Thursday, December 2, 2010

Blog in review

So I've been blogging for a couple of years now - how time has flown by.

I'm fairly sure no one is reading it but I persist.

If only so I don't have to update my email signature. That's such a pain...


Depending on your business, blogs still have their place, though probably not as separate entities like this one, probably some page on your website that you update a lot during your peak season and periodically the rest of the time.

A lot of the purpose behind the blog has moved to social media. The conversations and interactions take place on Facebook. However Facebook hides behind a user account system, don't just assume all your followers have Facebook accounts. While a blog is out there for all to see and read.

Until we reach the realm of one username and one password for all, we'll always be multiplatform.


Unlike traditional media, there aren't blog or Facebook salespeople who call you up to renew like there are for your radio ads, or print materials or newspaper ads. Internet marketing is all about you; your time, your memory, or a trusted employee.


Here's a couple of posts from 2009 that I thought would be good to read again, or for the first time:

The 12 days of Website Best Practices


Just get the job done


I guess I didn't have anything earth shattering to share in 2010, doesn't surprise me, it was crappy year personally, not professionally

Professionally, I did 24 mentoring sessions, finally meeting project targets. Operators are starting to seek me out, rather then me pestering them. Awesome.

Some really great new tourism sites went up this year.

NB Trails

Auberge Les Jardins

Discover the passage

Festival Western

and I'm sure there's many more. I'm hearing from mentoring session clients every day who are in the process of developing a new site or new social media strategies.


Bring on 2011 !

Happy Holidays :)

Beth

beth@@tianb.com

How your website is like your car...

I drive a 2006 Hyundai. I bought it new, off the lot. Yes, I probably over paid but that's not the point.

Every month I pay a little on that car.

Every three months, I take it for oil changes or something and pay some more.

And every now and then I look at the new scratches, or a rock hits it and I witness its slow death.

As soon as a car leaves the confines of the auto plant, it's starting on its slow death. Even a car that never gets driven will eventually succumb to rust and elements.

And so does your website. You just don't realize it.

Every month that you don't look at your website and update content, it's dying.

Every season that goes by and you don't post new pictures, it's dying.

Testimonials that don't get posted, are like arrows through its heart.


Sure you can rebuild the engine, but the exterior will still rust out on you.

Eventually you have to stop and admit defeat.

And get a new car.


Or a new website.

Unless you're a mechanic - cars and their repairs are expenses that you just have to accept in order to get on with your life. (Besides public transit options etc)

So unless you're a web developer - technology costs of running a tourism operation is something you have to accept in order to market your business.


Website code that you bought in 2006 doesn't run as well as website code you can buy now.
Was Vista or Windows 7 out when that code was written? Nope.
Was Firefox and Google Chrome and IE 7 / 8 out? Nope.
Was the iPad and the iPhone out? Nope.

You need code for all these applications and devices.

Does my iPod sync with my old car? Nope.
Does my car talk to me or recognize my voice? Nope.
Is my car a hybrid? Nope.

These are all the improvements I must weigh against the cost of a higher monthly payment or being payment free - does that even exist anymore?


So find the money, find the will, find the determination and put out some bytes that the internet can be proud of!


I'll get off my soap box now.

If you need any help with any of that, you know where I am


Beth

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Vancouver - it really is the other coast

Hi All,


Just back from a week in Vancouver visiting friends and I knew, I just knew, that you would want to hear all about it.


Background - Vicki and I went to University together. She now lives in Vancouver (Burnaby) with her husband, her daughter who is eight and her son who is two and their dog Horton. She runs a daycare in her home. She and her kids are active, busy, and fun! I only get to see her every three years or so, and I miss her already.


The first thing I noticed on the ride in from the airport was the lack of billboards. Vicki says they are working on the highways and the ads should be back soon. Whew.


The next thing is the guest room, cause it's like 2 AM AST and I'm not as young as I used to be.


Running a daycare from your home means early starts, lots of activity and sometimes late evenings. There's no time to check things out on a desktop / laptop in the office upstairs. She relies a lot on her mobile phone. Everything from finding contact numbers, to directions, to Elmo's official last name :)


Snack hints, quick game solutions, and other kid related tidbits are accessed via her mobile.


At night, recipes for cookies and breads are on the laptop in the kitchen while we bake for the next day.


She facebooks while we're at the amusement park and uploads photos of my green face after the last ride.


(note - she's not obnoxious about it, mostly while we're in line)



When we go out for the day and leave her assistant in charge, they text every now and then to make sure everything is OK


She doesn't have a GPS device in the car


And another thing I notice is that the cars are like 99% BC license plates. Which makes me realize not a lot of people drive to Vancouver / Victoria. They fly in. And maybe rent cars, which would also have BC plates.


So there probably is more reliance on mobile directions then GPS devices



In the end, the big take away is that every corner of this country is different. The method visitors use to arrive, tour, and interact varies a lot with geography.


But I think, and this is just me thinking out loud, that Mobile is finally here, there and everywhere.






Fright nite at the PNE - goulish

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Print Ads - their time has come

So I was thinking the other day - I know you could smell the smoke from your house !

Be serious for a minute

Let me lay something out for you, and if I'm wrong then feel free to enlighten me

A print Ad in a newspaper costs at least $600 - at least

If we took 600 and divided by 12 months we get 50

A monthly social media budget of $50

At $10 per hour, I know that's probably low but we're just using round numbers here, at $10 per hour you could get 5 hours of someones time

A whole morning

How many tweets, facebook updates, blog posts, and you tube clips do you think one talented, computer literate, enthusiastic person could create, write, post, and edit in 5 hours?

The secret to making Social Media painless is to write it in advance and post it when it's relevant!


Where does your print ad end up?

The recycle bin.


Where do your tweets, blog posts, videos uploads end up?


GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS!



Where would you rather have your marketing messages?

In the recycle bin or in cyber space for all eternity?

Just asking.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Social Media Examiner

Greetings,

I've recently come across Social Media Examiner - not only is a super knowledge base, it's cute to look at :)

I think that a recent article on How to Turbo Boost your facebook page is super relevent and easy to understand.

What I want you to take away from here is that Facebook business pages can be exciting and interactive spaces, and it's high time you learned how it works.

Check out the video, the 8 minutes goes by quick, and there is a bit at the end about facebook contests - super important to us in the Tourism industry.






Also - check out this gent talking about content.



Joe Pulizzi Interview from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

Full interview and links HERE

In Summary:

1. Social Media examiner is a great resource that's fun to use

2. Sign up NOW for facebook and learn how to use it

3. Create your content - you all have interesting stories and tidbits and insider info to share

4. Launch your social media campaign

And as always I'm here to help

beth@@tianb.com

Friday, September 17, 2010

Update on the new computer

So it's been a solid 10 days with the new computer and both my parents and myself have learned a few things

I copied off several gigs of pictures onto CD from the old computer. I didn't bother to put them on the new computer, however as Mom points out, "How am I supposed to send them to people now?"

Which is a valid point. While I assumed that all the pictures on the old computer had already been sent or facebooked or emailed, there will always be someone who is "new" and hasn't seen the latest pictures of my nephew. Perhaps she/he just got online (we are talking about my parents friends here) or perhaps she/he rarely goes online. Perhaps they had a computer failure and lost all their pictures (heaven forbid) and are wanting to recreate some of that.

Needless to say, there is always someone new online somewhere looking for something that you thought everyone already had.


Next, it was like pulling teeth getting my Mom to Google everything. In fact she point blank said she was "tired of Googling". Like it was some kind of torture I was making her complete.

I next resorted to "did you check their literature" when she asked for the 100th time "Where was the TD banking site?"

I was teaching her see, teaching her to read all that marketing crap that is on every TD ad, every TD statement, and every TD calendar in the house!

She didn't appreciate my teaching method.

And frankly I don't know what the heck she was doing that she couldn't google TD bank...

So I left it at that and added it to her favorites when she wasn't looking.


We also had a few days of fun because I forgot to install flash, shockwave, and java for their favorite game sites, and I also created the desktop icon for IE 64bit instead of IE 32 bit, apparently the world is not ready for IE 64 bit. My bad.

And they haven't mentioned the Aero effect or smooth scrolling, start bar quirks or any of the other fantastic changes that come with Windows 7 - frankly I don't think they ever have more then one window open at a time.


I think we're pretty much over the hump now, but if things change I'll keep you posted.


PS We also use Royal Bank but she didn't seem to have near the trouble with that one...

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

I won't mention it

I'm not going to mention how remiss I've been in my blogging, and I don't expect you to either.

Nuff said.




I just wanted to bring to your attention that in November 2009, facebook did some changes to its contesting policy - check the lastest version out at:


http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php


I'm not sure that you're allowed to run contests on facebook anymore ... and I wouldn't want them to freeze your page because that's a night mare you'll never get out of - Facebook doesn't seem to care about the individual business or person for that matter - ironically enough



I believe that you can have a retweet contest on twitter but not a member contest on facebook. So I'm not sure how to get out of that public relations mess if you happen to be mid contest, other then to maybe drop references to it and hope no one notices


Or you'll have to turn it around and have them send you an email as well.


Also make sure that you have more then one admin on your facebook fan page, if for some reason your account gets frozen no one will have admin access to your fan page.


Facebook is putting in new security every day and I've heard about people trying to log on from another country and / or from their mobile and their account gets locked because Facebook may deem it as hacking. Once your account is locked, again it's a night mare you might not get out of


Facebook doesn't seem to have any sense of customer service or a procedure for things like that.

So best practice is to have at least two admins, even if one is an account you create for your fictional grandmother and only log into once a month !


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On another note, I bought my parents (age 65+) a new computer for back to school ... well it was on sale because it's back to school.

It's an upgrade from their Win XP to Windows 7 - essentially skipping over Vista for them, not on purpose, Vista was/is a great operating system, it just worked out that way.

And I just left them to it. It's my own social/blogging experiment. No instructions, no introductory session while they hovered over my shoulder.

So we'll see how they make out.

Already they asked where one of their favorite websites was and while I did copy their favorites to a CD and could potentially put them back on the new computer, I responded with Google it.

Thus getting them in the mindset of googling things, and hopefully reshowing them how to create new favorites.

We'll see how it goes.


Later
Beth

Friday, July 9, 2010

The Mind Set

Why should I invest in a better website?

Why should I invest in online booking?

Why should I spend time on social media?


It's all about the mind set of a certain segment of consumer. I happen to be in that segment so let me share with you a story about my mind set.

It's hot, we're having a heat wave. My mom isn't feeling well, and the elderly don't fair well in the heat anyways --> Mindset: low tolerance

I ask my parents to buy an Air Conditioner ages ago, and they didn't --> Mindset: little patience

Now I'm at work, barely time for lunch and must source and purchase an air conditioner -- > Mindset: Frustration


So putting together my mind sets of low tolerance, little patience and frustration, I started with Google

Firstly I learn what an air conditioner is all about, and what specs I should be looking for based on how I expect to use it

Secondly I start visiting the websites of local retailers.

Futureshop --> low prices, no instore stock, only ground shipping

WalMart --> great prices, no online inventory checking system

Canadian Tire --> Ok prices, online inventory checking, unit in stock - SOLD


things we can learn from my experience:
1. I only visited three stores online and ONE store in person, I'm not in the mood to mess around
2. I spent more money just to save myself some hassle


While some vacations are thought out and planned in the greatest detail, some are last minute and born from frustration. The easier you make it for that consumer to stay with you, the more likely you are to complete the sale.



Here's another episode from the saga that is my life :)

Today while browsing facebook, I see that one of my friends status says that she's expecting a food basket from a local organic farm to be delivered today....sounds intriguing, and she's included the link to the farm's like page (fan page).

Fredericton is still having a heat wave. And although cooler in the house, I'm still low on patience and tolerance. So I check it out, this could save me time at the grocery store... if I stock up on dry goods, I may not have to even set foot there again til FALL ! Sounds like utter bliss to me.

Because this organic farm takes a few minutes a day to engage in social media, and because my friend likes them and engages with them, I may have found the route to a grocery store free summer!

Thus illustrating the power of social media.

And ending today's rant.

I hope it was educational :)


Stay cool,
Beth

Friday, June 25, 2010

Friday things to think about...

I'm sure you've all seen some form of this video over the past couple of years, but like all things technology, there's always the latest and greatest version

So for your viewing pleasure, the latest from May 2010





So you don't have to keep rewinding and reviewing, cause the music can be a bit annoying:


Over 50% of the world's popluation is under 30 years old.
96% of these people have already joined a social network

In 2010 Facebook topped Google in the rankings of weekly traffic in the US

One out of eight couples married in the US met on social media

Facebook added over 200 million users in less then a year

80% of companies use social media for recruitment

Generation Y and Z consider email something from the past, and many Universities have stopped distributing email addresses

The number TWO search engine in the world is You Tube ( I told you this one )

25% of search results for the world's top 20 largest brands are links to user generated content!

34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands

78% of consumers trust peer recommendations

Friday, June 4, 2010

Social Ostrich!

I've got a new term of the week - Social Ostrich - referring to those who still have their head in the sand regarding the uses and benefits of social media in driving brand recognition and sales.

Ha, awesome isn't it?

No I didn't think of it myself, I found it somewhere on the internet.

Whew,
What a great annual conference last week ! You should have been there.

TIANB launched their new website - it's also awesome - check it out here.

And A Couple of Chicks did a great social media boot camp ... yeah there were other speakers but I'm only interested in the technology related ones :)

I brought back a terrible nasty cold and so this week has been almost a complete write off but before it ended I did want to share one great tip - Google Local Business or Google Places or whatever name they give it this week ;-) Point is, create your account now and get a free detailed listing in Google search results that is mobile friendly !

www.google.ca/lbc

Excellent for those who can't afford a mobile website, excellent for helping customers find your phone number, physical address, quick photo, and other details without having to load up your website.

It's like as amazing as the Yellow pages were when they first came out. Remember??? Does anyone remember life before the Yellow pages? Well I'm sure folks were amazed to have all that information at their fingertips and in one location.

Remember party lines ... my mom had a party line growing up, she used to say that the lady across the street would listen in on her and her boyfriend. And now all kids have their own phone, and a cellular phone at that !

When I was a kid - I WAS the TV remote !

I'm starting to ramble now, must be the cold medicine.

Anyways your homework til next post is to create a Google Place for your business.

Welcome June,
Beth

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

For my followers

Greetings,

Well I've been remiss in my blogging yet again! Don't worry I'm rapping my own knuckles about it. Truth is I've been run off my feet.

I completed 10 mentoring sessions in April alone. I have people calling me wanting to know when I can come to their area. I attended the Atlantic Internet Marketing conference, where TT.com was a sponsor. I am right now in the midst of preparing for the TIANB annual conference (if the other staff knew I had time to blog, they'd be sending more tasks my way!).

I know my last post said I was going to talk about Google Analytics, but I've given that more thought and really it's too broad a topic for this little blog. There are whole blogs devoted to that one subject. Basically it's the best free website statistical package out there, and you should definitely sign up for it. If only for the automatic emails that you can set up. Our account sends me the dashboard view once a week via email so I never even log into the application.


The AIM conference in Halifax was great. Two jam packed days of speakers and networking. I have lots of information to share about that, and will start that after we get back from TIANB conference.

The TIANB conference is next week in Edmundston. Roger Brooks is back to talk about product development. And A Couple of Chicks, social media gurus for tourism, are coming as well. I'm excited about bringing the Chicks to the conference and I know everyone is going to go home with lots of social media tips and tricks.

One thing I will share with you ... or anyone who's reading ...

A speaker at the AIM conference said that the Saskatchewan Hospital Home Lottery sent out a text message to all previous home lottery ticket buyers at the start of their annual campaign. The result....

They sold 35,000 of 40,000 tickets!

Imagine selling 90% of your tickets by just letting previous buyers know they are available. The lottery sold out early, everyone got their prizes earlier, they could cancel some TV and radio buys so they made more money. It's a win win.

Technology, it's time to give it serious consideration.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Getting Noticed on Google

As promised, I'm going to start to share new tips. Credit for the content ideas goes to the book "Getting Noticed on Google - in easy steps" by Ben Norman. Probably not the latest and greatest but it's the book that is sitting in front of me and was my inspiration.


And we're going to start with basics.


Why is Google so important? Because it is. Practically no one refers to "search engines" anymore they just "Google It". Because Google presents unbiased and trustworthy results, Joe Public has come to rely on them.


Google uses an algorithm to rank websites. This algorithm is constantly improving, changing, evolving and most importantly SECRET. Which is why there is always going to be conflicting advice on how best to googlize your website.


And I think by now we all know what we mean when we use the term spiders or crawlers. If not, then you need to give me a call.


Google will penalize you for breaking it's rules and using what we in the biz call "black hat SEO". So always stick to white hat SEO. You can find the official Google rules on their home page under About Us (where else would it be).


We'll only talk about white hat stuff anyways.


And the first item up is the Google Toolbar. So take a minute and install it, if you don't have it yet. And you'd have to be diligent like me not to have it yet, because the darn thing comes bundled with every free Adobe product.


Did you know that you can do a quick one button check to find out who is linking back to you. For example, if you know a certain restaurant or members of your local RTA are supposed to be linking to you, a quick click of the Google toolbar button will let you know who actually followed through with that.

Under Page ranking, click Backwards links.

And it doesn't have to be your website either, you can do your competitors websites and find out which local businesses are linking to them. Then you can approach them for links to your own business.

Perhaps you're a new restaurant in the area, and you want to find out which businesses are open to linking to local establishments. Let the Google toolbar do the researching for you.

Perhaps you're a local DMO consumer facing website and you want to know which local companies are promoting your site. the Google toolbar will tell you. Awesome.

What's next.... The Google cache page checker (also under Page Ranking).

This little feature shows you how your page looks on Google and therefore when was the last time the Spiders came around. And it tells you the date Google took the snapshot. And so you get a feel for how often and when the spiders do come around.

Another button that hides under page rank is similar pages. Find out similar pages to your business page, or just use it to improve your searching.

The next parts about Google Analytics and Google site maps require a Google Account -so go get one and we delve into more next week.


Fast facts

Every month I read an online version of Website Magazine, the subscription is free if you're interested. Here are a few tidbits from the March issue.

Cisco has disclosed that it will release new routing equipment within this calendar year that will be able to stream every motion picture ever made in four minutes! As well enable every person in China to simultaneously make a video call!

We'll have to wait and see if they deliver on that promise but the announcement or even the thought of such a goal is proof of the influence of video on the Internet.

Cyber crime costs Americans more then $560 million in 2009. The most susceptible cities were Seattle, Boston, Washington, and San Francisco

You Tube is adding a captions feature. Great news for those posting to You Tube and taking advantage of being able to then have it embedded into your product page on the TAP website.

Lots of content about the new Google Android phone, the Apple apps store, and Palm losing market share, if you're interested.

Page 28 (a mildly interesting article about SEO) gives a shout out to local company Radian6 for their social media monitoring software :)

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Eeek - where does the time go

Greetings,

Just a short note to say, I'm still here.

I've been all around NB talking to operators about how to increase their presence online, and believe me even though the province seems small, with 2000 tourism products it takes a long while and a lot of driving to see even a quarter of the operators!

I've got a lot of tips on Google Toolbar tips and tricks to share over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

Also I'd like to announce that the Tourism Technology project is putting on day long Social Media workshops specifically geared towards tourism operators. I'm excited about this, and hope that you'll take advantage of this great opportunity. The other techies and I have worked closely with the presenter to customize the content and make sure it's relevant!

Moncton, April 30
Fredericton, May 3
Bathurst, May 4 (in french)

Check your email for more details or drop me a line at beth @ tianb . com

Friday, March 12, 2010

5 Hot Tips

As you can tell from the title, today's post is generously borrowed from Susan Rice Lincoln's e-newsletter, Social Media Matters. You can read all of Susan's posts at her blog, Mastering the New Net.

I would never use the word "hot" in my own titles ;-)

I really enjoyed tip number four, with the house/garden/social media metaphor. Readers of my blog will know I love metaphors.




Don’t try to do too much. The people/companies that have the best success in social media are using a maximum of three tools. You don’t need to use every single social media tool known to mankind. What you need to figure out is which tools match your strategy.


Create editorial calendars. Editorial calendars on a monthly basis are a great way of keeping your social media program on track. Otherwise, your social media engine is just run on disorganized spontaneity and you will eventually run out of steam. (Regrettably, I think this is happening to my blog)


Repurpose everything. If you are creating a photo stream on Flickr, you should make sure that will be seen in Facebook or on your website. When you post a blog, it should automatically be posted everywhere you are active on the social media space. Maximize your social media presence by making sure everything you do is repurposed in an automatic fashion. (And I don't do this)



Commit at least 1 hour a day to social media. A website is like a house. You construct it. You keep an eye on it to make sure the roof isn’t caving in. But you don’t have to be looking at it every single day. Your social media, however, is like the garden around the house. It needs to be tended to every single day. You need to water and weed all the time. So make social media an integral part of your daily schedule. Or you will fall way behind. And your garden will never bear any fruit.



Have a purpose. The number one most important thing you need to do to be on top of your social media game is to have a well-defined strategy. You need to know what you want to achieve. You need to know where you are going. Without that, it will just be a frustrating exercise of fragmented conversations and dead-end streets. Know what you want to do.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

March Madness

Greetings All,

Not much new to post, just wanted to let you know that the "Achieve your best presence online" training sessions with Tourism and Parks are being very well received.

So I'm on the road a lot and not much time to ferret out good content for my blog :(

However I'm meeting a lot of operators and I'm encouraged because a lot of them are finally seeing the need for a GREAT online presence.

It took a while but I think they are coming around.

Online booking did not turn out to be a fad or flash in the pan, it's here to stay. And it's becoming the booking option of choice for more and more travellers.

If you haven't registered for the training session, there are still sessions available all across NB.

And if you're one of those operators whose finally turned the corner, there's loads of valuable and relevant information in my previous posts.

So browse around.

Beth

Thursday, February 18, 2010

CTC and Social Media

The CTC (Canadian Tourism Commission) is doing great things.

A 2009 campaign consisting of 15 sec user generated videos aired for nine weeks. Results showed the campaign had a higher recall then print. The videos achieved a higher click through then banner ads alone. The success of the campaign was also the fact that it was backed up with relevant web content.

350 of social media content were created and seeded during the campaign. Demand for the material was overwhelming, and reaction to the content in social media spaces was positive.

A viral facebook quiz was created as well as a Twitter delivery schedule so that tweets would be consistent, timely and useful.

Through the national asset development program 10-15 experiences from each province were highlighted via video.

I learned all this at a CTC presentation at Canada eConnect. I urge you to check out the CTC site and browse around. Follow them on facebook and learn from their example.

Check out their You Tube channel

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Maximize your DMO/ PMO presence

One of the sessions at the conferences was called Leveraging Partnerships and Maximizing Marketing Dollars.

One of the best tidbits from this panel of experts was this fact:

Operators who take full advantage of DMO/PMO websites
have higher click through rates to their own website




It is in that spirit that TIANB has teamed up with TAP to deliver training on everything you need to know about maximizing your presence on the the TAP consumer facing website. Sessions start on Monday and continue throughout February and March around the province.
Visit the TIANB news item for more details and the link to register.
Make this your first step to a better online presence.

Monday, February 1, 2010

The very first keynote

Greetings,

I have returned from a week of learning in Montreal. Online Revealed and Canada e-Connect proved enjoyable, insightful, and illuminating.

Right off the bat I'd like to share some high points from the very first keynote, Geoff Ramsey from eMarketer

In the year 2009 there was negative media spending growth, companies spent almost 15% less then previous years.

In the year 2009 there was 1.8 billion dollars spent in online marketing in Canada. That's 89$ per internet user.

So how did they spend so much online with out spending more?

Companies pulled money from their traditional media budgets. Which is something I recommend to clients to finance websites. Pull money from your print budget. Print less, be better online.


If you're interested in a myriad of statistical information visit the eMarketer website and sign up for their free daily newsletter or subscribe.

Stay tuned for more conference tidbits
Beth

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Conferences

Greetings,

Just a short note to let you know that next week I'll be attending two premier conferences in Montreal.

Online Revealed Canada is one of the best Online Marketing conferences with a Tourism focus. Produced by A Couple of Chicks e-marketers, I'm looking forward to learning lots of new ideas to share.

Canada e-Connect , Canada's Tourism Online Strategy conference organized by the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) is also shaping up to be a great two days of exciting speakers and presentations.

The organizers of the conferences have placed themselves back to back to bring a full week of learning to tourism operators, DMOs, governments and folks like myself. My aim is to bring back and share the best of ideas with you.

Take care, and I'll have my first post conference post in February!
Beth

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

What I learned from watching TV marathons

Greetings,

I hope you enjoyed your holiday, whether you only had the mandatory days or extra days, I hope you made the most of it like I did - watching TV show marathons!

Holiday programming consists of marathons and seasonal movies. Frankly after four weeks of this, I've forgotten all the "regular" season shows I used to watch.

The more you watch a show, the more involved you become in the characters, plot, outcomes. To the point where after watching 5 hours of Mad Men, I really wanted a drink of scotch and a cigarette, and I don't smoke.

Compelling TV almost made me want to start smoking.

And that's what I want from your website. Compelling content and imagery that makes me WANT to book a vacation immediately.

At the very least short list the destination and come back to revisit it.

This is why fresh content is important from month to month, and for repeat visitors from year to year. While I enjoyed those 5 hours of Mad Men, I can't imagine myself doing that every weekend...but in a few months... I may watch 5 different episodes.

I'm not talking vastly different changes. I mean it wouldn't be Mad Men without Don Draper :) The characters would be the same but the plots would be different. Like those locations working on being four season destinations. I should notice a subtle change up in the content for each season. Varying photos.

Seasonal activities should be highlighted and move to the top of the list as they become applicable.

Engaging video

Local personalities

Content that conveys first hand knowledge


Just little things like that will make your website more appropriate, engaging, relevant, enticing and make me CRAVE to visit you :)


Beth