Hey, tourism folks: the social media boat is leaving the pier
We are out here in social media; where ARE you guys?! (courtesy foundphotoslj at Flickr Creative Commons)
After only a few meet-and-greet sessions into the Fall 2008 Travel Media Showcase conference in Kansas City, I realized that I was a wee bit out of step with most of the rest of the room.
I was a blogger, and they (generally) were not.
It made me crazy.
Frankly, I wondered when the mainstream travel and tourism industry would back off on printing brochures and rejiggering their Web sites (again) and really engage with the Web 2.0/social media world.
Many CVB and tourism bureau representatives said they were “considering” at least adding a blog to their main Web site, and when I invited their guest blog post participation on my Family Travel site (as the Iowa Tourism Office had already done) exhibitors were uniformly enthusiastic and interested in learning more.
My concern is that we are rapidly moving past the “I’m considering that” stage into the “this is a major way to engage with our travel customers right now” stage, but too many are dragging their feet. Why?
There is an army of wildly enthusiastic travelers online. When I began blogging on the BootsnAll Travel Network about family travel in early 2006, I was thrilled when a little community of readers magically appeared, leaving comments on my posts about places as disparate as Tokyo and Colonial Williamsburg. Some of those readers also blogged, and we read each other’s work, recommended resources and shared our passion for travel with many others in the ever-growing online world.
We gabbed together in person at fun blogging/geek conferences like BlogHer (which had a 2008 travel blogger’s meetup,) Austin’s South by Southwest Interactive, SOBCon (”Biz School for Bloggers”) and BlogWorld and New Media Expo, even Le Web in Paris and The Next Web in Amsterdam. We exchanged ideas on Travelwriters.com. We started travel blogger forums.
We put our photos on Flickr and shot video for YouTube. We were thrilled when our favorite print magazines started blogs like Intelligent Travel (National Geographic Traveler,) the Perrin Post (Wendy Perrin of Condé Nast Traveler,) This Just In (by Budget Travel magazine) and for me personally as a Texas-based writer, the Texas Highways magazine blog.
We piled onto Facebook and put up links to our posts on our Facebook pages (and sometimes even on stodgy LinkedIn, where we joined Groups like Travel Media Pros and THAT’s Professional.) We bookmarked good posts on StumbleUpon and Delicious. We were elated when we found lots of other travel enthusiasts on Twitter.
We’re looking forward to the 2009 travel blogging panels at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) and at BlogHer….and we’re wondering why we still don’t have more company from traditional tourism organizations.
Next time someone like me says, “Do you have a blog?” you should be able to answer, “Sure, and here’s our Facebook page and here we are on Twitter and check out our Flickr photos and YouTube videos.”
Hey, your destination looks like a place that I’d like to visit!
(Ready to jump in? Don’t miss the post How to get social media traction for your tourism blog)
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9 Responses
Sheila,
Well said.
Most of the tourism businesses and CVB’s I interact with are getting just the advice your are giving. In fact, there are some that I am recommending to just go with a blog as the main place to engage visitors.
There are many other things that can be done that are basically FREE. The just require commitment of TIME to get the content up.
Blogs are great platforms for discussion, visibility, relevance, and community. In their best format, they show a traveler that your region has life and things are happening.
There are many other things CVB’s can do that involve putting their content on platforms and Websites that people frequent.
So businesses and regional marketing associations, the best advice is start paying attention to your content and spend less time on design of a Website. Your content will live in many many places in addition to your blogsite.
Blog it Up! @SheilaS, @Nerdseyeview and I had a great conversation on blogging a few months back. Readers might appreciate hearing similar ideas in audio format!
http://www.tourismkeys.ca/blog/2008/11/travel-blogging/
@toddlucier’s last blog post..toddlucier: Keynote presentation advice from Twitter: if it can’t be displayed in 140 characters, get it off the slide and into the presentation notes.
Hi Todd,
Thanks very much for visiting UpTake, and for your thoughtful comment, especially the phrase “the best advice is start paying attention to your content and spend less time on design of a Website.”
Yes, endlessly fiddling with site design and SEO voodoo was time well spent in 2002, but now it’s often time taken away from interacting with real people, in real time, who may want to visit your destination.
As you say, though, even though social media is “free,” never underestimate the time it takes to do it right. This cannot be some toss-off job for the office college intern. The whole staff needs to know how to interact.
The reward is that people like me will notice you and talk about you and tend to want to pick you to visit when tough fiscal travel choices must be made in our households.
I’ve been communicating with a SEO/marketing guy about one of his travel clients. YOU GOTTA DO THE SOCIAL MEDIA THING! the SEO guy says, and the client is all, yeah, yeah, we have a blog but no one is reading it. The SEO guy knows that the company needs this presence, but the client seems to think we bloggy types are – what did you say? Crazy?
I got an email recently from someone who told me they were planning their next big adventure to Siwa. Why Siwa? Well, I tweeted about Siwa while attending the World Savers Congress for Wendy Perrin at the Perrin Post. This is many degrees of separation, but it all got connected via, oh, wait, is that social media.
What you said, Sheila. What you said.
Hi Pam,
“We have a blog but no one is reading it.”
Boy, do I hear that too often, and the next comment is some variation of “….so we’re gonna quit blogging” and go back to printing brochures for the highway rest stops (which is fine as a PART of a strategy but shouldn’t be the core simply because that’s the “way we’ve always done it.”)
Do they ever examine WHY no one is reading the blog? There may be any number of reasons (which I’m addressing in an upcoming post) but the fault is not necessarily with the social media dynamic.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves….”
Hi Sheila,
Your post is one that I intend to forward to some PR travel friends. As the Lodging Editor at Uptake.com I know that some of the places that I review don’t quite understand blogs and are intimidated to leave comments on blogs for fear of “doing it wrong’ or “don’t know what to say.”
I always offer to be their “go-to” Twitter buddy so that they won’t be afraid to ask basic questions. Do they take me up on the offer? Almost never. I’m sure it’s the same with your offer to have a CVB guest post on your blog.
On the positive side, I was invited on a Eurail press trip to Spain last summer and there were several bloggers in the group. As I am a newspaper travel writer, as well as a blogger, I work both sides of the media fence. I think some of the folks are beginning to understand the value of travel bloggers. Others are slow on the uptake.
Follow me on Twitter @Nancydbrown
Nancy D. Brown’s last blog post..Exploring India, Napa Valley and Monterey Bay
Good observations. I’d add that many tourism boards aren’t even getting basic web design down pat. I was recently looking for some information about Nicaragua, visited the country’s tourism website, and realized there’s no search function. That’s a major tech fail, if you ask me. Tourism boards would do well to hire folks dedicated exclusively to digital and social media development. Of course, these folks would ideally be travelers, as well.
Hi Nancy — Thanks for stopping by, and glad to hear the light breaking in some areas re: your Eurail press trip. I’m currently working on a blogger’s event up in Kansas, so we’re getting there!
Hi Julie — I hear that; a recent redesign on one of my own blogs left off the Search box and I about went ballistic!
Interesting to see we have the same problem in French DMO’s
Main problem here, is the political way they think.
it’s completely out of the Internet game
And some decision market just know how to send a mail, that’s it.
I think only 30 % DMO’s are in the game, 40 % try to follow the trends, the last 30 % are close to die if they don’t have public money.
And it’s France, one of the first tourism country in the World
Claude’s last blog post..Global Internet Audience Surpasses 1 billion Visitors! And me, and me!
[...] of the comments on my rant about social media foot-dragging by much of the tourism industry was left by Seattle-based writer/photographer Pam Mandel of [...]