getting broadband internet access out into rural areas? It sure seems similar to efforts in the 1930′s to get electricity and telephone service out to less-populated places, and the same objections are being raised; it’s too expensive, there aren’t enough people to justify it, it’s a “luxury” they don’t really need, etc.  I never really thought about this problem until I got to know some small town geeks.

At last fall’s 140 Characters/State of NOW Small Town communications conference in Hutchinson, Kansas, I was honored to be chosen as one of the speakers, and I talked about this personal awakening.

There were some video problems at first, so all I have for you is the audio recording, but it’s only about 10 minutes and I talk fast.

Here’s the direct link to the audio file if you can’t see the embed box below:  http://blip.tv/140confevents/140conf-smalltown-2011-sheila-scarborough-city-kid-among-the-cattle-5639673 

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Fourth and final post in a series for the get-revved-up week between Christmas and New Year’s.

The right question is not, “How do we get more Twitter followers?” or “How do we get more Like-ers/fans on Facebook?”

The right question is, “What do we want to DO with our followers and fans?”

Counting heads is fun – we’re all guilty of it, including me – but unless those people are helping you achieve stated objective(s) for your organization or business, you’re fooling yourself that anything is accomplished by totting up raw numbers.

Rev-up recommendation for you:

**  As you gather more supporters in 2012, have plans for what you want to do for them, and what they could do for you.

—->>  On your blog – do you want readers to sign up to get your posts by email or RSS?  Take a hard look at whether you have made that signup process as simple as possible, including on a mobile device.

—->>  It’s Facebook Page 101:   make sure that people can sign up for your email newsletter right there on your Page.  On our Tourism Currents Facebook Page, we use a tab and a short signup form via our MailChimp email service.

Are you trying to build your own list, or are you busy building Mark Zuckerberg’s list?  Use Facebook for your own business success!

—->>  On Twitter, periodically let followers know how to sign up for your email updates.  Note: Send them directly to your signup page – don’t dump them onto your homepage and hope they find it.

—->>  What are you doing with your email newsletter list?  What’s your point to cranking it out? WHY should people open up their already-overloaded IN boxes to you?  Ask yourself those tough questions….often.

Back to numbers:  if you suddenly picked up 1000 more fans or followers, what would you DO with them that you couldn’t do already, right now?

My own 2012 plan for the fans and followers of this blog

Since I’m asking you about your plans for your platforms, here are mine for Sheila’s Guide:

1)  Lead the tourism industry away from a somewhat silo’d focus on social media, and toward a more general incorporation of social communications as simply “how we do things.”  It’s like email – nobody has an Email Department, do they?  It’s time for social media to stop being new or special.

2)  Support the growth of my Tourism Currents business with Becky McCray.  We’ve set a performance goal that we’ve agreed to meet by our 3rd anniversary in business (September 2012) or we’re going to radically overhaul what we offer.

3)  Support my work as a professional speaker on tourism and social media.

4)  Support the marketing of my upcoming book, The Elastic Waist Entrepreneur.

Thanks so much for your support, and hope to see many more of you in person in 2012.

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It can be difficult to keep up with current trends in tourism, hospitality, travel and technology….unless, of course, sleep is optional for you.

For the rest of us mere mortals, fast-paced Twitter chats are invaluable.  They are some of THE most useful hours I spend online researching industry happenings and discussions.  You’ll get help from peers and network with fellow professionals around the world (here are 9 tips for following hashtags.)

I offer my own list of resources below that I use for speaking and Tourism Currents online training.

I’d love to hear more ideas from you down in the comments.

If you follow no other chat….

New chats pop up all the time – some Scotland-based tourism businesses just launched the #ScotlandHour travel chat, for example – but for tried and true value, don’t miss #tourismchat.

It’s usually biweekly, at 2 pm CST on Thursdays. Check the #tourismchat Facebook Page for dates and topics.

Chat co-founder Anne Hornyak summarizes a #tourismchat session here, if you want a sense of how it works.

Other good tourism chats

Keep an eye out for the hashtags for conferences like ESTO, #SoMeT (this hashtag is active year-round,) PRSA Travel, eTourismSummit and the annual state/province Governor’s conferences.

The conference calendar on DMOPro can help you keep up with these.

Get some hybrid vigor

Following non-tourism hashtags ensures that I don’t get stuck in a stale echo chamber listening to the same people over and over. Mixing it up fosters what my Tourism Currents business partner Becky McCray calls “the hybrid vigor of ideas.”

Some of these chats include:

**  Crazy-fast #blogchat on Sunday nights, 8 pm CST.

**  Tech conference hashtags like #BWEchat (year-round for BlogWorld and New Media Expo East and West)  #SXSWi (mostly active January through March for South by Southwest Interactive) and #SOBCon (year-round for the SOBCon business blogging conferences.)

**  Since search engines are so integral to online activities, I keep an eye on hashtags for Search Marketing Expo / #SMX events worldwide, especially #SMXEast and #SMXWest.

**  I’m not a gadget person, but the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona / #MWC12 for 2012 and the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) / #CES in Las Vegas are worth a look, if only to find links to good event round-up blog posts towards the end.

How to keep track of all this chatter

You can follow and participate in chats with regular web-based Twitter, but I prefer a dashboard to keep things sorted. I use columns in TweetDeck for each hashtag, adding and removing as events come and go.

Others are fans of HootSuite;  since it’s cloud-based you can get around any IT download restrictions in your office, and multi-person team accounts seem to like it.

When the chat is actually in progress, I log into TweetChat to keep up with the conversation flow and add the hashtag to my tweets automatically.

Which chats or tools am I forgetting? Let us know in the comments….

Still a bit unsure of the value?  Here’s 60 seconds with Beth Conway from the St. Joseph, Missouri CVB on how she uses Twitter (direct link to the video on YouTube if you can’t see the embed box below.)

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