Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

When you publish to the web, always consider the best possible way to spread your content as widely as possible, and make that content easy for people to share.

It does take more time up front, but increases the chances that more people will see the stuff that is important to you. Yes, even a simple retweet (republishing someone’s tweet in your own Twitter stream) counts as online content, and deserves thoughtful consideration.

Rewire your head to think this way, and your social communications efforts will go further.

How?  Here ‘s an example….

My longtime travel writer friend, Minnesota-based Leif Pettersen, is a talented juggler (he’s also talented at making omelets and quaffing Strongbow hard cider, but let’s not get distracted here.)

So, I see a tweet of his – he’s @LeifPettersen on Twitter – talking about his video from the 2011 International Jugglers’ Association Festival that he just attended. The link he used went back to his own blog post, with the video embedded there, but I decided to do some tweaking before I helped send it down the digital road.

The specific URL matters

I went to get the permalink URL of the actual video uploaded on Leif’s YouTube channel. You can get there from any YouTube video embed box – look at the bottom right of the box and mouse over the YouTube logo. It will say “Watch on YouTube.” Click through to go there.

Pros: I want to tweet the YouTube URL because I and many of my followers use TweetDeck or Hootsuite dashboards for Twitter, and a YouTube URL opens right in the dashboard for viewing rather than forcing another tab to open in a browser. That way, people are more likely to click Play and watch Leif’s video right at that moment.

Cons:  Leif would probably prefer Twitter traffic to be driven to his blog to watch the video. Understandable, but I’m mostly interested in maximum people finding out about him (because he’s a great guy) so my priority is to make the video as easy as possible to watch.

ABC – Always Be Connecting

As long as I’m on Leif’s YouTube channel getting the URL for the juggling video, I confirm that I’m subscribed to his channel myself, I click the “thumbs up” icon to Like his video, and I can also mark it as a Favorite.

Every little bit helps give his content more visibility in search engines, and the Likes and Favorites are also reflected in the Recent Activity section of my Sheila Scarborough YouTube channel, similar to updates that show up in news feeds on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Pros: More love for Leif’s content. Increases chances that he’ll buy me a Strongbow when we visit in person.

Cons: None that I can see.

Who else needs a nudge?

Back over on Twitter, I’m ready to tweet about Leif and the jugglers, but first, I want to capture more attention by including possibly related Twitter handles. Who else can I lead to his Twitter profile and video?

Let’s see, is the International Jugglers’ Association on Twitter as well? You bet; they’re @IntJugglersAssn and I want to ensure they know about Leif’s video if they don’t already. One of the best ways to do that is to include their Twitter name, which they will see I’ve done when they check their Twitter account for mentions. In a perfect world, they’ll retweet Leif’s link as well (and say thanks to him.)

My tweet ultimately looked like this:

“Juggle THIS!  Things fly in this video from @IntJugglersAssn festival  http://youtu.be/zKxPTFgML1I  by @LeifPettersen”

Bonus points – was there a juggling festival hashtag that people might be following? I’d have worked that in, too. There was none that I could find in this case.

More bonus points – Send it out from another account? My business partner Becky McCray and I also tweet as @TourismCurrents. Our customers – tourism organizations – spend a lot of time trying to attract festivals, meetings and special events. Maybe they would be interested in this big juggler bash.

I hunted down the Twitter handle for the city that hosted the 2011 festival – Rochester, Minnesota – and sent out an additional, separate tweet as @TourismCurrents that included the Twitter handle of the Rochester CVB (Convention and Visitors Bureau.)

It looked like this:

“What fun @RahRahRochester CVB must have had hosting this juggling event!  http://youtu.be/zKxPTFgML1I  via @LeifPettersen”

Pros:  Same content, tailored slightly differently, went out from two different Twitter accounts. A few thousand more people have a chance to see Leif’s video, and the Rochester CVB gets a shout-out.

Cons:   Many of the same people follow me both as @SheilaS and @TourismCurrents. I don’t want to overload their streams with too much duplicate or close-to-duplicate content, so I try to put a minimum of 10 minutes or more between similar tweets that go from both accounts.

Why bother with all this?

A few minutes of thought – a little extra research and digging – over the course of the almost four years that I’ve been on Twitter….well, the extra efforts add up in reach and impact.

All you’re doing is pausing to think, “Who else should know about this content, and what is the best way to get their attention?”

It’s the persistent, relentless mindset needed for winning a marathon. If you’re in the communications game for the long haul, you’ve got to play it that way.

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From the beginning, business partner Becky McCray and I talked about developing not only our Tourism Currents course, but eventually an online “mall of services and products” tied to social media education for tourism-related organizations. Most would be ours, some might be from affiliates who we trust and recommend.

I think I first heard the term from Glenda Watson Hyatt, who has her own educational offerings on accessibility.

The first step in that direction is now live; in addition to our full six-week online course, you can buy one or more individual lessons in social media for tourism.

It’s learning materials that you want, when you need them.  We talked about it (plus some other goodies) in our June 2011 newsletter.

Thanks, as always, for your support.

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In 60 seconds, Beth Conway from the St. Joseph, Missouri CVB – @StJoMo on Twitter – explains why Twitter is NOT about what she had for lunch….

(Here’s the direct link to Beth’s video on YouTube, and here’s the Tourism Currents YouTube channel.)

Thanks Signalfire for featuring the video in their blog post about why social media works for CVBs and DMOs….this demonstrates why you should allow your CVB videos to be embedded on other people’s sites; it helps spread them to a wider audience.

When you make a video, always include a URL in the title or credits, so that those who see the video out on the web can find the rest of your work if they’re interested.

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This is a photo of my lap during the South by Southwest (SXSW) Global Tech Summit.

Quick photos and some tweets went up on my Android smartphone, plus special check-ins to each session on Gowalla.

Other tweets and watching the conference hashtag happened on the TweetDeck dashboard on my Dell laptop. Most Facebook business page updates for Tourism Currents or Freelance Austin came from the laptop as well.

Great quotes and insights from speakers were often captured via pen and notebook (yes, it’s true, but they always boot up) to become Facebook or LinkedIn status updates or blog posts days, weeks or months later.

Online publishing is best served by whichever tools work for you, and don’t be surprised when one size does not fit all.

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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.

The Web means you can live anywhere (even a small town or rural area) and still be connected to the world.

The Web means that any venue with good WiFi, even an historic Art Deco theater in a revitalizing downtown, can host a meeting for interesting people with something to share.

Social media means that a Kansas guy who uploads a pump jack photo on Twitter just for fun can be noticed by a smart, well-connected entrepreneur in Oklahoma, who also happens to know the guy who runs the 140 Characters Conference tech events worldwide (yes, that’s the back story on how the 140 Conference SmallTown ended up in Hutchinson, KS.)

I think this ties into all sorts of timely issues – how technology is making “flyover country” more visible and relevant in the modern world, creative approaches to economic and downtown development, the importance of rural broadband access in a connected world, the rise of the creative class outside of big cities and how Web connectivity lets you live anywhere you want to live.

I know the person in this short video below:  it’s Cody Heitschmidt, the guy who makes things happen in Hutchinson.

He is much too modest and self-deprecating, but I’ll say it  –  he sees future possibilities for his town way before others do.

I very much look forward to joining him in Hutch on November 1, 2010 when the rest of the world gets to meet him, too.

Here’s the direct link to the video, and if you want to attend the 140 Characters Conference SmallTown, use code 140disc when you register here, and save $40 off of the ticket price.

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When your organization is called a “Convention and Visitor’s Bureau” or “Tourist Board,” it’s hard to see why you should reach out to locals as part of your destination marketing strategy.

What’s the point, right?

They don’t stay in hotels, they don’t “count” in the statistics of people coming in to visit your town (a measure of how well you’re doing) so why bother?

Here is why – because in today’s more connected world, it is critical to realize that your locals have online networks with worldwide reach.  You never know who they know on Facebook, Twitter or through their blog.

Locals don’t stay in hotels, but their visiting friends and relatives do.  Locals recommend your restaurants, shops, museums, parks and music venues to visitors. They talk up the wonders of your town and region….or, well, they badmouth them.

Why does the Austin, Texas CVB have a relatively easy job of selling their city? Partly because tech-connected and very vocal locals NEVER shut up about how great it is there! From the online silence of some of the other cities, you’d think there was no other worthy town in Texas. There’s even a Twitter hashtag appended to tweets about great things in and around the Live Music Capital of the World – #WhyAustin.

The Ripple Effect of spreading buzz and excitement about your town starts with the people who live right down the street.

I had a CVB ask me recently how to start connecting with bloggers. I told them to go to Google Blog Search and type in “YourCity blog” and see what pops up for blogs about/written by locals in that town.  When I did it, I found some really trenchant, well-written blogs by locals. No, they aren’t travel or parenting blogs (the current flavor-of-the-month that many PR people are looking for) but I found posts that indicated the authors really care deeply about that town.  The CVB should know those guys.

You connect with your local newspapers, TV and radio stations:  add to that mix your Web-based content publishers (yes, whether they themselves realize it or not, they are writers and publishers, too.)  Look on Twitter for people who list their location as your city. Find them on Facebook. Ask around.

Then, have them into the CVB and get to know them.  Tell them what you do, what you want visitors to know and how they can help by becoming your online champions.

Two examples:

1)   My own Round Rock (Texas) CVB had some local bloggers and social media-savvy people in for a casual weekday breakfast taco gathering recently and a chat about their “Sports Capital of Texas” branding efforts.  They also demo’d the CVB Twitter stream, Facebook Page and YouTube channel and asked for feedback and suggestions.

I attended this gathering (yes, I knew all the geeks there since I’m one of them, and many attend Jelly Coworking Round Rock with me) and it was a lot of fun. Think of it as a free focus group for market research, if “fun” doesn’t interest you.

We even started our own hashtag:  #WhyRoundRock

2)   The Beaumont (Texas) CVB has locals in on a regular basis to talk about what the CVB does, how they can help and make sure they see the town through a visitor’s eyes.

They include a whirlwind tour of some major regional attractions, many of which the locals themselves have never gotten around to visiting (I love Becky McCray’s post about this phenomenon - Never Been There.)

Here’s a video telling you more about Beaumont’s tour for locals….direct link to it in case the embed box isn’t working….

Think about how you could do something like this in YOUR town.

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?

In addition, Lesson Five from our Tourism Currents online course is all about special events promotion.

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.

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….

Remember that old saying (maybe from your parents) that there’s a reason you have one mouth and two ears?

It certainly applies to online communications.  Try to listen more than you talk….I know, I know, rather strange advice coming from a talker like me, right?

The first thing to do before jumping into the social Web is to listen (one of our Tourism Currents newsletters has a few tips for better Google Alerts.) Pay attention to the chatter that relates to your destination:  the tweets, the Facebook Wall posts, the blog posts, the photo uploads to Flickr, etc.  Be a “lurker” for awhile, as you might at a party with unfamiliar people.

It’s still very important to continue listening even after you’re comfortable using social media tools.  A lot of hassles and embarrassments can be forestalled by paying attention.

Here’s a tweet that I saw from a well-known tech journalist about the Outrigger Reef Hotel in Honolulu:

“No one should *ever* stay at the outrigger reef in honolulu. We’ve been cheated and abused *daily.* outrageous. Full [blog] post to come.”

When I saw that, I figured that Outrigger management (although they’re on Twitter) probably had no idea that this person was angry and was going to get vocal about it.  So, I sent a quick Twitter DM – private direct message – to a friend in Hawaii who works in tourism PR, giving him a heads up that he needed to go warn someone at the hotel just in case they’d missed the brewing storm.

Funny how that works, because here is the next tweet about the issue from the angry journalist:

“just got a nice call from the Outrigger’s GM [General Manager.] Very responsive and nice about all the problems we had. i think he really cares.”

Here’s the takeaway:  part of the listening process is having your connections out there listening, too, and making sure that important information gets to your digital ears quickly.

You need an army of listeners who care about you.  It’s called a network, and you probably already have one.

Just make sure that they have their listening ears turned on and tuned in.