Marketing | Professional Blog Service

3 Reasons and 6 Steps To Keep Your Microsites

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Sean X Cummings, the director of marketing for Ask.com, made a rather bold, but completely wrong*, argument in his recent post “3 Reasons To Ditch Your Microsites.” Cummings said that companies should ditch their microsites because they are “advanced brochureware” and a sure sign that a marketing agency “does not get it.”

(*It’s entirely possible Sean and I are using the same word for two very different things. I’ve been calling one-page sites on unique URLs “microsites.” The following is based on my usage of this term.)

Actually, microsites serve a very important purpose to web marketers. Here are the three reasons you need to keep them:

1) Microsites boost search engine optimization.
2) Microsites improve your SEO.
3) Microsites make your SEO better than your competitor’s.

Microsites are not for marketing, not for branding, not to participating in the conversation. Once you build them, you don’t do a single thing with them.

The proper way to use a microsite

Let’s say you own a carpet cleaning service in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You also serve other areas, like Grand Rapids, Holland, and Battle Creek. You’ve already checked, and CarpetCleaning.com is already taken, but you own Cleanest-Michigan-Carpets.com (mostly because you listened to your brother-in-law, and he’s an idiot).

But you also know that:

Yellow Pages usage is going down, while search engine usage is going up.
Rather than pull out the phone book, people would rather Google something.
Local search engine optimization wins local search (and carpet cleaning is definitely a local business).
Search engines love keywords in a domain name.

Here’s how to use microsites properly:

1) Buy domains for KalamazooCarpetCleaning.com, GrandRapidsCarpetCleaning.com, etc. This tells the search engines that your sites are about carpet cleaning in Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Holland, and Battle Creek, and nothing else. Those are also your keywords for each site, and you will use those 3 – 4 words, in order, without exception (i.e. not “Carpet cleaning in Kalamazoo”).

2) Optimize the bejeezus out of each microsite.

Put the keywords at the start of the page title: e.g. “Holland Carpet Cleaning for Residential and Commercial Jobs” and “Kalamazoo Carpet Cleaning by John Smith.”
Put the keywords in the first 4 words of the body copy. This may be awkward, but it needs to be done.
Have no more than 2% keyword density (2 keywords or phrases per 100 words). SEO experts are still debating this, but 2% is a safe number.
Include photos of you cleaning carpets, and use the keywords in the alt tags. “This is John, working hard for a Battle Creek carpet cleaning customer.”
Use only the keywords in hyperlinks that lead back to your main site. “Find more information about Grand Rapids Carpet Cleaning on our website.” Don’t use any other words in those links. Put 2 -3 links back to your site.

3) Install a WordPress.org site on each page. Not because you need WordPress’ amazing functionality, but because it’s free, and create one front page. You can add more if you want, but you need at least one page. (You could expand each site later by writing blog posts about your keywords — see #2 — but that’s pretty involved. Save this as a last resort for when your idiot brother-in-law opens his own carpet cleaning business.)

4) Make it look pretty. A man is sitting in his living room wearing nothing but his underwear and a hat. A friend stops by to visit, and asks about the man’s outfit. “I’m in my underwear, because no one ever comes to visit me,” says the man. “Then why are you wearing the hat?” asks the friend. “Oh, because someone might come,” says the man. Put a hat on the site — download a free template — because someone might visit it.

5) Write strong, persuasive copy: If people come to visit, you need to give them a reason to click through to your main website. Don’t put up crappy copy just to game the search engines. Create well-written copy that explains what you do, how well you do it, and includes a call to action. Make significant changes to the text for all four sites, so they’re not identical or even nearly identical.

6) All links must point back to your main site: They should not point to any other site anywhere on the Internet. Ever. With one exception. Create links to the other sites under a small section that says “we also offer carpet cleaning services in other Michigan cities.” Then use the exact keywords and link to each of the other sites. These backlinks between the microsites and to your main site will boost your search engine ranking.

Here’s what will happen (more or less): The search engine spiders will visit each site and say “Hmm, this site appears to be about Kalamazoo Carpet Cleaning. Let’s make sure.” It will do a quick check, and confirm — based on your domain name, title tag, first 4 words, keyword density, and alt tags — that, “by God, this IS a site about Kalamazoo Carpet Cleaning! And it has everything we like, so it must be important. Let’s see where these links go.”

The spiders will follow the links back to your main site (hence, the name “backlinks”), and conclude, “if those really well-done sites point back to this site, and this site does carpet cleaning in all these cities, then this carpet cleaning site must be really important!”

Then, when people do a quick search for carpet cleaning in one of those cities, your main site will come up first.

That is how you properly use a microsite. No brochureware, no moving the brand, none of that marketing crap, just pure SEO goodness with trackable, measurable results. If your marketing agency ever suggests it for anything other than SEO, tell them Sean X Cummings would like a word with them.

Photo credit: Auntie P (Flickr)

About the Author: Erik Deckers
Erik is the VP of Operations & Creative Services for Pro Blog Service. He has been blogging since 1998, and has been a published writer for more than 22 years. He has written humor newspaper columns, business articles, radio and stage plays, and is currently working on a novel. He helped write Twitter Marketing for Dummies, and is writing two other books on social media and networking. Erik frequently speaks on blogging and social media.

Tags: blogging, Marketing, search engine optimization, seo, web marketing, WordPress
Posted in Blog ROI, Blogging, Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Tools | View Comments

Not Every Social Media Consultant Knows What They’re Doing

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

I was tweeting with my friend and fellow social media consultant, Dana Nelson, a couple nights ago about a business presentation she was sitting in, when she quoted this piece of advice from the presenter.

“Posting your business on other business sites is lame – tagging business/ cross marketing does not work.”

Wait, what? Who said that, the business professor from Back to School?

Cross-posting doesn’t work? Creating visible partnerships is lame? Creating a referral network is ineffectual?

Look, there are a lot, a lot, a loooooooot of social media consultants out there. And they don’t all know what they’re talking about. It worries me that these people are spreading poor information out there. It’s like a volunteer sheriff’s deputy telling people you can’t be arrested for drunk driving if you’re wearing your seat belt. (Caution: You can be arrested for drunk driving, even if you are wearing your seat belt.)

And this 16-word piece of misinformation is a doozy, and so wrong in so many ways.

It’s a widely accepted fact in search engine optimization circles that promoting a business site on another site is going to give me some big search engine juice. Anyone who understands basic SEO knows that backlinks are what give your site a high search engine ranking.
Coke and McDonald’s would disagree with your views on cross-marketing. As would Pizza Hut and Pepsi. Or any movie studio with Happy Meal Toys and Burger King Kids’ Meal Toys. Or BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon. And any sponsors of any NASCAR or Indy Car racing team.
People buy from people they like, and accept recommendations from people they trust. If Dana recommends a good restaurant to visit, I’m going to believe her. Why? Because I like her and trust her. It’s the same with businesses. If a business I trust recommends the services of another business, I’m going to believe them. The smart thing for small businesses to do is to team up with allied businesses.
There are more business networking experts than there are social media experts (as hard as that is to believe). Nearly all of them will shout the praises of networking, referral sharing, and cross-promoting. And I’ll believe business networking experts who measure their experience in years and decades, not weeks and months.

This is just one of many reasons why you need to screen your so-called social media “expert” before you hire them. Especially if they blather on with inane bits of advice like this.

Tags: cross-promoting, networking, Rainmakers, referrals, small business, Social Media
Posted in Marketing, Networking, Reputation Management, Social Media | View Comments

5 Ways Arts Organizations Should Use Social Media

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Arts organizations are facing funding cuts all over the world.

For example, Scotland is cutting £2 million ($3.1 million) for the arts. The National Theatre of Scotland, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ballet, and Scottish Opera are all facing cuts of 10% in government funding.

This all got me to wondering how arts organizations could use social media to promote themselves, and find additional fans, attendees, and donors.

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra is one of the largest arts organizations in Indiana.

There are only a few arts organizations using social media, but with social media’s explosive growth, the organizations that aren’t are missing a great opportunity.

While you may think that social media is only for young people, this is a fallacy that has long been disproved. In fact, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women, age 50 – 60. If that demographic fits within your core audience, shouldn’t you be trying to reach them? And what better place to do it than where they are already?

Second, if your core audience is people in their 50s and 60s, don’t you want to try to reach a younger audience? Otherwise, your audience will get smaller and smaller as they retire, move away, and die. If a younger audience is using social media, then you should try to reach them in their world, instead of forcing them to come to yours. They haven’t come yet, and that’s not going to change any time soon.

So here are five ways arts organizations should use social media.

Set up a blog and give readers a behind-the-scenes look at your organization. Your blog should be more than just a press release center. Don’t just make it a place to dump all your promotional information. Post photos of rehearsals. Let staff, actors, and performers post their thoughts on performances. Post diary-like reflections of preparing for an upcoming show or performance.
Create podcasts of musical performances.If you’re a musical organization, create a regular podcast, and make that available to the public. People can listen to past performances and get an idea of what you sound like. But if you think “if people hear us on a podcast, they won’t want to come,” that’s untrue. (Did you know that was the argument by orchestras against selling sheet music, the Victrola, and radio?) The New York and Chicago Philharmonics have shows on public radio stations around the country, and the Indianapolis Symphony has a highlights show on WFYI, our local public radio station, and yet they still get people to attend. If anything, when people hear a performance, it makes them want to see it live.
Create videos of performances. If you are a performing arts organization, try posting videos from past performances on YouTube, and then putting them up on your blog. This is especially true for visual performances, like dance and theatre troupes. This will let people know the kind of thing they can expect when they attend one of your performances. And if they like what they see online, they’ll want to be a part of the experience, and attend a show.
Create a Facebook page for your organization. If there was a single social networking tool that was made for arts organizations, Facebook is it. Not only does it have the largest population of social media users (500 million people around the world), but it’s ideally suited for posting or reposting content from other sites. You can repost your blog content, videos, and photos to your Facebook page. You can ask your members and attendees to join, communicate with them directly, ask them to tell their friends, which will bring in new Facebook friends.
Share your contacts with other organizations. Yeah, I saved this point for last, because a lot of you will think I’m crazy. But think about it for a minute: your biggest competitors are not the other performing arts organizations in the area, it’s television, movies, restaurants, and general laziness. You probably don’t share members, so you’re not competing for the same dollars. But sharing contacts could be a benefit to both organizations. For one thing, you can introduce dance fans to the music that supports the dancers. You can introduce theater goers to dance, another visual art form. And as you cross-pollinate your membership, both organizations will benefit, rather than steal members.
How can you cross-promote with another organization?
- Do a feature of each other in your respective blogs.
- Promote ticket sales (buy one of ours, get one of theirs for 50% off).
- Do a joint performance, like their orchestra playing for your opera. Have their chamber quartet play at your museum event.
- “Like” their Facebook page, and encourage your Facebook friends to like it as well. Ask them to reciprocate.
By combining your social media efforts, you can double your efforts, introduce a whole new audience — who is already predisposed to appreciating the performing arts — to your organization. The result is you’ll be able to add new audience members to each organization, and strengthen both.

What is your organization doing? Are you using social media, or do you want to try using it? And if you’re not in an arts organization, how have you seen other organizations using it?

Tags: facebook, Lead Generation, performing arts, Social Media, social media marketing, tickets
Posted in Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Social Networks | View Comments

Corporate Blogging’s Chief Purpose from Google’s Chief Blogger

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

A couple weeks ago, Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot’s blog manager, talked to Google’s chief blogger, Karen Wickre about corporate blogging, and the important things companies need to do when taking the plunge into blogging.

Wickre says the most important thing a company new to blogging should do is to get a feel for what’s out there, and consider what they would want their blog to say. A blog could be personal, could be about thought leadership, or could focus on customer service. But find the blog’s voice, and stick with it, she says.

While that’s important, I don’t think it’s the most important thing. In some ways, that issue is going to resolve itself as time goes by.

I believe the most important thing about corporate blogging is that a blog will “establish ground for the company.” Wickre said a good company blog should do all these things:

Do most posts offer useful or unique information?
Do they reflect the company’s values and interests?
Do they demonstrate the people behind the company/products?

Wickre had other good points for corporate bloggers to consider, but for me, this was the biggest. We try to get our clients to see that their blog needs to be more than just a commercial, or a catalog. Yes, you can have those kinds of posts, but you also need to tell your customers about your company. You need to show what you stand for, how you work, why you work. You need to answer questions about your company, your products, and your values. You need to introduce your staff to your customers, and let them develop relationships. (Remember, people buy from people they like. If they like your staff, they’ll like your company, and they’ll buy from you.)

Your corporate blog is more than just a marketing mouthpiece. It’s not a cheap form of sales literature. It’s the window into your company and possibly one of the best ways to communicate with your customers. So find the voice, jump in, and you’ll answer all Wickre’s questions as time goes by.

Photo credit: DannySullivan (Flickr)

Tags: blogging, business blogging, corporate blogging, Google
Posted in Blog ROI, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Communication, Marketing | View Comments

Taking Nominations for Social Media’s 40 OVER 40

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

I’m so sick of these 40 under 40 lists I see going around. Indianapolis Business Journal did a 40 under 40. There are Young Professionals Groups all over the place. And even the trade organizations are getting in on it.

What’s the big deal with being 39 or less? It’s if 40 is some magical number that anyone over it is no longer good enough to be considered awesome. As if you’re over 40, the rest of society is going to go all Logan’s Run on you. As if being over 40 means you’re a doddering geezer who’s staining their shirtfront with drool and cluelessness.

The Social Media 40 OVER 40 List

The Social Media 40 OVER 40

I’m tired of it, and I’m going to do something about it. So I’m going to compile a Social Media 40 OVER 40 list.

This isn’t a definitive list yet. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how this is going to turn out. Is it based on voting? Is it an editorial decision? Will we do it state by state? We’re not sure. It depends on how big this gets.

But here’s what I want. I want nominations of anyone who is 40 years or older and works with social media, whether professionally, or as part of their job responsibilities, or even someone who does it as a sideline or hobby. I just want nominations of someone who is a rock star, or aspiring rock star, in social media.

If you want to nominate yourself, that’s fine. There is no shame in doing this. If you want to nominate someone else, that’s fine too. Please leave the following information in the comments section:

Name
City, State
Twitter handle
Website (hey, you can even link to it so you get some SEO juice out of it)
No more than 200 words about how you’re using social media.

Photo credit: RileyRoxx (Flickr)

Tags: 40 over 40, contest, Social Media
Posted in Marketing, News, Public Relations, Social Media | View Comments

Don’t Trust Your Staff to Write Your Corporate Blog? Guess Whose Fault That Is.

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Do you trust your staff to blog?

No? Then that’s your fault.

You hired incompetent staff. You hired people you can’t trust to properly deliver your company message. You hired people you don’t believe will represent you correctly to the outside world. That sounds like you made some bad decisions.

Do you trust your employees to answer your phones, or do you answer all the calls yourself? Do you trust your salespeople to speak to customers without you, or go on all the sales calls with them?

Of course you trust them. You have people you trust to count and spend your money. You have people you trust to write sales brochures and organize trade shows. You have people you trust to produce your product, put it in a box, and stick it on a truck. You have people you trust to speak to customers when they call in with complaints. And you even have employees you trust enough to let have access to email.

Yet you don’t have people you can trust to write 350 words three times a week on a platform where errors are easily fixed? That means you hired the wrong people for the job, and that’s nobody’s fault but yours.

Think of it this way:

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh trusted his employees.
Hsieh trusted them to tweet and blog.
They tweeted and blogged the bejeezus out of that company, in addition to providing some awesome customer service.
Hsieh sold Zappos for $928 million.

Now do you want to trust your employees?

Photo credit: James @ NZ (Flickr)

Tags: blogging, business blogging, corporate blogging, Marketing, Zappos
Posted in Blog Writing, Blogging, Marketing | View Comments

Why I Trust User Comments More Than Marketing Copy

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

I love my Moleskine notebooks.

I’ve been using them for over five years, have gone through at least 10 of them, am a regular visitor at Moleskinerie.com and Moleskiners.com, and know that it’s pronounced Mole-eh-skeen-eh (no, seriously).

Pilot G-2 .05 mm pen with my Moleskine notebook

When I got my first Moleskine, I knew I had a special notebook, so I wanted to get a special pen to write in it. I did a quick Google search for “best pen for Moleskine notebook,” and the top result was a discussion on the Moleskinerie website (in fact, that’s how I discovered the site in the first place).

The number of comments that all touted the Pilot G-2 outnumbered all the other pens other people were recommending, so I took a leap of faith, and bought a small pack of Pilot G-2s, without ever testing a single one.

The writing was so smooth and the pen just glided across the page. I was immediately hooked. It felt like I was writing on butter with more butter. Since then, I have used nothing but Moleskine pens for all my writing. In fact, the one in the picture is the same pen I’ve carried for three years, I’ve just refilled it several times with barrels by cannibalizing a box of other G-2s.

My point is that I bought this pen based on user recommendations, not marketing copy, not magazine ads, not even the Pilot website. (Although, ironically, I bought the notebook because I liked the description on the little card about the history of the Moleskine.) I trusted the opinion of several strangers more than I trusted the opinion of a professional who is paid to tell me what is so awesome about their pen.

That’s what social media has done for us. It has changed marketing so that we no longer believe the professionals as much as we believe our own friends, or even strangers. I’ve had other people buy Moleskines just because I use them. And I was evangelizing about my pen to a friend of mine yesterday morning, and she probably had her own set by the afternoon.

So for those travel destinations, restaurants, and specialty brands who are still relying on traditional marketing to tell your story, divert just a little bit of your marketing budget to social media. Create a place where your fans can talk about how awesome you are, and can share those good experiences with their friends. Let other people do your marketing for you.

How about you? What makes you decide what to buy, where to eat, where to go on vacation? Do you visit the website or look at review sites like Yelp and UrbanSpoon? How much of a factor are user recommendations?

Tags: Moleskine, pen, user generated content, websites
Posted in Lead Generation, Marketing, Reputation Management, Social Media | View Comments

5 Questions to Ask Your Social Media “Expert”

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

The term “social media expert” is thrown around and debated so much, it has nearly become a punchline.

Someone told me once that when the economy recovers and the bartenders and waiters get their old jobs back, the number of social media experts will be cut in half. And I keep reading lately that a lot of advertising agencies are starting to embrace digital media as one of their new offerings.

Meanwhile, there are real social media firms who have been using the product for more than a few weeks, don’t limit their Facebook time to playing Farmville and Pirate Clan, and don’t think that ROI is the name of that Canadian goalie playing for the Colorado Avalanche.

So when you go to hire your next social media consultant, ask them these questions, and pay careful attention to their answers.

1. How long have you been blogging? How often do you publish? The correct answer is anything longer than a year. People who write about a particular topic have to know something about it. And your social media expert can and should be blogging about some aspect of social media. Basically, if they’re not blogging, they’re probably not doing their job correctly.

They should also be publishing at least once a week. More is better, say, 2 – 3 times per week. But if they go for a few months without publishing anything, they’d better have a good reason why. “We’ve been executing some national campaigns for our clients, and I barely have enough time to sleep” is a pretty good excuse. A blank stare and a mumbled “I dunno” is not.

2. What blog platform do you use? The correct answer is “WordPress dot org. If they say WordPress.com, Blogspot.com, or anything else, ask them why. Anyone who has the technical knowledge to use WordPress.org will have the technical know-how to use the other tools you may need for your campaign.

I say this as someone who has different blogs on different platforms. I really like Blogspot.com for my personal blog, my favorite short blog platform is Posterous, and I will acknowledge the existence of Joomla. However, I embrace my elitism and snobbery when it comes to WordPress.org for client blogs.

3. What are some automation tools that you use? You don’t really care what they say, you just need to hear that they have an automation process. They should talk about things like Twaitter.com, Twitterfeed.com, Ping.fm, TweetDeck, and HootSuite.

If they carefully craft each blog promotion (i.e. including yours) by hand, they either don’t have enough work — which means they’re new, and they’re going to learn how to do this on your dime — or they’re inefficient — which means your work may fall through the cracks.

4. What analytics package do you use? For measuring blog or website traffic, if they say “Google Analytics,” that’s acceptable. We use Google Analytics quite a bit on our client blogs. However, better yet is “Yahoo Analytics” or “Going Up,” or one of the many other professional-level packages. For social media tracking, if they say “you can’t measure social media effectively,” thank them for their time, and ask them to leave. If they say “Google News Alerts,” give them a B– for trying.

The real social media experts will either cobble together their own system (B+/A–) or use a paid service like ScoutLabs or Radian6 (A+). Just keep in mind that those services are pricey, so if you want top-notch analytics results, that will be added to your budget.

5. What kind of ROI should I expect? Trick question: they shouldn’t be able to answer right away. Anyone who promises you a specific increase is just guessing. We’d love to tell you that you’ll see a 25% increase in sales, but we can’t. We’d love to say that you will see amazing growth in just a few months, but we can’t. The truth is there are too many variables to make an accurate prediction, just like with any marketing. We can’t predict the future, but we can measure it when it happens.

Follow up question: What kind of ROI have you gotten for other clients? While you would like to see significant numbers, what you’re more interested in is whether there are any numbers. A good social media practitioner will be able to track what business came from their campaigns.

Most of the social media poseurs will not be able to give you a good answer to most of these questions. Your true social media expert will have more than just a deep understanding of the tools, but will understand how to find your target audience and be able to create the right messages to reach them. But they should also be able to answer these five questions satisfactorily.

Photo credit: Pro Blog Service generated by Wordle.net
Yewenyi (Flickr)

Tags: consulting, google analytics, Social Media, Social Media Analytics, social media expert, WordPress
Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Analytics | View Comments

Four Blogging Tips for Travel and Tourism Destinations

Monday, July 26th, 2010

One of the best things travel and tourism destinations can use for social media marketing is blogging. It’s a way to share content that:

is easy to update. Writing a blog post is as easy as writing an email.
helps with search engine ranking. Search engines love blog content.
will last for years. Your content can be found years later by interested visitors.

So here are the four things you can do with your blog to help market your tourism destination to your visitors.

1. Tell stories about the stuff your guests are doing.

Rather than just describe the activities that are available at your destination, talk about the things your guests have been doing. Write it more like one of the old weekly newspaper columns that used to tell us when the town’s citizens had visited each other.

The stories should talk about some of the stuff the guests are doing. Do a quick interview with them, find out the favorite part of their activity, and write a brief synopsis of what they did. Include some photos if possible (see #2).

We just heard from David and Sharon A. about the round of golf they played this morning. Sharon is a fair golfer and scored a 91, although David (89) is still recovering from a back injury. David said that while the course was a little challenging, he still couldn’t make it out of the water trap on the 13th hole.

Meanwhile, the Robins just returned from their horseback ride, on Morgan and Shadow. Morgan is always a gentle horse, which is good, because David Robins has never ridden before. They spent the morning out on the trail and stopped for a picnic lunch out on Oak Lookout.

It’s just a short post, and people may not really care about what the families are doing (more on that in a minute), but the people who have gotten caught in the 13th hole water trap, ridden Morgan, or had a picnic lunch on Oak Lookout are going to have their own memories of the place, and will remember the great times they had. (However, the families who are mentioned in your post may also tell their friends about your blog entry, and they’ll get to read about your place as well.

2. Post your photos and videos.

We talked in a previous post about why travel and tourism destinations should use photo and video sharing sites. The only issue is that you can’t always get people to go to those photo and video sites, especially if you’re uploading hundreds and thousands of photos.

But your blog is also an easy place to share those photos and videos. Choose the embed code for your album or video, and paste it into a blog post. You can use this content to reinforce the text you’re writing about, and increase the impact of your posts. Plus, videos and photos embedded on your blog will help your search engine rankings

3. Talk about behind-the-scenes stuff.

Think about your good friends, the ones you really like. How much do you know about their lives, the stuff they don’t tell just everyone? Probably quite a bit. And it’s that non-public knowledge that probably makes you feel closer. You can do the same thing on your blog.

Inn-Bedded Resorter Martin Earley is spending two months at The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel as their social media guy. He’s been enjoying all the amenities the guests get to use, but he’s also giving people a behind-the-scenes look at The Balsams. You can see a video of the kitchen during a dinner rush, but he has also spent time with the cleaning staff, and will also spend one night working security.

He’s showing regular and potential guests how things work around the place, so people will understand a little better how their favorite New England resort works, but also so they feel a little closer to it, and will want to return again and again.

4. Write it as a letter.

The biggest mistake beginning bloggers make is writing for posterity. They imagine thousands of readers, book editors, and critics, all poring over their blog. As a result, the posts sound stilted and forced, the language is wooden, and the whole thing sounds like it was written by a marketing committee.

Don’t write it for those people, write it for one person. Pick your favorite guest, your best friend from high school, or your mom. Write it in the same friendly tone as if this was only being read by that one person. In fact, start your post out with “Dear Sharon” or “Dear Mom.” Then, write the post to Sharon or your mom. When you’re finished, go back and delete the salutation. The tone of the post will come across as casual, friendly, and personal. The net result is more people will enjoy reading it, and they’ll want to come back every time you publish a new post.

Photo credit: Erik Deckers (Disclosure: I am a travel writer for the Indiana Tourism Department’s Blog, Indiana Insider.)

Tags: blogging, business blogging, Social Media, social media marketing, tourism blogging, travel and tourism, travel blogging
Posted in Blog Writing, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Communication, Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools | View Comments

4 Ideas for Travel & Tourism Destinations to Get Started in Social Media

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

This week, I’ve been focusing on how travel and tourism destinations can get started in social media.

(See “5 Reasons Why Travel & Tourism Destinations Need Social Media” and “5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use.”)

I probably jumped the gun a little bit by diving into the photo and video sharing sites before I told you how to actually use social media, but that’s okay. For one thing, social networks are created to be soooo easy for everyone to use that you don’t need me to tell you how to get started. Second, you can start these all in a matter of a couple hours, and then start working to integrate them all together. (We’ll discuss that in a future post.)

Vevay, IN Facebook page

Facebook

What it is: It’s the largest social network in the world with 500 million members. If it was a country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world, behind China and India. Basically, if there is an online place where your guests and customers gather, this is it.
Get started: Start out by setting up your own personal profile, and connect with friends and family. Keep this separate from your business or organization. You don’t want to combine your business with your personal life on here.
Strategy: Once you’re comfortable with Facebook, set up a separate business page (what used to be called a “Fan Page”) for your business or destination, and then upload your business email database — you have been saving your guests’ emails, haven’t you? — to build your network. Ask these people to “Like” your page. Start communicating with your page’s network about things going on at your place through status updates, telling people about new photos and videos, new blog posts, and new specials.
Why? The whole foundation of social media is building relationships with people. You want to evoke a positive emotional response in people when the visit your place, and you want to remind them of that emotional response when they see the latest news or photos. If you remind them of the good feelings they had while they were there, they’ll want to experience them again, and will return again.

Twitter

What it is: It’s a 140 character message that is sent out to your followers (people who have started “following” your messages, because they want to see what you have to say). Twitter is like Facebook’s “Status Updates” but without everything else.
Get started: Go to Twitter.com and sign up for an account, and add your customer list (see Gmail below). Next, download TweetDeck from TweetDeck.com.
Strategy: Communicate the same information you send out on Facebook and your blog by tweeting your headlines and links to events or new posts.
Why? Because not everyone is on Facebook at the same time. Because some people prefer Twitter over Facebook. Because with TweetDeck you can update both Twitter and Facebook at the same time. Because there are a lot of other reasons I will cover in a future post.

Blogging

What it is: Blogging is a way to publish information, like articles and stories, for other people to read and for search engines to find. It’s a way to share photos and videos, without sending people off to Picasa and YouTube (see yesterday’s post, “5 Photo & Video Sharing Sites Travel Destinations Should Use.”)
Get started: Visit Blogger.com or WordPress.com and follow the instructions. You won’t need to upload an address book to find connections.
Strategy: Blog on a regular basis — at least once a week, but preferably more — about what’s going on at your destination or business. Show photos and videos of the fun stuff other people are doing. Talk about any special events or festivals, both before and after they take place. Share testimonials from your guests.
Why? For two reasons: 1) you can rank high in the search engines with a lot of interesting content like this, and 2) it helps your guests feel more connected if they can visit your site and feel like they’re visiting your location. (See the Facebook section above.)

Gmail

What it is: A free email network owned by the folks at Google.
Get started: Set up an account at Gmail.com, and import all of your addresses from your different email profiles, whether it’s Yahoo, Hotmail, your local cable provider, or the address book on your computer. Next, clean it up by eliminating duplicates, deleting out of date entries, and adding missing information.
Strategy: You won’t use this for social networking. You’ll use it for uploading all the addresses of your guests to the other networks. Any new social network you join will let you “see if your friends are on here!” And every social network will plug into Gmail with ease, so this makes it so much easier to build your network in just a couple minutes.
Why? Because you want to have a master list of all your email addresses somewhere other than your computer, in case your computer breaks down.

I was recently in a contest to become the “Inn-Bedded Resorter” at the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel in New Hampshire, and had a chance to be their social media specialist for two months. This was a novel approach, because the Resorter was going to be a guest, do all the guest activities, and then report it via social media. They were starting to use all of these technologies to communicate with their fans and guests, and have seen some great success with these technologies. You ought to give them a try and see what you can do with it.

Tags: blogging, facebook, Gmail, photo sharing, tourism, travel, twitter, video sharing
Posted in Blogging, Facebook, Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, Tools, Twitter | View Comments

Category: Marketing

The proper way to use a microsite

Arts organizations are facing funding cuts all over the world.

So here are five ways arts organizations should use social media.

The Social Media 40 OVER 40 List

Do you trust your staff to blog?

I love my Moleskine notebooks.

The term “social media expert” is thrown around and debated so much, it has nearly become a punchline.

1. Tell stories about the stuff your guests are doing.

2. Post your photos and videos.

3. Talk about behind-the-scenes stuff.

4. Write it as a letter.

This week, I’ve been focusing on how travel and tourism destinations can get started in social media.

Facebook

Twitter

Blogging

Gmail

RSS Feed

Recent Posts

Pro Blog Events

Call Us Now

Email Subscribe

Topics

Sites we love

Recent Blog Posts

Want Pricing or Need a Quote?

Categories