Alberta Business Marketing

For travelers, getting advice from someone who has been there, done that has become second nature with traveler advice sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp!, Google Maps and others. But most of the time, we have no idea who those people are that are giving the advice.

Social Networking should be smarter
Is it someone like me? or are they someone with different values, interests and attitudes. I know I’ve seen reviews for places I’ve stayed that in no way reflect my experience.

It’s a foggy area that can make it difficult to interpret the relevance of travel reviews for me.  I want to know how much I have in common with the person leaving the reviewbefore assigning any level of credibility, validity or relevance.

The ideal travel review site would be a little more like LinkedIn and Twitter.

LinkedIn uses business connections to help me find people who are connected to people I know and easily network with people in my industry. Folks I’m connected to there have more in common with me than most, but the nature of my work, doesn’t fully define my interests and attitudes.

Twitter probably does the best job of finding people like me:
I’ve found quite a few people on Twitter, that I’ve later met in person and hit it off with from the get-go. I could have followed almost any early adopter on twitter and I would certainly have found a kindred spirit in the tech area, but these sort of connections clearly aren’t so easy for the non-techie. Twitters new “Suggestions of Users to Follow” tool may be a step in the right direction toward finding people who are a lot like me. Until now, twitter searches, twitter lists, Follow Friday advice has given me really neat, interesting people to follow, but it can be a lot of work. I wonder if Twitters algorithm, using people you follow and the people they follow as a starting point will offer users access to more people who are a lot like themselves.

Facebook integration with Travel Reviews

Many Facebook users I’m connected with have credibility and I trust their opinions because I already know most of the folks I follow there personally.  User profiles, photos, uploads, status updates and activities give me a good overall picture of any Facebook user’s interests and attitudes.

Wouldn’t it be great to connect my trusted sources to my upcoming trips?  Having my Facebook friends, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections offer travel advice would be much more valuable than a collection of reviews whose credibility is in question.

As if in answer to this half-written blog post, along comes TripAdvisor TripFriends and Bootsnall Traveler Connect app.  Both connect with Facebook to enhance travel experiences.   TripFriends helps me connect with my Facebook friends to get advice from people I already know.  As Steve Kaufer, TripAdvisor founder says, “Get great travel advice from your friends before you go.”  Traveler Connect helps me find other travelers going to the same place I am, or connect with locals living there. According to Bootsnall founder Sean Keener, “I can ask travel questions, arrange to meet for a drink, and create some unique experiences not found in a guidebook.”

What’s Next for Travel Review sites?
I see a future where I’ll be able to get travel advice exclusively from people who share my outlook on the world.   Connecting all my social networks to travel reviews will take time, but these two projects are a great start.  Over time,  I’ll be able to quickly bring into focus the 10% of travel reviews that really mean something to me.

Have you seen any social network that comes closer to finding people like you than Twitter or LinkedIn?  Seen anything to rival the new TripAdvisor TripFriends and Bootsnall Traveler Connect projects?

Tags: bootsnall, Facebook, free web marketing stuff, social networking, traveler connect, tripadvisor, tripfriends
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Click here to find our Twitter list of all the people featured in our suite of social media related stories in this month’s issue of Alberta Venture. Why social media has moved from niche to normal for business What does a career in social media mean? How to Keep Productivity Up While Social Media Rises Training Options [...]

Tags: Sales & Marketing, twitter list, Web Exclusive
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Designing Web sites and Facebook fan pages and creating content that matters to your ideal guest can take an incredible amount of time and energy.

Whether a DMO, tourism association, hotel, restaurant, or attraction understanding what is unique about the benefits you offer is key.

Make it easy for your ideal guest to understand your offer by taking a bare bones approach and focusing on the three most important words that differentiate your tourism products or services for your ideal guest.  Use those words in your copy whenever you are talking with your ideal guest.

Take a moment and write down the three most important words that describe your value proposition.  Are they words that a competitor could use to describe their offer? Are they words that a PR company might come up with in a campaign to build your brand?  If someone else can copy your pitch and deliver on it, go back to the dictionary and try again.

Ideas on finding those three words

• go to your mission or vision for your organization and think about why you do what you do.
• Ask yourself, “What are your key competencies and what makes you different from your competition?”
• Ask your team members – “What values do they aim to provide?  What do they think your guests really appreciate?”
• Ask your guests – “Why did you choose us?  What do you really appreciate about our products, services?”
• Make a list of twenty action words that get you excited?  Then circle your favourite three.  Can you get your team excited about delivering on these words without fail?

Ours at http://NorthernEdgeAlgonquin.com might be: Rediscover, Nature, Connect.

What are your favourite three words that define your tourism product or experience?

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According to a recent Nielson report, three quarters of Internet users are social, so surely by now you’ve dipped your toes in the blogging and Facebook pool.

Way back in the old days, 2006 or so, you might have been forgiven by your guests and prospects for not having a life outside your own Website. Conversely, today it is more than likely the first interaction your prospect has with you will be via photo or video sharing by friends and family, reviews of your services on sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp!, or a story by a travel blogger.

So this week, it might be worth considering how deep to dive into the social networking pool?

Since the average Internet user devotes 22% of their Internet time to social networking, how much of your online marketing budget time and money should  be focused around social networking?

Links:

• http://mashable.com/2010/06/15/time-spent-online-nielse/
• Nielson Report on Internet Use
• photo credit Seattle Municipal Archives

Tags: Facebook, free web marketing stuff
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Businesses have a choice about social media. They can either take on the responsibility for engaging with their ideal client or they can watch their business evaporate.  This week I read how people use their phones more for social media than for making phone calls.  It may be time to think about how to save your business with social media.

Here’s how I think about the Web today:

• there is an ethos that sharing media is good / protecting copyright is not,
• a growing emphasis on video (on demand and live!),
• location matters, and accessing content on handheld devices is becoming the norm,
• what others have to say about your business matters more than what you have to say,
• interesting content is contagious: real time communication helps spread messages faster than ever,
• six degrees of separation have become 3!  (Your ideal clients are more connected than ever to people who are a lot like them).

Six Social Media Tips to Save your Business

Businesses who are the most successful two years from now will:

• use creative commons and sharing to help spread the word;
• hire for media production skills (every business will become a media business – at least in part),
• geotag every type of content they produce and take the time to accurately tag / locate their content on media sharing websites,
• understand that story-telling matters now more than ever and encourage their clients to review their business, and recruit those who can tell stories (from inside and outside the company) using all four principle types of media: video, audio, photo, text,
• look at intermittent time spent on Facebook and Twitter and using handheld apps as not a waste of time, but good for productive, healthy customer relationships and productive, healthy team members,
• focus on meeting the needs of their ideal client – instead of trying to sell to the masses.

Still need to change some thinking about social media in your organization to save your business?

As much as things have changed, some people apparently thought the world would stay the way it was in 1990?  Do yourself a favour and catch up on why this all matters in the updated video below.  This time, the numbers and data points presented match up really well with the research I’ve seen on adoption of social media.  It may be just the medicine you need to start taking action to save your business with social media.

Help write the followup post:

In 140 characters, share your ideas on saving business with social media. #savebiz

Tags: Business, save, social media
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