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3 Way Magic
Use these three techniques to get your message out and engage with travellers and travel planners.
1. Showcase your product
Web video is ideal for showing exactly how your hotel or tour works, and why it’s the best on offer at the destination.
Your web video doesn’t have to be fancy. It’s more important to:
Take the time to develop your story
Write a script: don’t wing it
Edit carefully so your video comes in under three minutes
2. Share your reality
Any time you share some of your own reality, your two-dimensional Internet presence becomes more three dimensional, and that makes your company — and its offerings — more appealing to visitors.
Show readers you’re just like them by sharing a little about yourself on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, your blog, and your email newsletter. You can post photos or short videos that show them the real you, both inside and outside of work.
Keep it light, tie it in with a topic you know your audience is interested in, and turn it around and talk about them the first chance you get.
3. Shatter your stereotypes
If your business is typecast a certain way – eg luxury hotel, spa and conference center – accept it and set the record straight online.
Showing your prospective guests a little personality is an excellent way to make your hotel or tour memorable.
A good example is Vision Villa Resort in Bali that now calls itself Vision Villa Bali, the Center of Adventure, with links to its new concierge desk, Vision Adventures. The stereotyped image of a luxury spa resort built for relaxation has been shattered by the “adventure centre” personality, taking advantage of the adventure playground at the resort’s doorsteps.
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About the Author: Pamela Wilson helps small businesses grow with great design and marketing at Big Brand System. Her article has been adapted for tourism operators by Dee Farrell at Peacock Tourism Marketing. Together, we hope your blogs and fan pages will add some personality through your stories.
The adage “keep it simple” goes a long way with Facebook fan pages and business blogs. Below are ways for new players to maximize their online presence and social networking with minimum resources and a small budget by using the KISS rule.
1 Make time
Try to set aside an hour a day to work on your page, post updates and communicate directly with guests and fans.
2 Start with a small budget
If you do decide to try ads, you’re better off starting out doing small test ads to see what kind of performance you get in a month, and then ramp it up when you figure out which demographics and keywords you want to target.
3 Create a page, not a profile
Start with a personal page and build up your friends list. These folks are the first people you want to invite to become fans of your business page.
4 Have one-on-one conversations
Send a thank you and personalized message right after someone clicks “like” on your page or makes a “comment” on your blog – if they are worthwhile and relevant only.
5 Post cool status updates
Have a goal of one post per day to your page’s wall and one a week on your blog.
Finally, Learn as much as you can. Take notes based on your experiences with social media posting and blogging so you can research answers to your questions later. If you need a coach, ask the birds-of-a-feather at Peacock Tourism Marketing.
Proactive online marketing and social media networking are essential to reaching brand-loyal gay and lesbian travellers. Few know that or do it better than Rainbow Tourism, a leader in gay tourism publishing and marketing.
Rainbow Tourism was challenged by operators about advertising and being listed on the global RainbowTourism.com directory and referral site. A graph showing the source of the 25,000 monthly visitors to its web network is helping convince them of the need to be part of a big footprint.
Read about The Footprint.I thought I was well-round when I graduated as a Journalist and Business Communicator, (Point Park College and Temple University) with skills in the Big 3 of that era – newspapers, TV and radio.
Today, as a tourism marketing writer and coach, I have to use the new Big 3: Facebook, Twitter, You Tube. Not to mention blogging and keeping myriad websites up to date with content and images.
How are you adapting? I can relate to trying to keep up and being “Still Crazy” like the author of this timely article.
Chain Communications
Retweeted by Peacock Tourism Marketing, Dee Farrell
What’s the scarcest resource of the 21st century?
Human attention. That was the opening salvo at the alumni weekend of the Columbia Journalism School this spring. The theme of the weekend was, “The Future of Text.” I earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia in the 60s. I’d never gone to an alumni weekend, but with newspapers, magazines and books expected to became extinct in our lifetimes, the choice is clear: adapt or die. Columbia is determined to reinvent journalism. They’ve set up a new dual degree master’s program in journalism and computer engineering. (I’ve never met a journalist who could be an engineer, but I guess a new breed is mutating) Columbia also created a department of Internet journalism, and they’re running boot camps in social media skills for their students and alumni. It’s not enough to do great writing, they say. ”You have to build, curate and enhance your online brand.” The school’s tech guru, Sree Sreenivasan, says “We still teach reporting, writing and storytelling, but your work has to be seen and your readers have to evangelize for it.” Sree — Twitterista
I sign up for Sree’s two-hour workshop in social media. He says the Big Three are: facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I’m already on two of them, so I think: I can do this. He says the N.Y. Times just appointed its first social media editor, “to listen to social media and evangelize for it in the newsroom.” Social media, he says, is where “radio was in 1912. TV was in 1950. The Internet was in 1996.” Facebook has 400 million users. ”It’s one of the biggest time sinks in history,” Sree says, and “it will continue to grow and consume people’s time.” But here’s the problem. They’re constantly changing how facebook works and they don’t tell you when they make changes! ”Facebook is not helpful, transparent or easy,” Sree says. SO WHY DOES FACEBOOK RULE? Why doesn’t someone build a friendlier mousetrap? Sree says you need a facebook strategy, or you’ll get overwhelmed. I’m already there. You confirm a dozen friends and overnight, you have 100 requests for friends and your wall is so full you can’t read what’s on it. If you write a book, Sree says, you need a special facebook page for it and video for YouTube. ”So start taking videos while you interview people and write,” he says. ”YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world, so you must have your work on it.” He moves on to LinkedIn, whose primary purpose is networking for jobs. ”You should have a presence on it before you need it,” Sree says. Okay, I’m on LinkedIn and YouTube (not well), but the site I fear and loathe and so far refuse to join is Twitter. He says the maximum post on twitter is 140 characters. ”Every newspaper headline is 80 to 90 characters and it’s able to tell you what the story is,” he says. ”So 140 is plenty.” He keeps his own tweets to 120 characters, so they can be re-tweeted in a chain. Re-tweet? That’s one of a barrage of foreign terms he spits out: Hash Tag, Tweet Deck, bit.ly, Hoot Suite, Mashable. I take notes faster and faster until it feels like I’m going under. After two hours, I need resuscitation. Sree says, “Don’t feel overwhelmed and don’t feel pressured. Social media is still in its infancy. Just take one step at a time. But do take a step.” Heeding his advice, I’m going to remodel my blog and will be posting daily on all things about Life after 50. I’m calling it Stilly Crazy, unless one of you can suggest a better title.
Due to the fast way in which the Internet is evolving, there is now a plethora of digital channels which can be used to hold a dialogue between a brand and a consumer, for example, between your hotel and your future or repeat guests.
“Travel planning is still one of the leading reasons consumers use these channels. If you want gays and lesbians to find your hotel, attraction, event or tour when they are planning their holidays, you better be going digital,” says gay tourism marketing specialist Dee Farrell.
If you need to assess your online marketing strategy in terms of reaching the gay market, hire an expert to fine tune your campaign and then hire a content creator to contribute to the blogs, video channels and Facebook and Twitter accounts you’ve established.”
–Dee@PeacockTourism.com.
Edited from Wikipedia and comments by a Digital Marketing Maven
The Gay Market in Tourism
By Matt Skallerud, former IGLTA President and founder of Pink Banana Media
As the lesbian and gay travel market has grown and developed over the past 30 years, it’s been the travel industry which has embraced and been at the forefront in marketing to the gay and lesbian community.
The world of gay and lesbian travel is maturing, and now there are companies dedicated exclusively to gay tourism marketing and business associations solely for this segment of the industry.
- On the Business-to-Business (B2B) front, the first and foremost of these is the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA), one of the largest and oldest gay business associations worldwide. With conventions and symposiums held each year throughout the world, IGLTA is one of the finest representations of a truly global trade association that mirrors the growth of the gay community worldwide.
- On the marketing front, my company Pink Banana Media and IGLTA cofounder Dee Farrell’s company (Peacock Tourism Marketing) have emerged to specifically help travel agencies, tourism bureaus, tour operators and resorts better reach and serve gay and lesbian travellers.
How to Reach the Gay Traveller
The travel industry is catering to gay and lesbian travelers more than ever. Still, it takes more than flying a rainbow flag to attract these travelers — and their dollars. And in today’s digital age, it takes more than advertising to get the attention of savvy surfers. If you’re brand/message is not yet interacting with these consumers/travelers, you better catch up!
Blogging is tool to engage people
Utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Photos and Video to Market a Destination to Locals and Gay & Lesbian Visitors By Matt Skallerud, Pink Banana Media
Traditionally, destination marketing has been divided into two distinct market groups – travelers coming INTO a destination and locals (or natives) already LIVING IN a destination. With the continued shift of online marketing to social media and Web 2.0, the distinction between these two groups is becoming blurred.
Traditionally, when targeting a consumer using banner ads or direct e-mail, a destination worked with specific media either targeting the inbound gay traveler or the person living in that city or region. The two media were very different, and yet crossover existed even then in the form of local event listings, restaurant specials and bar and club updates, all of interest to both locals and travelers alike.
Today, when promoting a destination on Facebook, a blog, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube, that crossover works to a destination marketer’s advantage, as a more single and unified message can be delivered that appeals to both markets. This advantage makes it even easier to work with a wider variety of local and travel media from which to share content with and partner with for an even more comprehensive and stronger destination marketing campaign targeting the gay and lesbian traveller and local community.
Colleagues through IGLTA
Matt, Mr. Pink Banana, and Dee, Chief Bird at Peacock Tourism, met through their work with the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA.org). They are collaborating on bringing a how-to seminar to Australia so Rainbow Tourism Accredited and IGLTA operators can learn how to implement savvy digital marketing to their target campaigns.
The workshops will be held in Sydney and the Gold Coast in 2010. ”Take our strategy outline, modify to best suit your destination’s unique needs, and adopt social network marketing as one of your top growth areas for marketing in the next decade. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results!”
So preach Dee & Matt in conjunction with Mark at Rainbow Tourism.com, the sponsor of the operator workshops.