Tourism marketing China is an extremely hot topic around the globe. China is the world’s biggest outbound tourism market and the number of Chinese outbound tourists account for about 10% of international tourists. In todays milestone episode we are speaking with George Cao, Co Founder and CEO of Dragon Trail Interactive a travel focused digital marketing agency based in China. We spoke to George about 6 months ago in episode 23 and that was our most popular episode so thought fitting to ask George to join us again so we could discuss and wrap up 2015 from a China Tourism Marketing perspective and look towards 2016.   Trend 1: Long Haul Travel from China is growing at a much faster pace than short haul travel. To destinations like United States and Canada as well as Japan and Europe. Trend 2: Independent travel is growing at a much faster rate than group travel - and this has been the case for a while.     Did we see increased competition from long haul destinations this year and people taking this market more seriously? At the 6 minute mark George says the opportunities are there for long haul and even lesser known destinations like Israel are getting involved and becoming popular.  Very interesting to listen to this part of our chat. "The market is looking for alternative destinations....they are now looking for more interesting places to go, for different experiences - so destinations like Israel are popping up on the radar screen." And this is leading to air capacity increase to these destinations. Listen in from the 7.30 minute mark. What were some of the significant activities that happened across social and digital that has an impact on tourism marketing into China? Mobile has truly become first and this is having a huge impact. SO INTERESTING listen in from the 10 minute mark for details on how including QR Codes, iBeacon and WeChat. The travel companies are realising the importance of offline traffic in marketing. Very strong growth in O to O. This means online to offline.  "...and the enabling technology for this is mobile...". Listen in from the 10.30 mark to go into detail about this. Great stuff.   Discuss some of the newer features of WeChat including their e-commerce capabilities. There was a good study that was released in August this year that surveyed 18,000 Chinese Outbound tourists. Nearly 75% of Chinese tourists are influenced in the choice of destination by social media. Is an official Chinese website still as important if destinations or businesses want to get serious about marketing in China or is social media making it less relevant? Tune in for the answer. The focus of Dragon Trail is to allow destinations and suppliers to reach Chinese consumers but now they are also enabling the travel industry to train travel agents through the China Travel Academy program. Also brand new to launch for Dragon Trail is Dingla (Booked) a B2B marketing platform to enable brands to market to the travel trade.  It has the ability to reach out via online webinars delivered through WeChat, can also manage roadshow activities, people can register and you can manage your trade relationships on this platform. There are lots of more elements to grow the B2B relationship and trade activities. FINAL ADVICE: "Really look closer to home. Do not put 100% of your focus on the internet in China. Do really look at what you have like the offline guests who are visiting you and think about ways to engage these people - because now you can - because every one of them has a smart phone and has WeChat and other mobile apps. Really engage them and turn them into your brand advocates. Spend a significant amount of time thinking about how to engage these people. " George Cao - Dragon Trail   The post 

Tourism Tweetup the Podcast

Tourism marketing China 2016: Ep #50

Tourism social media marketing looking towards 2016What were some of the good news rollouts and what are some of the things that we maybe need to forget in the world of tourism social media and what lessons we need to think about going into 2016.Jesse Desjardins Global Manager Social & Content for Tourism AustraliaPaul Nahoun who looks after the Travel Vertical at Facebook & Instagram Philippa Cail Director of Sales Australia / New Zealand for HootsuiteNotes to come, watch this space. To read more about Jesse's thesis see http://www.bandt.com.au/advertising/how-australias-spokesperson-has-changed-from-paul-hogan Check out some of the tweets and insights from #TourismHootup with guests from Facebook, Tourism Australia and Hootsuite. The post Tourism social media marketing looking towards 2016: Ep #49 appeared first on Holly G.

Tourism social media marketing looking towards 2016: Ep #49

Content types for event social media is the topic of this week's Tourism Tweetup the Podcast episode and the guest this week is me! I have been speaking on the topic of how to develop a social media plan for local and regional events at many conferences this year and although it would be tough to fit that into one podcast episode in this episode we drill into one small aspect of that which is around content types and ideas for your event social media plan. I have developed an online course about how to develop a social media plan for local and regional events click on the link and watch the welcome video to find out more or you can always email me at holly@gofuturemedia.com   In this episode we first start by talking about an editorial calendar and how that is different to a content calendar. We go into both an editorial calendar and a content calendar, their roles and importance. I refer to Twitter Moments #ownthemoment which can be useful for putting together an editorial calendar. Listen around the 10 minute mark about why having a content calendar helps you say no. I then talk about creating content for Pre event During event and Post event Within Pre Event I discuss the importance of content not being to general but getting quite granular and specific (listen around the 6 minute mark for more). Here are examples of pre event content            We then talk about three types of on the day live content. We discuss Pre Scheduled Content Live Content User Generated Content Pre Scheduled Content is important and it really takes the pressure off all the activities happening on the day of your event. [Tweet "Pre Scheduled Content is important & it takes the pressure off all the activities happening on the day of your event."] Listen in around the 13 minute make for more on this - its important!! Types of content you might like to pre schedule include kick off welcome message, sponsor messages and acknowledgements, program highlights, logistics and reminders. Live content adds the colour to the day of your event. Listen in around the 16 minute mark [Tweet "Live content adds the colour to the day of your event."] Word Swag is a handy app to use to briton up your content which puts text over images. User Generated Content (UGC) is an important content type to use in your event. We want to encourage user generated content and to do this we can make sure people are ahead of time what the hashtag is. I give a heap of other suggest from the 19 minute mark. [Tweet "User Generated Content shows your event from different perspectives."] Read more about UGC from an earlier post.                                     Post Event Content Don't stop posting on social media just because the event has finished. You want to slowly ween people off you you don't want your fans to think you have left them high and dry. Listen for more details on this from the 20 minute mark including ideas for post event content. Thats a wrap! Learn more about social media for events here Please let me know if you have ideas for a topic or guest for 2016 or if you would like to be a guest on the show. Email me at holly@gofuturemedia.com   The post Content types and ideas for your event social media: Ep #48 appeared first on Holly G.

Content types and ideas for your event social media: Ep #48

There were lots of names I could have called this episode; Tracking what social media drives bookings; Using tracking & tools to improve your hotel marketing; Tracking of your social media activities to improve your marketing; Getting technical - tracking your social media efforts; There were a bunch of options but the point is listen to this episode if you are using social media in your accommodation, hotel, tour operation or any tourism business and you are transacting online.  In fact any tourism business where you have a website and have paid advertising. These are the types of episodes I really love as ultimately we want to know what social media activities drive bookings right!? A practice and insightful chat with Director of Social Media of Amalgamated Holdings Limited, Tim Welsh aka @Twel5 about how they are using and tracking social media across the range of tourism groups they own, how they do it and some of the tools that are used. This also goes into using these social media tools to better understand your market. So much great stuff in this podcast episode, a must listen for anyone spending money on Facebook ads or using Facebook - especially hotels or accommodation. After finding a little about Tim Welsh, we start off talking about the role of social media into the organisations plans. Tim talks about how social media gives the ability to tells a story and sell an experience rather than a hotel room just being a commodity. People are more savvy and are looking for which hotel will give them the experience they are looking for in the location they are visiting. Social media allows to better tell the story and to distinguish themselves (listen from about the 4 minute mark and hear a little more about QT Hotels). From about the 6 minute mark Tim mentions what social media channels are currently the focus. At the 8 minute mark we talk about the value of co-branded content in relation to video and YouTube and a little chat about working with influencers. "I think the next evolution (of working with influencers).... once people realise how many "influencers" are out there we are going to get more scientific about how we decide who is influential..." From the 11 minute mark we go deeper into how to measure the effectiveness of social media and to track what is actually driving bookings. Tim explains a multi-touch attribution model - what it is and why it is important as well as the importance of assigning value to this process. "What you need to look at is tracing how many people come back from different sources and something like social media or a great content blog a lot of times won't be that last piece of the puzzle that makes people book - it can be but usually it won't be - but what it does help do is really inspire people and create a need or a want where it wasn't previously and we need to assign a certain amount of value to that." Click through to see a little more on this re Google Analytics signing values to goals. Then we talk about UTM Tracking codes and the great importance of these. Buffer has created a guide to this so rather than me reinventing the wheel check that out here https://blog.bufferapp.com/utm-guide. Places like Falcon, Hootsuite and Tracks (and I think Buffer) have these easily built in to their system. "By better knowing what the pathway is we can provide we can provide better content that will actually put them into a closed loop marketing through various remarking tools and will make conversions cost less...." says Tim Welsh. Listen in from the 18 minute mark - this is one of my favourite parts of the podcast - the example Tim gives is pretty darn cool. The other part to this is using the social media tools to better understanding our audience and better segmenting of groups. "We spend a lot of time NOT understand our audiences and just trying to understand what converts them but we need to sta...

Tracking what social media drives bookings: Ep #47

In this episode we chat with Brian Matson about how to Maximise Your Digital & Social Content. Brian is Senior Director of Strategy & Education at TwoSix Digital and former Marketing Director at Fargo-Moorhead Convention & Visitors Bureau. We talk about utilising your existing content - be this Pinterest boards, blog posts, Instagram images, Tweets, Facebook posts and videos - and importantly having a process in place so every time you are creating content you have a system to maximise it.   [Tweet "People aren't giving their pieces of content the opportunities to succeed"] At the 7 minute mark Brian talks about their FIVE RULE concept. Listen in to hear about this. "Share, integrate or extend on the story." At the 8.30 minute mark we discuss the several reasons why integrating is so important. We talk about embedding posts - great idea! Read here about how to embed Instagram posts. The thing that is missing is process. We chat about Evergreen Content at the 15 minute mark. "I think video is an essential piece of a content plan for sure." We also go into what makes up a good Facebook post. Read here about Facebook Carousel capabilities. "They (Facebook) are giving us the opportunity to be super creative." We talk a little about Periscope around the 21 minute mark including a super cool example from a destination. A great episode thanks Brian! In the intro I mention I recently hung out with Nathan Chan from Foundr Mag and he has grown his Instagram in just two years to over 400,00 followers. He has developed a free ebook which tells his Instagram story and how he did it - loads of great tips and insights - you can find it here. I also mention an upcoming event in conjunction with Hootsuite - we are having a Tourism Hootup in Sydney on Tuesday the 24th November. This is a free event but you will need to register here. For those who cannot attend but would like to follow along the hashtag is #TourismHootup   The post How to maximise your digital & social content: Ep #46 appeared first on Holly G.

How to maximise your digital & social content: Ep #46

This episode comes to you live from Australian Regional Tourism Network Convention 2015.  This event was held in Victor Harbor in the Fleurieu Peninsula of  South Australia. Although not every issues raised at the convention is covered off in this podcast episode it does gives some taste of the key themes and topics to come out of this regional tourism event. Mark Olsen was the master facilitator of this event. See more about him and Earth Check here http://earthcheck.org/about/our-people/ and Mark kicks of this podcast sharing the difference between a conference and convention and that a manifesto and direction for ARTN is to be developed out of this convention in which they will bring regional issues to national platforms such as Federal Ministers, State Tourism Organisations CEO's, Tourism and Transport Forum (TTF) and Australian Local Government Association amongst others. "The timing is critical...for the first time in a long time we have actually seen regional tourism organisations fold altogether in 2015. We see three states undertaking reviews of their regional funding and their regional governance models...." Mark Olsen. "With more Australians travelling overseas than any other time in our history, that domestically RTO's are saying how do we maximise our share, how to we hold Australians here, how do we gain share of voice in this cluttered market place.."  Mark Olsen. "The Bunsen burner is really on for regions, and their ability to demonstrate their influence." Mark Olsen. At the 4.50 minute mark we then spoke to Mark Dowd CEO of the City of Onkaparinga about their relationship with a sister city in China, learnings from that relationship and the key role WeChat plays in that ongoing relationship. Very Interesting! From the 9.00 minute mark we chat to Liz Ward from Tourism Tribe and Lynne Hocking from Webnoise about their key take aways from the convention. Liz discusses that there seems to be an appetite for change which is refreshing and the discussion around the clarity of brand in regional areas. Lynne comments about the need for industry development especially in regional areas as well as the growth in importance on caravan and camping (I agree). People who work in regional tourism need to have that realisation that they are working in these tiny little micro moment opportunities to connect with people - that they have to be connected all the time like the consumer is connected says Liz Ward. (I agree there is still a massive resistance to social media and digital across the tourism industry). From the 13 minute mark we chat to Miranda Lang Executive Officer Fleurieu Peninsula Tourism. We talk about collaboration (which I personally think is a key theme from the event). Miranda mentions the KISS rule and sometimes we need a reminder to keep things simple. From the 16 minute mark we talk to Graham Perry from Inland Tourism NSW. Graham mentioned collaboration and that we can't ignore the digital economy. See the Inland NSW new consumer tourism website https://www.travelin.com.au and for more on this see this article. From the 18 minute mark Mark Olsen facilitator of the event wraps up some of the key outcomes and direction for ARTN going forward. From more please check out an article I wrote for KarryOn Travel on the ARTN Convention. Several links mentioned in this podcast episode:  The organisation ARTN Central NSW - UnEarth Campaign website http://visitcentralnsw.com.au Inland NSW new tourism website https://www.travelin.com.au and for more on this see this article. The Future of Visitor Centres - Western Australia Report NSW Business Chamber (although can't seem to see any information on the new white paper re the shared economy) MyTravelresearch.com. The post Regional tou...

Regional tourism issues, live from ARTN Convention: Ep #45

The influence of Instagram for tourism marketing an interview with Lauren Bath. There is debate about influencer marketing and if Instagram actually impact visitation to tourism destinations. In this episode we talk with high profile Instagramer Lauren Bath about the influence of Instagram for tourism marketing. Chef turned photographer Lauren Bath is a self identified social media influencer due to her success on the popular photo-sharing site Instagram. With over 400,000 Instagram followers Lauren monetises her social media reach working with destinations and brands all across the world. On Tourism Tweetup the Podcast we talk with Lauren about influencer marketing and get her experience and insights on if it really works and what tourism brands and destinations need to consider to be successful when working with digital influencers.   Useful Links: http://laurenbath.com http://socialblade.com Show Notes: We kick off discussing what makes someone an online influencer and this relates to having a large audience online and that audience being highly engaged. Lauren discusses  how she is very open with her online communication and this in turn leads to trust. At the 5.30 minute mark we talk about how do you know that what you do is actually influencing travel. Please listen in here. Lauren discusses that Instagram or influencer marketing impacts the dreaming phase of travel and it is a touchpoint that gets people closer to deciding on a destination. From the 7 minute mark Lauren discusses all the other elements of working with an influencer like her that you may not be aware of. for example for every new client Lauren does an Instagram workshop. This way she makes sure that both her and the client receive maximum value from the activities. Around the 9 minute mark we talk about the importance of  the marketing mix. "I'm not saying don't do regular marketing - and I never have....but Instagram is a very important part of the strategy because there is a whole generation of people that are using social media that aren't reading the paper anymore and Instagram is a great place to reach them as it's such a hot platform right now."   At the 11 minute mark we go into detail about what is offered and expected by the influencer during a typical campaign including what is reported on. "Each destination will capture an audience from my visit. And the strength of that audience is solely dependent on how good their own Instagram account is." At about the 15.30 minute mark we discuss what destinations need to consider when hosting influencers. The number one thing destinations need to be aware of is that influencers will require a fee. Listen in for more. At the 19 minute mark we talk about the dark side of Instagram including those that are buying followers and signs you can look for. At the 23 minute mark we discuss fees and budgets. At about the 27 minute mark I ask if Instagram is getting stale or what if any innovation is happening in this space. Lauren discusses how Instagram still has a lot of life in it yet but always important to look at other platforms too. She discusses an example of a recent campaign she was part of with Tourism Dubai. Well worth a listen for more detail. The post The influence of Instagram for tourism marketing: Ep #44 appeared first on Holly G.

The influence of Instagram for tourism marketing: Ep #44

In this episode we come to you live from TRAVELTech Conference in Sydney Australia. This conference is run by Martin Kelly from TravelTrends and this years theme was Disruptive Influencers. The conference speaker line up included representatives from AirBnB, Uber, Hotel Tonight, HelloWorld, Dimmi, Booking Boss and many more. We spoke to several of the presenters and a few of the 2oo plus attendees to gain an overview of Travel Tech 2015 and some of the highlights and ideas generated from this full day event. In this podcast episode we spoke with; Jeremy Reitman CEO of HelloWorld.com.au Paul Baron Group Manager Online Marketing at Tourism Victoria Renee Welsh Founder & CEO of Booking Boss Tom from Thrifty DJ from Expedia Christian Schaefer and Steve Johnson Founders of Carhood.com.au Martin Kelly Director of Travel Trends and  TRAVELTech conference founder/organiser The post TRAVELTech Conference 2015, Disruptive Influencers: Ep #43 appeared first on Holly G.

TRAVELTech Conference 2015, Disruptive Influencers: Ep #43

In this week's episode we are discussing Customer Journey Mapping for tourism businesses and destinations with Dr. Moira Scerri from SEPIA Consulting. Moira explains what customer journey mapping is, why it is important and how this impacts our marketing as well as other business departments and operations. I was inspired to interview Moira after reading an article she published on LinkedIn on the topic and you can read that article here. Customer Journey Mapping is taking the customer perspective and understanding what they do from the time they are deciding to do business with you to all the way through to after they have had their core experience with you. So it is looking at the customer from end to end. At the 2.51 minute mark with discuss why it is important to understand and see where the customer is coming from end to end. Reasons include better understanding the customers budget issues and emotional state. There needs to be different customer journey maps for each customer segment or what we now call customer personas. Developing the customer persona is part of the process. A customer journey map is a visual representation of the different stages the customer goes through throughout the journey. This can be done on paper or in a spreadsheet or via an online tool. It is about being able to visualise the interactions with the customer. From the 5.40 minute part Moira gives an example of what points may be included. "Typically in the past we used to work in a very transactional fashion, we used to try to sell to the customer all in one go. Like we only had one chance to sell something to the customer. Now with automation and now we are more sophisticated in the way we can be in contact with customers using technology we are now seeing we can interact with them over a greater period of time. And what that enables us to do is to look at what are the best points on their 'journey' that we are able to interact with them - and what service can we offer them at each of those different points." One of the primary benefits of this is it means we can build a stronger relationship with our customer even before they have engaged in our core offering. It also means we are building a relationship with the customer and we can map their emotional state at different points. What can we do when they are anxious, what can we do when they are excited, what can we do when they are feeling different emotions. From about the 9 minute mark Moira discusses another example relating to the airline industry. Here 'service atomisation' is also discussed - this is breaking down the service to the smallest component that they know that adds value. And then you can decide WHEN the best time is to offer that service offering (I like that, very cool). This section also discusses that its not just about looking at it from a marketing view point but operations including reducing waste which is not only good for the business and the customer but also good for the environment. "Thats the other benefit, you are looking how it interacts with the whole organisation and also if organisations are handing off to third party providers how those interactions work." At the 13 minute mark we discuss about what tourism businesses would benefit (spoiler alert here - it's all tourism businesses but tune in for more details). From about the 17 minute mark we talk about how to go about developing a customer journey map Understand your value proposition Develop customer personas Segment what the journey looks like including touch points Map out their emotional state within the journey Look at how we are delivering the service at the moment Then how can we change or improve our service offering Identify points of potential innovation From about the 20 minute mark I get excited about some of the opportunities from a ...

Customer journey mapping for tourism: Ep #42

When we’re talking about video and television, brand-funded content in the industry refers to content that is funded by a brand or advertiser, rather than a TV network. On Tourism Tweetup the Podcast we chat with travel presenter and producer Adam Ford and we’ll be talking about Branded TV. Yes I know it is probably sounds like a slight move away from our typical tourism social media discussion but I don't know much about Branded TV so its a great chance to learn and its important to look at a range of content options and see which are right for your marketing mix. We hear about the rise and rise of video so I think this discussion is relevant and important. Lets see what we can learn   When we’re talking about video and television, brand-funded content in the industry refers to content that is funded by a brand or advertiser, rather than a TV network. On a more grassroots level though, it’s really about taking a brand’s key marketing messages and USP’s and integrating those messages into the production of editorial content – be that for television, online or social media. Brand funded content can be an incredibly marketing tool because you are taking your key message and creating relevant editorial content that users can engage with and potentially value. It’s a very potent marketing tool but it does come at a cost. It’s estimated that the brand-funded content market on Australian TV is around $200 million.   It goes further than product placement. In branded content the brand’s message is integral to the content, rather than just playing an arbitrary role within the content.   A high profile example of brand-funded content that’s often cited is Better Homes and Gardens, where parts of the program are funded by products. But there are lots of others. Weekend travel programming often falls under the brand-funded content umbrella. We produced three series of Tour the World on this basis (can explain more about the show here). In our instance, the programme was charged a fee by the network to broadcast the show and that fee and the production costs to make the show were recouped from the brands featured in the show. But there are no hard and fast rules about the structure. It’s often quite difficult for brands to understand how brand-funded content works. The idea of paying the networks to screen content seems totally at odds with the way most of us perceive TV production – i.e.: that the network would pay to make or buy content and make income through advertising. But networks are increasingly looking at this model. Is it relevant to travel and tourism brands as travel totally lends itself to great brand-funded content, although the costs can be prohibitive depending on the scale of productions. OK, so the reality is that the cost of producing and broadcasting brand-funded travel content in peak viewing periods on our main channels is going to be well out of the reach of the majority of tourism and travel brands, although there are some that are doing it. But what is interesting for this discussion though is to get smaller brands thinking about creative, cost-effective ways that they can embed their key messages in editorial content in a relevant way and get it front of potential customers.   So the process might be along the lines of the following. 1. Look at your USPs and key marketing pillars. What’s unique about your product? What lends itself to video content marketing (a visual medium)? What are your customers actually interested in seeing? How can you engage them? 2. Consider TV but look at the secondary Freeview channels, Pay TV or perhaps the data-casting channels. There are lots of opportunities there. Explore ideas for shows. Look at ways that you can take what you do and make it relevant as content to the audience you want to target. 3.

Brand funded TV and video content for travel & tourism: Ep #41

Last year Hawaii Tourism (Australia and New Zealand office) worked with four travel agents to develop the “Agents of Aloha” travel trade program. In this podcast episode (Episode 40) we chat with Ashlee Galea Country Manager Australia at Hawaii Tourism Oceania to talk through the program.   We start off by talking about how important the travel trade is to the destination of Hawaii in both the holiday research and the actual booking process (listen in for specific stats). And then talk about how social media or digital more broadly as vast become a key way to train the travel trade as travel agents are spread throughout all of Australia so digital channels can help in reaching agents. Hawaii Tourism currently have a trade website and an online specialist training program for the travel trade and email newsletters are also used in the communication strategy. More recently a YouTube channel has been established for the travel travel with webinars and the new 'Agents of Aloha' training videos (which we will discuss). Hawaii Tourism is also currently setting up a blog  that will be valuable for both consumer and trade. We then get into the details and logistics of the Agents of Aloha campaign including why the campaign was developed and some of the logistics of how the campaign come together. "We wanted to show the breadth and depth of the destination beyond the sun, sand and surf and do it in a way that was fun, engaging and educational."   Video consumption is growing and video can be used for agents to learn (listen in to the 8.30 minute mark). "We decided we wanted to do something with video, something we could launch visually at our roadshow and something we could roll out online so it has longevity and use in the digital space" From the 9 minute mark we talked about how the 4 key agents were selected. From the 10 minute mark we discuss the campaign logistics including selecting the right videographer, developing the itinerary, selecting the agents, getting buy in from partners/industry, run the famil and then upon return phase two starts. We go into detail about selecting videographer from the 11.45 minute mark. This is very interesting for those looking at video projects. From the 14.20 minute mark we talk about success metrics and if the campaign was deemed a success. "We didn't have to script what they said...we had them do everything we knew would blow their mind and that would come across in the video and then educate the person watching." From the 18.30 minute mark Ashlee discusses the next steps of the campaign now that the videos have been produced. Very interesting. "We all want to maximise our investment in whatever way we can....we plan to use the footage for all sorts of stuff moving forward. That one famil although it was a huge undertaking, the content we've now got..." "Death by powerpoint is over" From the 21 minute mark we talk about further way social media is involved including incentivising sharing while on famils. We discuss if a separate consumer verses trade social media channels is required. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKh8MNQfCkP0Q2Jf_147jme-C0prznL3v And the travel trade site here     The post Communicating with travel trade through social media and digital: Ep #40 appeared first on Holly G.

Communicating with travel trade through social media and digital: Ep #40

Leslie McLellan is a destination marketer based in Southern California, USA and is an expert in tourism marketing on small budgets. Leslie has built two DMO's from the ground up with very little money and very little staff - and in this episode of Tourism Tweetup the Podcast we will be talking about how that is possible and how DMO's can engage their communities to help with marketing. You can find out more about Leslie on her tourism blog JustASmallTownGirl.us. where there are many tourism marketing tips for small destinations. Leslie McLellan starts by sharing with us her story about starting a DMO (or Regional Tourism Organisation as we often call them here in Australia) - from scratch in Lake ArrowHead in Southern California in the early 90's. They were funded by a small grant each year as well as a bed tax. Leslie worked in this role for 21 years and went through all facets of marketing, traditional through to social media. She is currently in her third year of working with a new DMO in California called San Jacinto Valley with no budget. Leslie says a large part of the marketing success has been through working with bloggers. Listen in at the 7.30 minute mark where we discuss in more detail about working with bloggers and the successes had. We also talk a little about a big travel bloggers conference called TBEX - see http://tbexcon.com At the 10 minute mark we discuss why Leslie works with bloggers rather than traditional PR for this specific destination. Really interesting points here. Social media and blogging is a great gift as it means you can focus on your niche and get as specific as you want to be. From the 14 minute mark we talk about the importance of community engagement and how things took a positive turn once Leslie brought the industry and community together. Leslie provides three great practice ideas; Provide generic tweets and Facebook posts for community members to rework and use Bring back community meetings to understand the DMO vision and to together work on the direction for the destination with a focus on collaboration. "regular community meetings where everyone has a voice." Signage, communicating the social networks and hashtag to get all visitors and the community involved. From the 24 minute mark Leslie discusses her favourite social media channel and the story behind why. Leslie finishes with some of her plans and insights about Periscope. You can listen to episode 34 to learn more about Periscope. You can connect with Leslie on Twitter https://twitter.com/LeslieMcLellan         The post Marketing tips for small tourism destinations: Ep #39 appeared first on Holly G.

Marketing tips for small tourism destinations: Ep #39

Trip Advisor and a culture for embracing user reviews in todays tourism marketing. Today on Tourism Tweetup the podcast our guest is Bernie O’Keefe Director of Marketing at Tangalooma Island Resort in Queensland Australia and we are discussing Trip Advisor and developing a culture of embracing user reviews with the accommodation sector. If you are an accommodation operator or use Trip Advisor for your business this is a MUST LISTEN to episode. We start off discussing the general change in tourism and accommodation marketing and why user reviews are actually important for sales and marketing. From a marketing strategy view point data is so important (it always has been) but building those correlations between user reviews, customer service and sales trends is the key thing to prove. Its all about data at the end of the day. "Once you have that data lined up, there is absolutely no doubt that positive reviews, particularly on Trip Advisor do equal higher returns on sales and negative reviews have massive negative impact on conversion on your website." Bernie O'Keefe. At the 9.30 minute mark we talk about how to talk to senior management about shifting a negative perception to Trip Advisor through data correlation and building business cases. At about the 14 minute mark we talk about the tool Revinate and how it can save you time in relation to user reviews and how it can actually measure the impact. At about the 19 minute mark we discuss how to identify and work with internal advocates. At the 24 minute mark we talk about the not so positive aspects of Trip Advisor that the tourism industry should we aware of and potentially vocal about. Some very worthy points raised here. At the 29 minute mark we talk about the role of a marketer and how its more and more about the product and not about gaming the system at all. "What you need to do as a marketer is focus on the product". I ask Bernie a bonus question right at the very end so stay tuned to the 33 minute mark.       The post Developing a culture for embracing user reviews: Ep #38 appeared first on Holly G.

Developing a culture for embracing user reviews: Ep #38

Five tools to help with your social media marketing management Most of my clients know that I am a ‘social media puriest’. What this means is I like to use the social platforms as they were designed without a lot of automation as I believe spending time on the platforms is a key to success as it allows us to better understand the platform capabilities and better understand our audience on these platforms. However most of us have a lot more to do than hang out on social media all day and generally have guests to attend to, staff to manage and suppliers to stay on top off. That is why incorporating the right additional social media management tools can help you better manage and deliver your social media plan. [Tweet "The right social media tools can help you better manage & deliver your social media plan"] There are so many social media tools out there and new ones entering the market all the time. I have selected five that I am familiar with that I think are worth the investment. Please note I am not affiliated with any tool and don't get any kick backs etc, this post is written to hopefully offer value to you and help you best manager your social media marketing. 1. MeetEdgar Meet Edgard is a tool to schedule social media posts especially for Twitter but it works for Facebook and LinkedIn too. Edgar recycles content and builds a library of social content so you never run out of posts. When you craft and send a Tweet not all your followers are going to see that Tweet, for it to really get traction it needs to be sent multiple times. What this tool does is once you create an update or post - you add it to a category say Blog Post or Fast Fact or Promotion and the update gets stored in your library. When every other update in that category has been posted, Edgar will post this one again, so it can be seen by a new audience. Until recently I had been using Hootsuite to schedule tweets however I was never happy with the way they displayed images and if I wanted to post the same tweet multiply times (and I think that is a smart thing to do) I had to write out each tweet, add the image multiple times and decide what time to send it. I am really happy with how Edgar displayed the images and how you can map out your schedule really clearly for each social channel. Also you can give Edgar your RSS feed and it will actually create posts for you and automatically update when you post new content. They offer a 14 day free trial so give it a go and see what you think. The only down side is its $50US a month - so about $15 a week - so you need to weigh up if it saves you $15 a week in time. Now a side note here: just because you are scheduling Tweets it doesn't mean your work is done on Twitter, what it should mean is that your time spent on that platform is engaging with others, their content and replying as thats the important stuff! 2. CrowdfireApp JustUnfollow.com have changed their name to CrowdFire - this is a mostly free tool - well I only use the free level. This tools identifies who on Twitter and Instagram is not following you, who your recent followers are, your recent unfollowers and the bit I like the most your inactive followers. It then allows you to bulk unfollow or follow accounts. Between 25 and 100 in one session. I use this for identifying inactive followers and unfollowing them - you can see who has been inactive for 6 months or more or 3 months or 1 month. I believe it is important to keep your social media accounts healthy and unfollowing inactive accounts is part of that. Now just because someone isn't following you it doesn't mean you shouldn't be following them - there are loads of accounts I follow that don't follow me but it can be good to keep an eye on things and do a cull every know and again. 3. Schedugram Scheduling Instagram doesn't sit 100% comfortably with me however I ...

Tools to help with your social media marketing management: Ep#37

9 Australian Family Travel Bloggers You May Like to Know My fifth ProBlogger Conference didn't disappoint, with speakers including Jadah from Simple Green Smoothies (you must check out their Instagram) and Pamela Wilson from CopyBlogger Media (a highlight). As well as learning from many experienced bloggers and digital marketers, I met and reconnected with many Australian travel bloggers. I would estimate there were about 50 travel bloggers who attended ProBlogger 2015. In this podcast episode, episode 36, I introduce you to 9 Australian Family Travel Bloggers, each with their own angle. For those Travel Bloggers I didn't get to chat to please feel free to leave your comment and blog link in the comments section below. Thanks for a great #PBEvent 2015 to everyone I had the pleasure of meeting over the two day conference and see you next year! [Tweet "9 Family Australian Travel Bloggers you may want to know"] In this podcast we are introduced to the following 9 Family Travel Bloggers; 1. Seana Smith - Sydney kids food and travel 2. Kate Richards - Adventure Mumma 3. Caz Makepeace - YTravel Blog 4. Linda Fairbairn - Journey Jottings 5. Nicole Avery - Planning With Kids 6. Kate Nelson - Meetoo 7. Annette - World Travel Tribe 8. Kirralee Baker - Escape With Kids 9. Monique Van Tulder - The Urban Mum You my like to check out the Twitter hashtag #PBEvent which has quite a few highlights from the event or my Twitter feed where I live Tweet from the many tourism, travel and social media events I attend. Women In Tourism Leadership Lunch Also we have just announced that tickets are on sale to the third Women In Tourism Leadership Lunch which is held in Sydney, Australia on Friday the 30th October 2015. For more details click here for the event and ticket page and you may also like to join the Women In Tourism (Australia) private Facebook group. Please request to join and one of the members will approve you quick smart, head to https://www.facebook.com/groups/WomenInTourism/ The post 9 Australian Family Travel Bloggers at #PBEvent 2015: Ep #36 appeared first on Holly G.

9 Australian Family Travel Bloggers at #PBEvent 2015: Ep #36

Social media marketing for tourism professionals