Hop like a Jack Rabbit

EXCLUSIVE - for my NB readers  

Let's dispel some of the myths and confusion around Jack Rabbit and online booking :)

Jack Rabbit is first and foremost an INDEXER.

A few times a day the Jack Rabbit "widget" - that white box on the TAP (tourism and parks) consumer facing website (tourismnewbrunswick.ca) hops over to each operators online booking system and asks how many rooms are available.


It doesn't hold anything or take a portion of your rooms, it just asks "how many rooms do you have not booked?" Then later in the day it asks "OK now how many rooms do you have that are not booked?"


It then holds on to this information and so when  a consumer puts date ranges into the white box, it searches its information that it is holding on to and returns results

From there the consumer sees what operators have rooms available, and can choose to book, view the operator's website, start again, etc.

To actually book a room, the consumer must go to the operator's online booking system.

And here's where some people are confused

The operator can run ANY online booking system s/he wants to. The Jack Rabbit will hop over and  "talk" to any online booking system.

There are many many many types of online booking engines and they range from online web based engines to full property management systems. Some which interface with online merchant accounts and some that don't (ie take credit card deposits, hold credit card information)

It's up to the operator to choose which online booking system s/he wants to use.

They also range in pricing from a percentage to a flat monthly fee.



AS AN OPTIONAL BONUS - the people who developed Jack Rabbit will provide any operator who wants it a free online booking system.  This is SEPARATE to the Indexer the Jack Rabbit team runs on the TAP website.

The free online system is basic but they, the Jack Rabbit program team, are also making some improvements to it. Neither TAP or TIANB can make any improvements to the free portion online booking system.


There are many ways a consumer can find an operators website:

• Rack card at a VIC
• Google search
• www.tourismnewbrunswick.ca (TAP)
• You Tube video search
• RTA or DMO site listing
• a direct link from a previous customer / friends / family
• a facebook ad
• etc etc etc

Being in the TAP check availability widget is not the be all and end all of people finding your accommodation. It's just one route to it. 

The cost for showing up in that widget is $125 a year

PLUS the cost of an online booking system. OR you can choose the free one from the Jack Rabbit company. 

You must do your RESEARCH on what online booking option is going to work for your operation!!!

Implementing this technology and making the change from that notebook or calendar to online is a BIG one.

It takes planning and commitment and knowledge and money. 

Remember when you wanted to build that garden for your guests to enjoy. So you plotted it out, bought the tiny plants and voila ... your guests sat in front of 5 inch tall hostas and said, "ah, that's cute"

Now it's a few years later, the hostas, which you moved to get more sun, are 2 feet tall and the bistro table set you purchased on clearance is a perfect spot for guests to relax.

The point being, the garden didn't start out as a magical place, and neither will your online booking engine. 

Because you didn't understand flowers  that well, you might have lost some, and had to replant others. Same with online booking - make sure you understand your options.

However in time, your online booking engine will be a magical place and as you sit in your garden, sipping a cup of tea while it takes reservations for you,  you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. 

As always, anyone from the TourismTechnology.com team would be happy to help explain how online reservations works (the other Atlantic Provincial portals are different) and we also have reviewed at least 12 online booking software engines and can dispel some of the myths.

beth@tourismtechnology.com 

To Tool or not to Tool ...

Greetings,

While at the Altantic Internet Marketing conference last month in Halifax, I attended a great panel session called the Internet Marketer's Toolkit. Each panelist shared their top four or five internet / social media / business tools. Some are free, some are not. But here's the list for your education.

Salesforce - a contact manager software for sales or other applications

Constant Contact - an online email marketing solution. Let's you create mass emails and send them to your stored contact lists

Forrester Research - internet / social media stats for gurus

Social Media sharing buttons - not a tool per se but make sure you have social media sharing on your website and that you use social media buttons on other websites to share interesting content with your followers

Timely.is  - analyzes your past tweets and finds the best time slots for you to send new ones

Namechk - if you're starting a new business, or signing up for social media use namechk to see what user names and domains are available so you can have the most consistent online presence

Hootsuite - an online application that lets you manage your social media like twitter and facebook with one application and one log in

Tweetdeck - same as Hootsuite but different (most people like either Hootsuite or Tweetdeck)

Seesmic - same as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite

Google Blogsearch  - (found under the more button) narrow down your google search to just what is happening in the blog sphere

Ice rocket - real time search of Twitter and Facebook and others

Social Mention - same as ice rocket

Radian 6 - a brand monitoring platform, mainly for larger companies with a lot of people talking about them

bit.ly - a URL shortening service, you can track clicks once you set up an account, then you'll know how many people clicked on a link in your tweet etc.

klout score - mostly for geeks to measure how important they are on the internet - my klout is 11.

Friend or follow - see who you are following but who is not following you and vice versa

Mail Chimp - same as Constant Contact

Survey Monkey - a low cost survey program, with monthly options, sign up for a few months, run a survey, close your account

Google Analytics - analyzes the traffic to your website - you need this.

Google Link Builder - Google has lots of free tools like this one, Google keyword, and Google Local Business listing - check them all out


Hope you find these helpful !

Beth

Content is my current passion

In my last few mentoring sessions I've focused on website content and how it can make or break your site.

Why?

Because clients are having a social media backlash at me, and so I trick them into working on their content, which in turn will lead them happily down the path of social media. Watch out, I'm delightfully deceptive.

Review my posts from September 20, August 2 and way back in July 2009

And I found this great article - 10 simple ways to reduce friction

While it's not tourism focused, it's still relevant. I'm talking to all you operators with black backgrounds and white text. Please let's move on from the 90's.

All words on your website should inform the consumer about property details and entice them to contact you immediately. And make sure some of those words are your keywords. Win win.

Don't talk about you, talk about me... or don't talk about me, talk about you? Stop using the words We and Us, and use You and You're and You will.

When designing keep in mind colours, fonts and eye path. The easiest method is to find a comparable site and tell your developer you like that one. In the tourism market, people are browsing 10-30 different options and their eyes are starting to glaze over. You want them to feel like your site is a calm, organized, coherent oasis in a sea of internet sludge.

Images - make sure your images relate to your target market. If you're looking to attract more seniors, then have more seniors in your images.


So what have we done?

Not only have we reviewed and refreshed all our website content, we've pared it down to some tweetable sentences. Sneaky. Plus we can tweet some of the content that we pulled -> re-purposing.

Not only do we have new great relevant images on our website but we can also use some for our facebook and tweets -> re-purposing. And the outtakes are totally awesome for this purpose. Be fun and silly for a minute.

Yes, it's digital magic.

How to combine social media and analytics and marketing

You should really read the whole article located HERE

But I really enjoyed the case studies. Use your trip adviser reviews and guest feedback to mold your marketing message - interesting concept that everyone can utilize.

It's about what THEY SEE AND DO and not about what YOU think they are seeing and doing.

Actual hotel case studies:

Case study

We recently worked with a client that was a historical monument. The hotel had been home of many historical celebrities that had written books, poems, symphonies there – even famous paintings worth millions were painted from the window at the hotel.

Logically this was a tremendous marketing advantage for the hotel. It was all over their brochures, site and advertising. But the hotel was failing despite all this marketing.

After a careful study of all the online reviews of the hotel, it was obvious that their potential future guests didn’t much care about what their other guests did in the past. They came to the hotel for the same reasons that the celebrities came to the hotel – a unique setting and view.

All marketing elements were re-done for the hotel. We scrapped absolutely everything and started from scratch. All of the focus was placed on the setting and view. The results were immediate.

Another example

Another hotel had just renovated their property with some of the most exquisite materials available. Each tile or piece of furniture was of the finest quality, and this was a luxury boutique hotel destined to be great success. Obviously everybody knew that “luxury” was going to be a unique selling point for the hotel. So the marketing efforts, press releases, and communications material were all focused on the fine materials and luxury offered.

Not so quick… we studied the hotel’s reviews to find out what people were saying about the hotel. To everyone’s surprise nobody mentioned any of these great products and fine brands but they were all commenting on the hotel’s close proximity to several monuments.

It surprised us because the hotel wasn’t that close to those monuments from a local viewpoint. But in the eyes of the consumer that was the hotel’s biggest advantage. So we changed the site, the marketing and everything to reflect what the guests were saying. The results were almost immediate, and sales through the hotel’s website took off in ways nobody had imagined.

And one more

Apex Hotels is one of the most successful urban hotel brands in the UK, and has made semantic analysis a fundamental part of determining their marketing strategy. “It enables us to instantly understand our unique selling propositions – from the guests’ perspective,” says ecommerce executive Amy Spark.

For example, the team realized their location is much more important to guests than their food offerings, so they played this aspect up in their collateral. The results were impressive. “Semantic analysis ensures we are connecting with our audience, and communicates what they are looking for.”

Finally…

There is more to review analytics than reputation management. Review analytics are a vital tool for guiding marketing messages to reflect what guests appreciate most about your hotels, and avoid topics that guests don’t care about or aren’t interested in.

Make an effort to understand what your guests are saying about you, combine that with your marketing research, and you’ll have a formula for powerful promotions.

Landing pages and Photos

Let's talk a bit about web design and layout

Starting with the "fold". In web design as in newsprint, the most important information should be above the "fold" or before the user has to scroll. Now in newsprint you know that this is a specific  number of inches but online it's not so cut and dry. So use your best judgement, have your web designer help you, and choose content, titles and images that are going to make people want to stay on your site and read more. FYI this is called "stickiness" - but who needs more jargon.

Don't be afraid to have multiple copies of important buttons or navigation items - above and below the fold.

Colour has a strong emotional impact and can affect moods and feelings of your viewers. In the age of online travel searching, it might be time to rethink your logo and entire marketing strategy for something that will translate online

It's important that all your marketing material match or coordinate. If I pick up your rack card and it's green and I go to your site and it's blue, I'm going to think I'm in the wrong place. (Super extreme colour examples but you get the drift)

Use a white background for text and do not use coloured text, unless it's a hyperlink.


Images can be a two edged sword, they can support your theme or they can be a major distraction.

Make sure they are all the same quality and resolution
That they relate to the content on the page and your marketing message
That they show real people enjoying your product

For SEO purposes make sure they have ALT text, and Captions - your developer can show you how to do this the first few times.

In some situations showing only the top of the image above the fold will encourage visitors to scroll and see the remaining content and messaging on your landing page.

So I hope these relatively generic tips help you get more stickiness - like flies on fly paper

Google Places - it's where to be on the web

Google, google and more google.

If you've taken the TourismTechnology.com mentoring session then you've heard of Google Places - because we've told you to set up an account there.

Told you, told you and told you.




Liberally copied from Daniel Craig please click through to read the whole article, but here are some highlights


To enhance searchability, ensure that your business’s name, address and phone number are listed in a consistent format across the web. The Company/Organization field acts as the title of your listing and should include the word “Hotel” and your destination if they are part of your official business name—Google doesn’t permit descriptors or keywords in titles. For example, “The Manderley Chicago Hotel” is more searchable than “The Manderley”.

Businesses can upload a maximum of 10 photos and five videos, so make sure they are high quality, authentic and functional. Adding captions and descriptions is presently not an option.

Google, already a dominant force in travel marketing, has reared its head as a formidable force in social networking. By optimizing your Places listing now you’ll be positioned to take advantage of new opportunities down the road.




Also check out my Google+ widget on the left - Google Plus is a new social network, I'll be talking about that  in future posts

I'm also bringing in @tourismtech tweets - please follow us on Twitter and let us know if you're running a Twitter account, we love to see what operators are doing :)

I'm always looking for new widgets to keep my blog up to date and interesting. You should be doing the same. Please find an online champion somewhere in your organization.

If you need help with websites, social media, email,  the Tourism Technology team is available across Atlantic Canada. We dispense wisdom and make the internet less scary. Promise.

Hoping you're having a great tourism season!

Beth

Twitter

Some twitter basics today.

It's come a long way from only 140 characters in a tweet and Teens tweeting that they're currently in the bathroom.

Celebrities are using it. Causes are using it. It even comes in handy during political upheaval.

Few people are using www.twitter.com = though if you're a true beginner, it's a great place to start.

Twitter tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck have evolved to help humans use the Twitter concept better and more effectively. Also Twitter for mobile is another handy tool for your smart phone

You're also going to need a URL shortener (is that a word?). Something like www.bitly.com
In order to drive people to your website or to other interesting websites, you need to use as many characters as you can to write witty content and use a URL shortener to make those long website addresses as short as possible.

In order to find out if people are clicking on your URLs you need an account with your preferred URL shortener. AND you need to tie it into your Twitter tool.


For example

You find a super awesome website you want to share

You open Hootsuite, which you've tied into your bitly account (using the options inside Hootsuite)

You write "check out this awesome site http: short link !"

You wait

Pretty soon, one of your followers will retweet you, you'll know via Hootsuite

And you'll open your bitly account and it will tell you how many people clicked on your link to your awesome website

You can compare that to the number of followers you have to see whether the percentage is high enough for you to say "I got some good ROI on that"

If not, then go back to the drawing board and try for better content in your next tweet.

Also try hashtags - putting a # in front of keywords

Example Tweet: I love #nb #potatoes fresh from the #garden smothered in real butter

This kind of tweet can be found by people doing searches on the words NB, potatoes and garden

For more on hashtags check out www.tagdef.com

Again this is just an overview on twitter, I didn't even talk about sharing photos or finding followers, or what to do when a spambot signs up to follow you.

I'm saving that for later.

Til next time,

Beth

Think like a customer

Liberally copied from Dear Radian6 - but it totally sounds like something I would say, and since I haven't said anything in a while, it's a good place to start again :) So many times I've read articles and thought, I should write something similiar for my peeps but never get to it. My new strategy is I'm going to start quoting more - we'll see how it goes.


If you are thinking like a customer, you can better appreciate what your customers may like. So keep this in mind when you share content, advice or just reach out in a friendly tone. Make what you say count. Infrequent, compelling interactions will mean more to your customers than a whirlwind of pokes and hellos that only fill a social site up with too much talking.


It is likely a rare occurrence that a customer taps you on your social-web-shoulder, pokes you and giggles then waves frantically in excitement just for the opportunity to be your friend. Customers want to know what’s in it for me? – known in marketing circles as WIIFM. So if you’re waiting for customers to cheerfully connect with you online just because, you may be waiting a long time.


Do you remember the excitement you felt when you were given a wrapped gift and the contents of the box were entirely a mystery? Surprises can be exciting, so why not surprise your customers by friending them first and joining in on the conversations they are having about you, about travel in general and their love/need for flying? Customers who experience an interaction from behind a social profile tend to turn their ear towards that brand and actually listen.

Perhaps one of the greatest examples of surprising customers is the KLM Surprises campaign. KLM really took flight using social media to demonstrate just how eager they were to soar above customer’s expectations.

The video is a little slow in the middle but hang with it.






If you need help with your social media strategy, contact me, the TourismTechnology.com program can help

Til next time
Beth

About Me

How many times have you seen the About Us tab on a website (Contact Us also counts)?

How many online contact places do you have (email, blog, linked in, facebook, website)?

Wouldn't it be great to store all those in one place?

And fancy it up with fonts and pictures?

Check out About Me

It's a great one page "dashboard" to post your details for all your online places

Check out mine Beth A

There are probably more free online apps like this, but this is the one I found and I like it. It was simple to create and now it's a one stop shop for all my contact info.
You can email me from there, read my blog, connect on FaceBook and Linked In.

And the URL is super easy to remember about.me/bethashton

You could create one for your business and use it on your business cards. Or just use it for personal use.

If you meet a friend on the street, you can say "Hey connect with me at about.me/bethashton" and then they can choose the connection options they prefer - email, facebook, linkedin, twitter etc.


Check it out and let me know what you think.

Beth

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

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.

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.

The 12 Days of Website Best Practices

Today's content created by ... ME. Seems like everyone is doing a variation on the seasonal carol the 12 days of Christmas so I've joined the bandwagon! Plunked on my elf thinking cap and came up with

The 12 Days of Website Best Practices



12 premium photo galleries
Have at least 12 photo galleries on your site. Include pictures of all seasons, and include pictures with PEOPLE in them - be sure and get photo releases or use your family.



11 minimum updates to home page content per year
Update your home page ONCE a month. Even in the off season. So 12 is the optimal number but I gave you one month off :)


10 pages of content and description
Content is king. Include history of the area, and other delightful content to maintain search engine ranking and improve website visitor experience


9 or more rotating images in your flash banner
If you must have a rotating flash banner or images, make sure you have enough so that they don't get stale. A potential customer will visit your site at least 10 times.



8 or more Frequently Asked Questions and answers
Make your FAQ page extensive. If you're referring clients to it, make sure it's useful.


7 or less menu tabs
Keep your main menu selections to 7 or less. Yes you can do this and still have 10 or more pages of content. They're called sub menus. The less clutter on your site the better.


6 testimonials, guest reviews
I cannot stress the importance of guest reviews, the ability for guests to make their own feedback posts to your site, the ability of guests to reconnect with other guests via your site. It's invaluable to you as a tourism operator


5 videos of the property
If you're going to do videos, have at least 5. Videos should be short, under 2 minutes each, and so you will not be able to showcase the whole establishment in 2 minutes. And some clients will be looking to see just a specific area.


4 featured staff members and bios
Feature your staff, yourself as owners, community characters... someone. Add some local personality into your website


3 latest news stories
If you're operating the kind of establishment where you post a lot of news items etc, have only the last three showing on the home page and the rest in an archive. Be wary, the last thing you need on a website is a stale "latest news" item. So this one is also cautionary, if you can't have at least 3 current news items on at all times, then you shouldn't have any news items at all.


2 languages whenever possible
Whenever possible have at least a portion of your website in a second language, and it doesn't have to be French. Dutch, Mic Mac, German, Polish...anything that shows off your values and culture OR caters to the market you are trying to attract. People will stay on a site longer and absorb more information from a site if it is written in their native language


1 go to source for information
Make sure your website is your clients goto source for information. It should answer almost every question so that when they call to book, they are a pre-qualified caller. When you can't answer the phone, refer the caller to the website and let the site lead them on the same journey as you would over the phone.

Your website is your 24 hour sales person !


I hope you've enjoyed today's tourism tech edition of the 12 days of websites.

Contact me for a one-on-one website critique, mentoring session, helpful tips, and MORE!
Beth @@ tianb.com

Women and Information Forwarding

Recently came across these interesting graphs on another blog. The graphs are from PopSugar Media and Radian research and show some relevent information on how Women share information they find on the internet.


Sorted by Gen X and Gen Y, but I want to focus in on what method came in first, second and third.













As I tell all my clients, it's the women in the family who are reseraching holiday travel.
And so what are the top three methods used to discover new products (products would include travel destinations and attractions):

1. referral from an article or newspaper online
2. search engines
3. online ads, whether directly clicked or not

And how do they share this new product or vacation spot with friends:

1. they call them
2. they email them
3. and fairly close together are writing a review and posting on facebook

How can this help us create a better website for Women researching new products and destinations?

1. never underestimate the value of the press, having your establishment reviewed in any online forum will result in natural search engine ranking and hits
2. never stop updating or refreshing your website content and working on maintaining that natural search engine ranking
3. direct clicks are not always the best measure of your online ad campaigns, impressions count
4. nothing will ever replace girl chat
5. email is not dead, and having the "email to a friend feature" on your packages page will come in handy - as well as share this on facebook feature
6. always provide a way for your clients to write a review or provide feedback directly on your website. Women will read other's comments and value that information.
   
   

When you're ready to make your site the best it can be, ask your developer about these features and how to incorporate them into your new website.

For more information, just drop me a line beth@@tianb.com

Brand properties, Digital spending

Good heavens has it been a month since my last post? Where does the time go?

Today I have a couple of random thoughts for you...

First for the Brand hotel property managers - Internet sales will be key in 2010, and every day your property is being sold on Brand sites and others like travelocity etc. It is YOUR responsibility to check your part of the Brand site. Check it for key words, relevence, images, and attractions. If your brand site says you're next to the Skydome - you're actually next to the Rogers Center - keep your details updated.

Most Brand sites don't allow for a lot of editing but do what you can with the tools you have and make your voice heard at the Corporate level about those changes you can't make on your own.




Second, according to eMarketer, Digital spending is expected to be 17% of total US Ad spending in 2010 creating a tempting slice of pie for Traditional Ad Agencies.

In addtion to these figures, a compelling study is just announced - Internet overtakes television to become the biggest advertising sector in the UK. A record 1.75 billions pounds online spend makes UK the first major economy to spend more on web ads then on TV

Death bells are tolling for traditional media...





Some random thoughts to mull over this Thanksgiving weekend.

Proof is in the numbers

Content stolen/borrowed from http://tourismvc.wordpress.com/ but I don't think Tom will mind :)

Two of Cape Breton’s favorite fall festivals are Hike the Highlands, Sept. 11-20 and Celtic Colours – October 9-17. What makes them unique is they are the forefront with Online marketing and social media. They are starting small and learning along the way..

Dan Coffin, Marketing Co-ordinator, for Celtic Colours, has seen a change in demographics and found social media, e-mail newletter and new media have helped increased visits (20% plus) this year to their website.

Celtic Colours now has over 400 twitter followers, 1100 plus fans on facebook, a promotional video on youtube, a great venue google map and an e-mail marketing newsletter with a goal of 1,500 subscribers.

Coffin states online tickets sales are at 58%, up 4% from last year.

Last year, Hike the Highlands Festival had over 40% of hikers register online and expects this number will increase in 2009.

Facebook ads, Google adwords and e-mail newsletter along with online press releases & regular posts on our blog have keep us busy with new content on the web and attracting hikers to this annual September hiking festival.

“Our website visits in August are up 29% from last year,” says Tom Wilson, Chair, Hike the Highlands Festival. Wilson states we have hikers already registered from British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador and USA.


Both Wilson and Coffin agree that online marketing and social media has helped their festivals grow each year with more communication, online marketing, and user generated content.


Online booking and payment system has made it easier for people to purchase tickets and festival passes

Labels - the ultimate online organizer

I've starting something new on my blog today. Can you spot the change?

It's relatively subtle...

But it should lead to increased traffic on previous posts.


Ta-Da ~ I've labelled all my posts !

In total I have 43 posts, I took a quick look at the headlines for all of them and came up with a few common threads.

Then I added the labels gadget. Which I didn't have before. See how I'm learning as I go and incorporating more tech as I get more comfortable. See. See how I'm doing that.

Then I started from the first post and went through to the last one, opening each one, adding a label and resaving.

Took about 30 minutes in total and now if you're interested in reading just all my "how to" posts you can find them all in one easy click!



My labels are:
About TT.com - those are the posts where I boast about the great one on one website mentoring session that I provide to Tourism Operators for the low price of $125

How To - those are the posts where I give more explicit instruction, like this post

Informational - those are the posts where I publish stories that may interest tourism operators or items like what conferences I'll be attending

Successes - those are the posts that highlight great tourism successes online, and frankly there aren't nearly enough of those kinds of posts !

The great thing is I can add more labels if the need arises.


Til next time,
Beth

Twitter among the stars...

Recently Kevin Spacey, one of my favorite actors, and David Letterman had a conversation about Twitter.

When I saw it, I felt that a lot of my readers would be having the same kind of conversation, and be able to relate to the interaction between Kevin and David.

So here is the embedded video.

You'll notice that this is my second embedded video on my blog, and unlike the first one (two posts previous), this one is custom fitted to the proper width. I left the first one AS IS, to show that blogging and embedding is a continuous learning process. And that you don't have to exactly master the whole thing at once. Just pieces.


I've been blogging for a little over a year and during that time video clips have become more and more popular, the code to embed them is presented for you, and so I've started to incorporate them into my blogging. I'm ever evolving :) It's not required that I or you be on the cutting edge, just that we add a splash of the new every now and then.

Thinking outside the box

This week I stumbled across unique uses for Trip Advisor, and I thought what a great outside the box use for a vacation rating site. Especially in the Tourism Industry where we are facing a human resource shortage.

Quoted from a Linked In group discussion:


Tripadvisor.com Secondary Use for Employers & Job Seekers

Two additional uses for Trip Advisor :
Not only is Tripadvisor a great tool for consumers it is also a great tool for employers and job seekers.
1. Recruiters and employers should check all GM candidates past hotel’s placement on Tripadvisor. As past performance is a good predictor of future success.
2. Job seekers should check a hotel rating on Tripadvisor prior to a job interview to learn of any operational weaknesses that they could help to address. I believe most employers would be impressed to learn that a potential candidate took the time to research their property beyond the company website.


So here's the challenge, do you have a favorite website that you use for a purpose that might not be what the developers intended?

Can you think of outside the box uses for other sites?

Send in your ideas and I'll share them in the next post
beth@@tianb.com

Website / Blog Verses Twitter

I recently read a great quote, unfortunately I've misplaced the source but here goes:

"Make your blog/website your home base and Twitter your outpost"

That strikes me as great advice for those wondering if they should twitter or not. Twitter for kids is all about the status updates, but Twitter for business is about something else... It's about engaging customers with your product, and driving traffic to your website or to your physical store.

Your website is your archive. Twitter feeds are not archived. Facebook events are archived but in a hidden sort of fashion. So if you Tweet that your tourism operation is now serving lobster chowder, if you do not also include that on your website, only the few fellow Tweeters who read that initial Tweet will know about your new product offering.

For tourism operations, archives or history of success is important. It relates stability to new buyers. People do have (rational) fears of airlines going under, hotels closing, and travel agents closing. You must show that you are going to be operating the whole season and they will not be losing their deposit.

Websites and blogs are showcases of true passion and commitment to your operation. If there is one thing I know about tourism operators is that they are passionate. You need to express that to all who visit your site. And if your passion is waning, find someone who's passion is exploding to write the blog for you. A summer student, another employee...

I know you're busy, I know you're stretched thin, and I know you think it's going to take a lot of time. Frankly sometimes it does. Sometimes I sit for a while before I know what to blog. Sometimes it comes quite easily.

If your website and blog are functioning properly then that should lead to less repetitive emails and phone calls that require your time and energy. If your website and blog are functioning properly then your increased sales will justify hiring another part time worker and again leave you with more time and energy to put forth. It's a cycle. You just need to get started.


Twitter is like social sticky notes (another great quote that I can't take credit for). It's snack size content, a nibble to wet your appetite. Your website is the full meal deal. And it should satisfy their hunger.



So first build a great website (actually first take the Tourism Technology website mentoring session to learn how to build a great website)

Then start to Twitter

And know when to draw the Twitter line