Tired of Searching for Flickr Photos of Your Destination? Automate It!

Posted on February 24, 2012 by pagetx

Flickr IconAs many of you already know, I am a huge fan of Flickr.  I use it personally to share photos from my life and my travels.  I also use it professionally to help promote the Colorado River Trail region with our Flickr group.  With this group, I’m able to get candid and often high-quality photos from people enjoying my destination.  I’ve used them in blog posts, on Facebook and Twitter, and even in a publication (with the photographer’s permission, of course).

Finding these photos can be very time-consuming – especially when your destination consists of 11 Texas counties.  Manually searching for town or attraction names is tedious at best.  What if there were a way to have great photography delivered to you on a daily basis?

What if you didn’t have to hunt for them any more?  What would that be worth to you?

Now.  What if I told you it was free and just takes a few simple steps to get set up?

Well, wait no more!   (more…)

Filed under: DMOs, Flickr, General Marketing/Advertising, Social Media Marketing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Fish Where the Fish Are

Posted on December 13, 2011 by pagetx
A man's man's breakfast

Courtesy of Coos Bay-North Bend VCB/David Miller

Back in June of 2009, I wrote a post about The Ones To Watch.  In it, I highlighted two smaller communities that were using social media effectively to help promote their destinations.  And while neither of them have really left the scene, Coos Bay, OR is back with a simple lesson to us all: Fish where the fish are.   Both literally and metaphorically. (more…)

Filed under: General Marketing/Advertising | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Bam! Market Research Made Easy

Posted on October 14, 2011 by pagetx

Social media changes on a daily basis.  So much so, it’s hard to keep up with the newest shiny toy that shows up to solve all our marketing problems.  It’s great to experiment and try new things, but sometimes we forget about the fundamentals as we chase after the brass ring.   That’s why I get so excited when I see brands that still do the simple – and often overlooked – things in social media marketing.  Take today for instance …  (more…)

Filed under: Social Media Marketing, Social Media Monitoring, Twitter | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

West Texas’ Social Media Rock Star – Shanna Smith Snyder

Posted on March 17, 2011 by pagetx

West Texas is known for a lot of things.  Big skies, ranching, oil, rugged terrain …  One thing it hasn’t always been known for is being a hotbed of social media activity.  Until now.  Enter Shanna Smith Snyder with the Abilene Convention and Visitors Bureau (ACVB).

Shanna and I first got acquainted on Twitter, where I became an instant fan of her work with the CVB in Abilene.  After building our online relationship for a while, we finally got to meet at a Texas Travel Industry Association function.  Shanna impressed me so much that I asked her to speak at a seminar series my organization hosted called “Social Media for Economic Development and Community Marketing”.  As I expected, she did a fantastic job getting our attendees to realize that social media marketing was not out of reach.

I think her story will really resonate with a lot you out there.  ACVB is a small- to mid-sized bureau that does all their social media marketing in-house.  Yes, it’s possible and yes, it can be done.  Shanna is living proof.

So here’s my one-on-one interview with Shanna Smith Snyder.

(more…)

Filed under: DMOs, Social Media Marketing | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments »

Social Media Marketing for #Arts Organizations

Posted on February 2, 2011 by pagetx

I got to do something pretty cool on Monday.  I was asked to present advanced social media marketing ideas to attendees at the State of the Arts 2011: Leading the Creative Economy Conference held in Austin, TX.  This conference was attended by representatives from various arts-related organizations from all over Texas.

Hosted by the Texas Commission on the Arts, City of Austin Cultural Arts Division, Texas Cultural Trust Council, and Texans for the Arts Foundation, this conference brought like-minded people together to discuss issues facing the creative economy.

(more…)

Filed under: Conference, Social Media Marketing | Tagged: , , , | 7 Comments »

Social Media Tips for Marketing Downtowns

Posted on November 10, 2010 by pagetx

From time to time, I’m asked to speak at various regional and state conferences about social media marketing and other tourism-related topics.  My most recent request came from the Texas Downtown Association.  They asked me to present during a breakout session at their annual conference in El Paso, TX on November 11, 2010.

My presentation covers the use of social media to promote and market downtowns, downtown businesses,  and downtown attractions.  I’m co-presenting with Lisa Garibay with LARGetc.   Lisa is presenting on strategy development, and I get to show the participants some examples of types of content to use and some social media best practices.  In other words, the fun part!  Sorry, Lisa. :)

(more…)

Filed under: DMOs, Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The Easy Button: Does Your DMO Have One?

Posted on January 16, 2010 by pagetx

the easy buttonIn today’s fast paced way of life, who doesn’t want things to be easy?  Everyone is so busy, our schedules so hectic that anything that makes things easy is welcomed with open arms.  Staples, the office supply store, really nailed it with their “Easy Button” campaign.  Need toner for your printer?  Press the Easy Button.  Need your office supplies delivered on the double?  No problem – just press the Easy Button.  Staples recognized a consumer need in the marketplace, and developed a strategy to fill the void.  Genius.

The Earthquake in Haiti

I got to thinking about this strategy while following the news about the Haiti earthquake disaster on Twitter.  It was such a horrible situation.  Such incredible need.  The American Red Cross (and several other charitable organizations) responded to that need by making it easy for all of us to help.  Their method was astonishingly simple.  It’s something most of us do everyday without a second thought.  The answer?  Send a text message with “HAITI” as the subject to 90999.  The results were overwhelming.

(more…)

Filed under: DMOs | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Lessons I Learned From HubSpot: Promoting a Social Media Marketing Seminar

Posted on April 23, 2009 by pagetx

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If you haven’t heard of HubSpot yet, you will.  This Boston-based company is filled with bright and creative people who live and breathe social media marketing – or “inbound marketing” as they call it there.  Much of what I’ve learned on the subject has been from the free resources they provide to their customers and the general public.

Their main line of business is their inbound marketing software.  From their web site:  “HubSpot is an inbound marketing system that helps your business get found on the Internet by the right prospects and convert more of those prospects into leads and paying customers.”

Here’s how I’m putting my lessons learned from HubSpot to good use.

(more…)

Filed under: Social Media Marketing | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Which DMOs Are Using Twitter To Promote Their Destinations?

Posted on April 9, 2009 by pagetx

post1I’ve been spending a lot of time lately on market research.  It’s been a fun and very enlightening experience.  My quest was to find out which DMOs were using Twitter,  and how it was helping them promote their destinations.  The assumption I had going into this little project is that there would be hundreds (if not thousands) of state, regional, and local DMOs using Twitter … but that not very many of them would be from Texas.

So far, I’ve been right on both counts.  Now I’m on a mission.  We Texans tend to have rather high opinions of ourselves, but I find we are lacking in this department (trust me, that was hard for me to admit!).  I’d love to help change that.  Here’s one thing I’m doing about it.

(more…)

Filed under: Twitter | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Flickr Can Be a Great Marketing Tool

Posted on March 25, 2009 by pagetx

flickr-screenshotIs anyone using Flickr to promote their destination or attraction?  If you’re not, wake up and smell the photography!  Flickr can be used in several different ways to help promote tourism locales.  I’ll talk about just two of them in this post.

Search for Photos of Your Destination
The first way is the simplest.  Flickr makes it very easy to search for photos using various keywords.  Pick any keyword that represents your destination: city name, attraction name, a natural resource, etc.  The sky’s the limit here.  You’ll be surprised at how many really great photos are returned to you in the results of your search.

(more…)

Filed under: Flickr | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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