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Shelia Scarborough of Tourism Currents described herself in 140 characters:
I'm a writer and speaker. Love travel, tourism, the social Web & NHRA drag racing. @TourismCurrents cofounder. Navy Veteran. New Follows pls @ me to say Hi.
She spoke about event and festival promotion with social media. Here is what you guys tweeted about the session:
The second day of the symposium was brought to an end with a night of Pecha Kucha.
For those of you who don't know what Pecha Kucha means, you are not alone. I had no idea, either...but the name definitely lends a hand to some interesting ideas. As it turns out, a Pecha Kucha is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images forward automatically and you talk along to the images.
We had seven people compete for votes as the best presentation. Once they had completed the presentations and the votes had been tallied, Katherine Hoppe (@oregonkat) was announced as the winner.
For more pictures from the Pecha Kucha night, please visit the Facebook page.
Tom Martin of Converse Digital described his coverage of New Orleans Mardi Gras and how he got Tabasco and the Sheraton Hotel to sponsor him.
I think we can all relate to wanting to sell a dream. Whether it's your destination or business, you can sell your dream. Here are a few tips from Tom on how to begin doing that:
Basically you need to get them to "dream a little dream"....your dream!
To hear more from Tom follow him on Twitter: @tommartin
Rodney Payne, who many of us know as that pretty guy with the accent, is also the founder of Think! Social Media. His 140 character bio reads as follows:
I love innovation, kiteboarding, skiing, travel and challenging the norm. Born in the UK but I consider myself an Aussie. Now Vancouver-based, founder at @ThinkSM.
One of the stories Rodney told us (among many) was the story of their Super Bowl Social Media Campaign. It went a bit like this...
Realizing that people are ridiculously passionate about their football teams, they decided to send a Mystery Man to each city of the teams who made it to the Super Bowl. The first person in each city to find the Mystery Man and tell him the secret phrase, "Have you been to Dallas lately?" would win tickets, hotel reservations and cash.
They had bloggers from each city participating as "Exclusive Bloggers" and would share daily clues about the location of the mystery man. It was important to find bloggers who were big in the social media world and had engaged followers.
People could find the secret password by liking the Visit Dallas Facebook Fan Page. There was a Twitter account created to update people and answer questions and two hashtags were created to help the conversation (#SBHuntGP and #SBHuntPGH). They built contest awareness by joining in conversations on Twitter and spreading the word.
The contest began on a Friday and so many people were involved that the mystery man was found in both cities by Saturday.
The Visit Dallas Fan Page on Facebook grew by almost 10,000 fans in three days. I would say the campaign was a success.
I thought this story was hugely impressive, and think it is really applicable to any destination.
Rodney also left us with these points:
Follow Rodney on Twitter: @rodneyp
Last night, we were welcomed to Tunica with a party at The Hollywood Cafe, home of the fried dill pickle (I don't even like pickles, but I'll vouch for the fact that they were DEELISH). Some may be familiar with The Hollywood Cafe from Marc Cohen's "Walking in Memphis" or maybe just because of the famous cuisine.
We were welcomed with live music, southern fried food and a very impressive "photo booth." It was a great way to get aquainted with each other in real life, since we spent much of yesterday strictly on our social media sites.
Be sure to check out the rest of the pictures from the reception on the Facebook page.
Bill Geist is an author, speaker and consultant to the destination marketing industry.
I noticed the #SoMeT twitter feed was blowing up during his session. People were really responding to the information he was providing. Here are a few of the tweets from during the session:
Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillGeist
Do chicks tweet? Heck yeah, they do.
Mandi Engram, Theresa Overby and as a last minute replacement for Amy Brock, Jeremy Fairley spoke about how they use Twitter for their destination locations. They also answered several questions sent to them via Twitter, which is only appropriate.
Mandi told us that @ColumbiaSC was chosen as Columbia's Twitter handle in 2007 because it was easy to incorporate in to sentences. They have also been using the hashtag #FamouslyHot, since it is the brand for Columbia.
Theresa, who runs the @VisitBatonRouge Twitter account, said that the Baton Rouge CVB has been utilizing the social media site to amplify Baton Rouge's message since 2008.
Jeremy appreciates Twitter because it allows his account, @VisitTampaBay, to get information out in an efficient fashion. He just celebrated the 10,000 follower mark a few weeks ago. Well done, sir.
If there is one thing all three of the speakers agreed on, it was their love for Hootsuite. I'm pretty sure Hootsuite owes them some serious props for all the free advertisment. They all boasted that the program was great for handling multiple accounts and scheduling tweets.
They all admitted to being plugged in for the majority of time they are awake (or if you're Jeremy, even when your asleep).
"Visitors are visitors in my town around the clock, so I check periodically to make sure they aren't starving somewhere and searching for a good po-boy," said Theresa.
They also covered subjects such as trying to answer your followers in real time, embracing randomness in your tweets and sharing photos as a way for followers to "experience" your destination.
Finally, they began answering the questions sent to them from several conference attendees.
Question: How do you balance your personal voice with your destination/business voice?
Answer: We try to talk to people on twitter/facebook as if we were face to face with them. It’s the friendly, warm engaging tone that resonates with our followers.
Question: Do any of you create lists and how to you promote them?
Answer: It’s helpful in order to keep her up-to-date with what’s going on in your city.
Question: How do you determine who an influencer may be and how do you handle them?
Answer: We want to make sure that we are giving shout-outs to our brand advocates. Tweet Stats is a good way to find out who your influencers are; they will be engaging with you. There are so many tools to find out who they are but the most important thing is being on twitter and aware of who is talking about your brand.
They ended the session with these little tidbits:
They believe that content is key. Don't automate your content. Don’t link it to Facebook.
They kept it short and sweet - just like Twitter!
Follow them on Twitter: @TheresaOverby, @MandieEngram and @JeremyFairley
This conference is awesome in that everyone can share notes through GoogleDocs. What an excellent idea. I thought I would check out what you guys have been posting.
What you've written so far about the first break-out sessions:
"Two Takes: How Two Different Destinations Capitalize on Video Content Marketing"
John Groh, Rockford Area CVB (@JohnGroh)
Brian Matson, Fargo-Moorhead CVB (@BVMatson)
"Social Destinations Create Social Meetings?"
Aaron Babbie (@Ababbie) and Anne Hornyak (@WhosYourAnnie), Sparkloft Media
"Social Networking or Social 'Not Working'"
David Downing, St. Petersburg/Clearwater CVB (@VSPC)
Nate Huff, Miles Media (@MilesMedia)
Steve Wright of Arcade Brand Strategies started his session by saying: A bunch of cheap balloons is better than one big expensive balloon.
He began telling us the story of how the city of Banff found their mascot and how an unsuspecting couple stumbled upon a new and innovative way to market Banff.
While on vacation the couple decided to take a few pictures of themselves by using the self-timer, as many traveling couples must do unless they want a bunch of single pictures of either person (I've got way too many of those). Right when the camera snapped, a squirrel jumped in front of the lense and the crasher squirrel was born.
National Geographic picked up the picture, then the bloggers caught on and finally the main stream news started talking about the squirrel.
It soon became apparent that social media is what was happening while the people in Banff were trying to come up with a way to market their location.
It was decided that a twitter identity would be created for the Banff Squirrel. They began re-tweeting the best Photoshopped pictures, acting as a central hub for the crasher squirrel. Using footage they already had, a video was created and replayed on CNN. Then an iPhone app was created - THEY HAD FINALLY MADE IT.
They used tools that were inexpensive and available on the internet. Who thought it could be that easy?
After about 3 months, the Banff Squirrel had 2,900 followers on twitter, but was losing momentum. What
to do? Well, the answer is obvious: put a hat on the Banff Squirrel. WAHHH-LA....you've got a mascot.
They realized it would be important for the Banff Squirrel to behave like a consumer with a little dash of humor. Instead of tweeting: Remember not to feed to wild life animals; he would tweet: Please don't feed
the wild animals of Banff National Park. I don't throw skittles at your kids. The Banff Squirrel strictly tweeted about things that were applicable to a squirrel in Banff.
They found it was important not to lead the conversation, but instead follow along and find a seam for their message. They weren't selling something to their followers, they were building awareness.
These are the key tips Steve left with us:
The Banff Squirrel has been successful at reaching influencers who can amplify the Banff message and has been a great model for any location.
Make sure you follow the squirrel: @Banff_Squirrel
Paula Berg's 140 character bio goes like this: Digital Media Lead @LinhartPR. Globetrotting workaholic. Quantum-physics enthusiast. Adventure seeking flirt.
She thought it sounded dumb read out loud, but I thought it sounded great. As soon as she started cracking witty jokes and throwing her wisdom around, I knew that she was my social media idol. That is why I couldn't look away when she began listing off the 10 poisons and antedotes for social media.
1. Poison: The Social Media Task Force - a group of people in a room, debating for months about the merits of social media; Antedote: Hire a social media tyrant; someone has to be responsible
2. Poison: Social Media Strategies - These strategies don't account for the unknown or gray area that happens every day; Antedote: Organizational Philospohies - Figure out who you are and what you want to accomplish
3. Poison: Interns - If you wouldn't send them to interview with the Wallstreet Journal, why would you let them run your social media brand; Antedote: Seasoned employees and experience
4. Poison: PR/Marketing - "That's not our demographic"; Antedote: Think about the brand from your customers perspective - who are they and what do they want
5. Poison: Numbers - Charts and graphs with common information; Antedote: Dazzle them - show them information they didn't already know
6. Poison: Facebook and Twitter - These sites are common so people overlook the opportunities; Antedote: Leverage all assets in concert - think beyond these two sites using mobile, blogs, texts, photo, videos, forums, e-mail and internal communication
7. Poison: Employees - Companies don't let their employees on Facebook; Antedote: Let your employees go free - they will be able to spread your message
8. Poison: Lawyers - They don't allow you to say everything you need to say.; Antedote: If you need to do something, such as apologize, just do it
9. Poison: Contests - Most contests have no value or goal; Antedote: Social media contests should provide value to the community
10. Poison: Malcolm Gladwell - He questions the motives of those using social media; Antedote: If you believe in your social media strategy - stand up for it
Paula also describes qualities you should look for in your social media manager such as instinctively knowing the brand. Social media managers need to lead and inspire the internal change that will make an organization a social business.
I really wanted to hang out with Paula during the Opening Night Reception at the Hollywood Cafe in hopes that I could scam some more information out of her, but she jetted out early to take her mom to a Barry Manilow concert in Las Vegas. From one gamblin' town to another. I guess I'll let it slide this time.
Follow Paula on Twitter or tweet at her and let her know what you thought of her session: @paulaberg
