I’ve had a lot of thanks for the tips in our email marketing jargon explained piece, so I thought I’d dive right in with some explanations of typical analytics jargon, because sometimes it can feel downright confusing!

For the purposes of today’s discussion, I’m mostly referring to Google Analytics, but in fact these terms are used wildly across a variety of analytics platforms.

If you’re not sure what analytics means, that’s ok – let’s start right there.  Web analytics are simply tools that you use to measure how much traffic your website recieves, where it comes from, and what those users are doing while they’re on your site. This data is important because it can help you know what percentage of your web users are actually buyers, and help you gauge the effectiveness of your various online marketing – you don’t want to pay for online advertising that doesn’t send paying customers, right?

Ok, now let’s dive right into the murk.  Here are some terms worth paying attention to, and what they mean.

Google’s graphics and dashboards might be easy on the eyes, but they’re still filled with jargon-y junk.

In alphabetical order…

A/B Testing (or Split Testing)

Ouch, alphabetical order means we start out on a hard one.  But A/B testing is simply testing two different scenarios to determine which one has better conversions.  Only two versions are tested in an A/B test; when multiple variables are changed, this is a multivariate test (see below).

How You’d Use This:  Let’s say you have just 1 page where people buy something.  You’re curious if people click a green BUY button more often than a orange BUY button.   Google Website Optimizer offers you the ability to do this, but it’s definitely for the intermediate/expert folks.

Bounce Rate

Bounce Rate is the percentage of people who came to your website and left without visiting another page.  It’s a number many people obsess over without reason, because there are lots of times when someone is a bounce and it’s fine – say, they land on your blog post that sends them over to another site for a special deal.  Ok, they only visited one page, but it’s fine.

How You’d Use This: You want to get this number as low as possible.  Just based on how the web works, it will never be zero, so stop trying.  You’re doing great if you are below 50%.   Smart people look at the bounce rate of important, individual pages, not an entire website.

Conversion / Conversion Rate or Percentage Conversion

A conversion is where a website visitor completes a specific action. Conversions don’t always have to be a sale; a conversion could simply be a signup to a newsletter form, or to leave their phone number for a callback.  The percentage conversion or conversion rate is the percentage of all people who saw the offer and took it (so 100 people saw it, 5 phone calls, that’s 5% conversion.)

How You’d Use This: You need to know what your conversions are (a sale, signup, etc.)  Then you have to compare those to your overall visits to get percentages.  In Google, this can be tracked under the “goals” functionality.

Conversion Funnel

A conversion funnel is the defined path that visitors should take to reach a final conversion.  For example, if you have 3 screens of data to be entered before someone buys your product/service, each page or screen is a step in the funnel. The reason they call it a funnel is because as you move through each step, you’ll lose a few people, so you want as few steps as possible.

How You’d Use This: In Google, this is also under the “goals” functionality.  If you have multiple steps in the checkout process, I suggest you include all of them in setting up a goal.

Cookie

A cookie is a tiny text file placed on your visitor’s computer while browsing a website. Cookies contain information to track user behavior and returning visitors.

How You’d Use This:  You don’t – Google and other software products handle this for you.

Direct Traffic

Direct traffic is a visitor to your website that didn’t come from anywhere specific – it wasn’t a referral, they had your web link and they clicked it, say from their browser favorites.  Of course, there are many ways a visitor can get to your site without a referral – for example, your business card is a great referral source to your website, but since we’re jumping from offline to online, that isn’t trackable.

How You’d Use This:  High levels of direct traffic are good because they could be repeat customers, but ask yourself where they might be coming from?

Entry Page

An entry page is a page that is the first page a visitor sees when reaching your site.  Entry pages aren’t always your homepage; let’s say you have an advertisement that sends someone to a particular sales page for a package.  The sales page is the entry page for all those ad clicks.

How You’d Use This: This is useful by seeing what you most popular content is.  When a new customer comes to that page, what kind of experience are they getting?

Exit Page

An exit page is the last page a visitor sees on your site.  They’re on the site and they click that “x” button to close the browser, or they click on a link that takes them to another site.

How You’d Use This:  People tend to overengineer this one – the fact is that people have to leave your website at some point, right?  So just pay attention to pages that rank high on the exit list.  The top page should be the “thanks for your order” page,  right? But are lots of people looking at a sales page and then leaving?  What could be wrong?

Goal

A goal is another word for a conversion.  Google calls it a goal because it isn’t always a sale.  See conversions, above.

Heat Map

A heat map is a tool that shows levels of activity on a web page in different colors,with reds and yellows showing the most activity and blues and violets the least. The result is a map which makes it easy to see what areas on the page are the most active.

How You’d Use This: This is great for the visual learners who want to know what’s going on with a particular page – heat maps are only good for pages with lots of traffic and “next step” options, like a homepage.  Google doesn’t technically offer a heat map tool, but you get something very close with their “In Page Analytics” option.  (I’ve often found this buggy, your mileage may vary.)

Hit

Every request to the server is recorded as a hit; this isn’t a very useful measurement as even search engine spiders are included, as are a simple request for an image.

How You’d Use This:  You don’t.  If you see anything about number of hits, ignore it.

Keyword Referral

A keyword referral is when someone typed in a phrase into a search engine, and clicked on a result that sent them to your website. Google sometimes blocks the information and you’ll see “(not provided)” here, and if you advertise with Google Adwords sometimes this will say “(not set)”.

How You’d Use This:  If you’re doing any search engine optimization work, I sure hope the words you are working on show up here. If not, you got problems.  (Also: there will always be weird things here. I can’t explain it.)

Multivariate Test

A multivariate test is different than an A/B test (see above) in that you’re changing multiple options on a page at one time, trying to determine the best conversion outcomes. An A/B test is changing one thing at a time, whereas multivariate test involves changing multiple things at a time and using sophisticated analytics to track.

How You’d Use This:  Google Website Optimizer offers you the ability to do this, but it isn’t the best tool.  I wouldn’t get into multivariate tests until you’ve mastered A/B testing.

Pages Per Visit

This figure tells you, on average, how many pages a single website visitor views on your site during a single session. For example, if I looked at your homepage, a blog post, and then two of your package pages, that would be 4 pages for my visit.

How You’d Use This:  The higher the number, the more “sticky” your website is.  Most sites are in between 1 and 4.  I wouldn’t worry too much about this one.

Pageview

A pageview is a  single person (“visitor”) viewing a single page on your website.  So if you had 100 visitors and each looked at 4 pages, that’s 400 pageviews.  This is the most common “traffic” measurement used currently.

How You’d Use This: Just like I mention below on visitors, this figure is a common way to measure traffic, though I always say it isn’t about how much traffic you have but what that traffic does.  For a business owner, this is only meaningful in giving you trend information (example: “wow, we get twice as much traffic during the holidays, with another peak in April. We should rotate our deals and ads before those periods.”)

Percentage (%) of New Visits

This is the percentage of the total visits that came from new visitors. A new visitor is simply someone without your site’s cookie present in their browser.  As you can imagine, then, this figure has room for error.

How You’d Use This:  Use this in conjunction with your marketing efforts; a high number of new visits is fine if you’ve just done a lot of SEO work, paid for some advertising, or other outreach efforts.  It isn’t the percentage that’s important here, it’s why.

Referrer

The referrer is the website URL that sent a user to a page on your website.  Facebook, Twitter, Website XYZ, Newspaper column ABC are all types of referrers.  Traffic that has no referrer information (they came from your business card, or their browser bookmarks) is called direct traffic.

How You’d Use This:  This is important to see where your website traffic is coming from, and if it matches up with where you are spending your time/money.  If you just paid big bucks for a Twitter ad and you aren’t getting any traffic, that’s a problem.  You want to watch this for unexpected traffic, like a media/blog mention you weren’t expecting.

Segments / Segmentation

Analytics can result in a glut of data, for sure.  Segmentation is breaking that data down into smaller piles so you can  spot trends.  For example, you could segment based on country or mobile phone users versus standard desktop users and maybe you’d see that 1) you have lots of mobile traffic and can justify site upgrades, or 2) nobody on a phone buys anything, what does that mean.  Or you can segment off traffic from particular region to see the buying behavior of types of customers.

How You’d Use This:  This depends on your business but take the opportunity to break down your traffic into meaningful groups if you can.  Some ideas:  Direct traffic vs referral traffic;  New traffic versus repeat visitors; US/Canada visitors versus UK/Europe visitors; Mobile traffic versus desktop computer traffic…

Time on Page (or, Time on Site)

Time on Page (or alternatively, time on site) is an average that tells you how long a visitor spends on a page or the site overall.   Most sites have a widely variable figure for each page – homepages have short on page time as you’ll probably enticing them to move on – while other pages like where you’re making an offer will have longer times.  So, careful with this one.

How You’d Use This:  Overall, time on site is useful as a trend, but to make this data meaningful, you must drill down into specific pages and review the data.  For example, if someone only spends 30 seconds on your about page, but 5 minutes on your sales packages?  That’s not a problem.  So it requires some thought to actually make this data useful.

Visitor

An individual visiting a web site (excludes search engine spiders). Sometimes a media buyer or ad agency will call these” uniques” – short for unique visitors.

How You’d Use This:  Just like I said above on pageviews, this figure is a common way to measure traffic, though I always say it isn’t about how much traffic you have but what that traffic does.  I’d get more into the details, like “we have the same number of visitors each month of the year, but our Google traffic spends a lot more money than our paid traffic.”

Phew! Now that we’ve got all that sorted, hopefully next time you’ll not feel so stressed out about checking your website stats and figures. Speaking of which, have you taken ourFREE website assessment? It’s pretty cool, if I don’t say so myself – and jargon free!

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Before I get started with this review of Online Community Management for Dummies, I have to provide a hearty disclosure. That’s because one of my best friends wrote it – one of first people I ever met online, Deb Ng. So heck yes, my review is biased, but when your friends do great work, you tell people about it.

Deb’s book is the first “for dummies” book I’ve read. Not that I have anything against them. I was not surprised that the dummies format makes things very digestible and also well organised so you can just read the sections most applicable to you – and Deb includes some recommendations on where to start in her introduction.

So what’s a “community”?

You might be wandering what we mean by community. It’s a tricky noun, but thankfully both Deb and I agree on this one: whether it’s a forum or a Facebook page, if you’re gathering multiple customers, or potential customers, in any one area for dialogue and discussion, that’s a community. Doesn’t need to be complicated to be a community.

Community Management Tips

This guide is chock full of tips, and its written in Deb’s jovial style that I’ve come to love over the years. (I’d make a comment here about Deb’s famous penchant for typos, but somehow I don’t think she’d find it funny – and a shame, I found none in the book.)

I hate to give away all the good stuff, but some particularly useful sections:

• Recognizing types of community members, both good and bad – not all users are the same. The Heckler, The Newbie, The Rabble Rouser…. I think this is common sense. If you are in an office, you know that there are personality types and each needs to be approached differently. Same thing online.
• You’ve also got to get people talking - it’s your job to spark some dialogue, and Deb offers some questions to ask people – like fill in the blank questions – but I’m curious to try Deb’s suggestion of community poems and haikus!
• You have to have goals. Deb has lots of tips for how to decide what your goals should but, but she’s right – how do you know if you’re successful without stating the purpose and hopes of building a community?
• Maintaining stamina. Every day for year’s I’ve seen Deb’s daily “how’s ____day working out for you” tweet, even when I moved from being several timezones ahead of her to being several behind. You have to be in it for the long haul to have a successful community.

The book author, Deb Ng

Who’s this Book For

If you’re very new to creating a social online space for your biz, then definitely Online Community Management for Dummies is a great read. You can start with some of the initial chapters, then dive back in with the followup pieces as necessary.

If you’re having trouble with some of the “hard stuff” in communities – getting engagement up and dealing with troublemakers – then I suggest reviewing some of the later chapters where Deb goes into some good suggestions.

If you’ve got a community that’s already thriving, you’re already using tools like analytics & alerts, and you feel like you have an effective moderation policy (that you actually follow, if necessary), then this book is probably too basic for you.

If this book sounds like it’s up your alley, click here to learn more about it and grab a copy direct from Amazon. If you have any community management questions, please – drop a note down in the comments and either myself or Deb would be happy to answer them.

(And congrats again to my friend for a job well done!)

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Here’s a question I get a lot – I thought I’d just answer Joline’s email today via the blog (thanks Joline!):

So, we’re doing the Facebook thing, and the Twitter thing, and we wanna make sure that we’re really being targeted to how users interact on those platforms.

I read the recent post on Should I take travel bookings on Facebook – that was helpful, thanks, we’ve decided “not right now.”

Ok, so my question is, I’ve seen other people have special links on their Twitter and Facebook pages.  Like, maryslovelyinn.com/welcome-from-twitter, or, joestours.com/facebook-friends.  Should we do that? And what would we put on those pages?

Great question.  My opinion is no, 99% of the time, no special links.

FYI, a special link doesn't make you stand out in a crowded space.

Are you a different person on different social networks?

I was asking a friend about this issue because I wasn’t sure what to title this post, and he said, it sounds to me the question is, are you a different person on different social networks?

My answer is I certainly hope not.

While yes, what you share, how often you share it, and when you share it might be different on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc etc., what you stand for and what your expertise is doesn’t change.

Reasons Why You Would Use Special Links/Landing Pages

So why would people a special link for special people?  Let’s walk through it.

• Special Links to “Welcome” People.  NAH. I’m not a fan. Your website should be so well organized and clear at first glance, that you don’t need any special welcome.  If your website requires an introduction or “how to” manual, you’re doing it wrong.  (I saw a hotel that posts special offers nearly 15 times a day.  Way too many.  And yet, they have a special link from Twitter that tells you that they share special offers.  Uhm, yeah, I saw.).
• Track where People are Coming From.  NAH. You don’t need to be an analytics jedi to know that the “referral” data will show you where people are coming from.  Twitter is terrible to track (between twitter.com, m.twitter.com, t.co, and then a lot of traffic that comes from apps like Tweetdeck that will be marked direct traffic), but this is not a fix.
• Give Special Offers.  OOH YAH BABY. Out of all the reasons people use these special “welcome from twitter/etc” links, this is the only one I like.  I know a local hotel that uses this to default in your Free Wifi code, a perk for being a social media fan.  Now, you can find that on their site too, the link just makes it easier – after all, the hotel wants you to book, not just go play around on their blog.  So, if the link makes peoples life easier, or if it makes it one step closer to the sale, that’s certainly worth considering.

NOTE: I’ve seen profiles that use shortened urls, like bit.ly links, which is great for the tracking, but many users like me are leery of clicking on them because of the proliferation of spammers who use this tactic.  I wouldn’t recommend it – instead, learn your analytics program and figure this stuff out – tracking stats isn’t your customers problem.

Bottom line: when someone comes from Twitter or Facebook or WhateverSocialNetworkisEnVogueToday, your site should be warm, inviting, and friendly.  And you don’t need a custom welcome page to do that.

What do you think – do you have a special URL you put on your Twitter or Facebook page?
If you do, what’s the landing page content?

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My good friend Becky McCray from Tourism Currents always is a pithy tweeter, and this weekend was no exception, especially when I saw this gem pop up in my Twitter stream:

Promotion Probably Isn’t the Problem

I see this a lot – you could easily change the word restaurant to”website” or  ”tour” or  ”bed and breakfast.”  People jumping up and waving frantically, trying to flag down traffic to get people to stop for something they aren’t interested in, and isn’t that good anyway.

Looking at what people say when taking our free website self-assessment, it’s clear that everybody wants a little more traffic, a few more leads, a bit more visibility – ok, heck, wouldn’t we all love a LOT more of those things.

But sometimes – most of the time – that isn’t the problem.

• You’ve got too many choices so I can’t decide, and I choose none…
• I have a question, and you never replied to my email via the contact form…
• Your reviews are terrible – regardless if they’re true or not, I’m not taking the risk….

Fix your real problems, and promotion gets a heck of a lot easier.

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Yup, it’s that time again.

It’s time for myself and the TOP team to take some of our own advice.

One of my personal pet peeves is when someone tells me “they’ll do anything.”

What does that mean? It’s really hard to refer clients to someone who “does anything,” because when you do anything, you kind of… well, you do nothing. Nothing special anyway.

Going Back to Our Roots

One of our first packages was our website evaluation package.

It was very successful.  It was based on the work I’d done for years when my work at PeopleSoft transitioned from desktop applications to the web (ooh, shiny!)  I was able to provide the kind of feedback that a traditional usability lab provided, but at a fraction of the cost.

Then my designer Craig came on board, and my assistant Mari, as well our stable of contractors.  We were a formidable team.  We expanded our packages include all the social media bells and whistles, because it was en vogue. We made sales.  Life was great.

That is not to say those packages weren’t good – they were.  But they weren’t us.  We were too busy trying to do anything for everybody that we lost focus of the stuff that we were really good at.  The work we loved doing. The work that really made a difference.

This is our Best Work.

As of today, we’re closing down the bulk of our social media work and focusing only on our best work, which is in the content strategy and website evaluation area.  You’ll notice some spiffy new branding on the site, as well as some very important changes:

• We’ve reworked the team’s decade of website knowledge into a very, very cool website self-assessment.  Despite only being a few questions, it is very comprehensive.  Seriously – try it, it’s free.  Why not?
• Please take a look at our new consulting packages – you might see just the thing you were looking for.

I’d like to thank Doug Anwelier, Marissa Bracke, Margo Millure, Mary Jo Manzanares, Mary Rarick, and Brandie Kajino (all clients and community friends) for their help in feedback & support in helping us downshift back into our sweet spot.

I’m not at all scared. I’m excited.  This is the work we love the most.  This is our best work. And I don’t think anyone else in the industry can help you improve your website better than my team can.  Whether you opt for our free self-assessment or our comprehensive evaluation, I look forward to you joining us on this journey.

And, it’s worth asking the question,while you’re here:  are you doing your best work?

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Kimpton Hotels is willing to go all out in the name of hospitality and customer satisfaction. This email chain a customer posted online is proof.

That’s why Kimpton has experienced significant growth, profits, and heaps of praise from their customers, WHO LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

Question is, how far are you willing to go in the name of hospitality and customer satisfaction?

Image Source: Reddit

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I loved Amber’s recent post about boosting your sales with an off season travel campaign.  Working on your systems and planning so you hammer the high season, then shoring up your resources to handle the low season means your biz is working like clockwork to keep food on the table and keep you and your team happy.

But sometimes, especially this time of year, things can feel a little weary.  You’re tired!  I’m going to be the stickler here and remind you that you’ve got a few things to do as the end of the year creeps up on us. You don’t have to do them today, or tomorrow, but make room for them in your schedule – they’re important.

You probably could use some ass-in-chair time.

Take Some Time Off

For Pete’s sake, you work too much. We all do.  Read the caption in the photo above – I mean it.  Great ideas come when you unhook from your regular office surroundings and get some fresh air and relax.  Don’t take your laptop – only a smartphone for emergencies, and a notepad for jotting down ideas to action when you get home.

Review Your Figures

I’m not a numbers guy – I’m just not.  Sadly, though, my business is mostly online, which means, I’m in a numbers business.  Most businesses have important numbers they need to be paying attention to.  Cashflow is a pretty damn important number, IMHO.  But two problems with numbers:

• The most useful information is the hardest to measure.
• The magic with having great information is knowing what to do with it.

But if you don’t have a dashboard spreadsheet or software program that is telling you where your money is coming from and how you’re doing, then you are running blind.

Tidy Up Tech Annoyances

Tech is a part of our lives, whether you like it or not.  And who doesn’t have those tech annoyances – you’ve been meaning to re-work that file folder structure, maybe you can’t approve blog comments from your phone, or maybe you just need to finally update your Facebook fan page image with your new branding.

Stop being annoyed and block out a few hours to get those things done.
Life’s too short to be annoyed all the time.

Talk to Outsiders

I’m not sure which blogger first said it, but it’s a great quote: “You can’t read the label from inside the jar.”  Many of us get lost in the forest wading through our inbox, browser tabs, and out actually delivering our product or service.

But take some time this winter to step back and look at the big picture.  Ask yourself:

• Do you enjoy working with your current customers?  Are they happy?
• Do you like… love your product/service?  How could it be better positioned, delivered?
• Are you happy?

That stuff is important.  And a lot of times, an getting an external perspective can help you achieve the insights that you need to take things to the next level – even if the next level is just staying profitable another year!

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Google+, the new social network by Google, launched with great fanfare just a few months ago, but it seems a lot of the shine has worn off.  At least that’s my personal opinion and word on the street – everyone went, signed up for an account, and went back to what they were doing.

Regardless, Google+ does have a few interesting features/benefits, and today, they’ve launched their Business Page functionality, which you can access here.

NOTE: Whether or not you think anybody is going to use your G+ page, go ahead and claim it before someone else does and tries to sell it back to you.

Here are a few notes I made during the process of setting up the Travel Online Partners Google+ Biz Page – feel free to Circle us!

How to Get Your Google Plus Business Setup

The setup takes less than 5 minutes.

STEP 1: PAGE NAME, URL

Once you arrive on the create page, you’ll have to choose the category of your business, website link, and agree to the terms and conditions.  These esoteric categories are similar to Facebook – I think the only thing to note is that if you have a retail front or actually a presence where people come to you, make sure you choose Local Business so you can put in your address to add a Google Map to your page.

Explore the categories and pick what makes sense for your biz.

STEP 2: LOGO AND TAGLINE

This step is pretty quick/straightforward.  Love the option to crop/edit/manipulate the logo to make sure it looks good in the specified space.

There are editing/cropping tools if your logo doesn't look good.

STEP 3: TELL PEOPLE

The last step in the signup encourages you to post on your Google Plus page about your new business page.  You can do this now, or you can grab the page link and come back later – or drop it on Twitter, Facebook, update your email signature, whatever you want to do with it.

Google ends there, but I want you to keep going.  You’ll now see your page in the upper left hand corner of the page.  You can select it to switch to the page view, where you can edit the page like you would your personal profile, or post to Google+ as the page.

STEP 4: PAGE CONTENT

Google didn’t ask you during the signup, but you should go back into your page and update some of the other content sections.  Similar to Facebook, a fun and busy page will attract more interest I think, so be sure to upload:

• Photos
• Videos
• Additional Contact Details
• “Recommended Links” – this is good for your newsletters, teaser products, freebies

STEP 6: UPDATE YOUR WEBSITE

Time to add the social media icon and other bells and whistles to your website.   Google has plenty of badges, widgets and plugins to keep you busy.  Personally, I think adding the social media icon is enough for now – though you may want to consider the +1 buttons also while you’re in here, if you haven’t done those already.

Opinion:  a Total Lack of Imagination

Many complaints of Google’s recent product launch failures, like Google Buzz or Google Wave, is that they aren’t innovative.  Heck, they aren’t even good, let alone innovative.  What happened to the company that gave their engineers an entire day a week to create?

These new biz pages are sad.  They waited for so long to release them, I’d only have assumed they were gangbusters – but frankly, they’re just glorified personal profiles with a new icon.  Where’s the multi-user support? Where’s the integration with Google Places or the Plus One Button?

Regardless of your opinion, as I mentioned above, claim your page so you’ve got it.

What do you think of the new Google+ Pages?

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I recently got not one, but three emails, in the same day, all nearly identical.  Their contents, summarized:

Andy, I have seen some of the larger hotels and airlines making bookings available via their Facebook page.  Should we setup something to allow customers to book their trip via Facebook?  If so, how!?

This is a good question.  Let’s tackle it in the two parts – if you should offer bookings, and how to do so.

So, Should You Take Travel Bookings via Facebook?

My answer: it depends.    (How unsatisfactory, eh?)

Honestly, I can’t tell you yes or no without knowing more about your biz.  But here are the questions you should be asking yourself:

• Do we have an engaged Facebook presence, or are we stronger on other platforms?
• Are we checking Facebook regularly to provide adequate customer support?
• How many bookings per month would it take to recoup costs? (See below on costs.)
• Are customers asking for that?  If not, have we asked them what they think?
• How could we test it to determine the best approach?

If you haven’t got an answer to those, then I suggest that’s where you need to start.

If Yes, How Do I Take Travel Bookings on Facebook?

If you’ve decided yes, then you’ve got a little homework to do to move forward.  Some recommendations/links…

CONTACT FORM (IFRAME)

Why overengineer things when a simple contact form is an easy starting point to work from?  Make it easy, seamless, and see how it works. If you have a contact form on your own website also, make sure you know which submissions come through via FB.

Travel agents, you don’t NEED anything else fancier, please don’t overengineer this or try to deluge them with a tangle of affiliate links.

You’ll be creating a custom tab to create the contact form.  I recommend the Static HTML app to do this but there are many other options out there.

You can also embed whole web pages in an iFrame, which is like a window onto your website.  But you’ll need to code these so they’re just the right size for Facebook – best to involve a developer when setting anything fancy up!

HOTELS: THE BOOKING BUTTON

Hoteliers, I’m loving the features and reasonable prices with “the booking button,” a Facebook solution for hotels provided by the nice folks at Siteminder.  You don’t have to use any of their other products to use this feature, and it’s a flat monthly fee, which for most of you will work out to needing just 1 sale per month to pay for itself.  There is a 2 week trial, so if you have an interest, take advantage of that.

TOUR GUIDES: TOURCMS & REZGO

For the tour guides out there, if you are using either TourCMS or Rezgo, both offer Facebook features that you can easily implement.  I actually know the owners of both, and they both offer great support if you’re looking to switch over to a booking tool as well as get yourself up and running on Facebook.  Tell them I said hello.

Let us Help

Need more Facebook help, whether that’s engagement, building momentum, or taking bookings?  Take our free business assessment and let’s talk about how to make Facebook work better for you.

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Before I delve into today’s topic, I just want to say one thing: marketing is not about bigger numbers. It’s about more of  the right numbers.  Twitter followers, who cares – how many people actually buy from you or come to you for advice or tell others about you because of your great work on that platform?  Measure the stuff that counts – which is usually the stuff hard to measure.

Having said that, I’d like to highlight a few lovely destinations bigger online than offline, each of whom was happy to share their tips with you about building your online tourism presence.

Guysborough, Nova Scotia

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

What helped us most in getting to where we are is having a simple guiding philosophy to our online presence – be a good person, keep it real and add some humour. When you are genuinely interested in people and developing relationships, people recognize this and are open to saying hi and sharing what you have to say. You have to prepared to invest the time and energy to be there for people – to be reliable, trustworthy, consistent and engaging.

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

Most important for us is to share the genuine hospitality people experience when they visit our properties and our community. We also share photos of the incredible scenery here on Chedabucto Bay, food & wine from our award winning dining room at DesBarres Manor Inn, upcoming events, seasonal travel tips and, of course, the occasional joke so people can relax during their day.

Brian Head, Utah

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

Using all types of media –traditional TV, print and radio news and their online versions, as well as social media- to push news on your attraction, in Brian Head’s case that is Utah Powder. Destinations should focus their communications-message on their leading attraction, so people don’t have to work at understanding why they should visit your destination.

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

New snow, Utah Powder, at Brian Head is our biggest draw followed by special events and discounts

Deadwood, South Dakota

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

Deadwood took an active role in Facebook even before Facebook ‘took over’ the online world; that helped us gather followers/friends/and the like before users were in the constant stream of ‘like’ requests. I think that played a big role – having that base of users – but we continue to grow our fan base by promoting our Facebook page through traditional efforts, our digital efforts and being very active on the Historic Deadwood page. That is the key in my opinion, being active on your page, and making sure users see a benefit to check out your page often. Let’s be honest, how many pages do you ‘like’ but have not set a digital foot on that page since you ‘liked’ it for the first time?

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

Again, being active about in promoting our events and community. We also provide interesting tidbits about our city’s history, including trivia, and offer contests to those stopping in to check us out.

Mount Dora, Florida

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

I was fortunate enough to be able to piggy back off of the efforts of my website, which receives a great volume of internet traffic. Social Media users are able to follow me easily from the front page of the site. Consistency and relevance are the two keys that I feel have made my Social Media efforts pay off and are my “top advice.”

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

One of the most important parts of my destination is the events that occur on a regular basis. So much so that my followers count on me to remind them of the events via the Social Media outlets.

Pine Mountain, Georgia

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

We find that followers really like images – especially when they are of things in the Gardens right then. Also, no surprise, they like winning items.

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

Following/liking Callaway Gardens is a great way to keep up with special offers, announcements, reminders of what is coming up in addition to the major events. There are often Facebook-only offers including Cyber Monday offers that only appear via a social media outlet.

Stratton, Vermont

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

Attentiveness and self-control are two of the most important things to keep in mind when growing and managing a social campaign. We abide by a same-day-reply policy to all questions and comments on Facebook which ensures constant dialogue with our fans and positions our page as an active and friendly space to new fans. We’re also particular about the quantity and quality of our posts, making sure we aren’t spamming our guests or trying to sell them anything beyond the luxury mountain experience.

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

The resort – our natural playground – is the primary topic of conversation. Stratton is a mountain, an escape, a pastime; photos and videos of our snow, our trails, our guests and our events are our most valuable currency. We show our fans what is going on at Stratton at all times, stoking the fire within them to get on their skis and snowboards, as well as use Facebook to grant them a look behind the scenes at what keeps Stratton running.

Dublin, Texas

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

We are fortunate in that we have a pretty strong fan base to start with…so just putting up a FB page starting getting fans immediately. People were just searching for us on FB. We grew from 3K to 34K in just a matter of months. Put your FB icon on website and around your business. Put LIKE US ON FACEBOOK, just about everywhere you put your business name.

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

We constantly promote an “ice cold Dublin Dr Pepper” or a Frosty Pepper (our signature drink). That really drives people in and/or it drives sales when they get here. And we let our fans know anytime we are going to be somewhere giving away Dublin DP.
Just POST POST POST…let them know you care about them and give them content to follow.
Anything for FB is same for Twitter.

Durango, Colorado

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

Durango hosts an honest page that showcases everything we have to offer without being a shameless promotion. We want our page to represent out community; not read like a tourism advertisement. We give Facebook users the opportunity to connect with Durango. We create a dialogue by asking questions.

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

We invite people to daydream, reminisce and imagine their time in Durango and share it with others.

West Forks, Maine

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

I’d say keeping up to date with Facebook’s changes and utilizing them as quickly as possible. Our advice would be to utilize Facebook ads to target those with preferences for specialty tours or trips. In Magic Falls case, college, scouting or high school class trips.

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

Our guide’s daily blog that specifically mentions the guests we have hosted on the rivers. The guests then post about their trip and start a conversation.

Lake George, New York

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

Encourage interaction, reply to everyone, promote your page through Facebook advertising and by advertising it on your website and all online means (tweets, e-newsletters, display ads etc). Most importantly post interesting, relevant and hot topics that are relevant to your region that will make your fans want to respond. Fan interaction is what makes it go viral.

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

We always let our fans know what’s happening and give them the best event information. We also do lots of contests and giveaways and try to be super relevant to the region with timely info on everything from road closings to hot deals.

Whitefish, Montana

Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

We engage our audience frequently and we make a point of posting and sharing posts about other local businesses, not just ourselves. We also respond to pretty much everything. It doesn’t hurt that people are passionate about this place and this sport. Advice – Post often and broaden your content to include whole communities (geographic or lifestyle).

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

Mountain conditions and updates, photos & video, news of what’s happening at the resort. For example this week we’ve been posting photos of the new lift being built at our resort as well as updates on the repair work to another favorite lift. Our “fans” appreciate the “real time” info.

Carolina Beach/Kure Beach/Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina

(Each beach provided a response – we’ve grouped them here by question, in the order they are listed above!)
Q1: What helped you the most in getting to where you are now in terms of your online presence? What’s your top tip or advice for others?

Carolina Beach has enjoyed a positive experience online thanks to a highly active community of visitors and residents who care about the destination. It’s common to see our social media followers share recommendations about things to do or talk about what makes Carolina Beach so original. A classic seaside boardwalk, colorful local characters and one-of-a-kind events make for fun and interesting posting topics.

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Facebook and Twitter have been terrific in terms of simply getting the word out about what makes Kure Beach a relaxing seaside retreat. The people who follow us on social media are learning new things about our beach town daily, like how to experience its beautiful natural surroundings. Many find themselves considering a vacation in Kure Beach as they gain a stronger understanding about what makes this place so relaxing and charming.
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We try to depict Wrightsville Beach as it truly is – namely, a great place for any family or budget that’s easy to get to, and one that makes you never want to cross back over the bridge and return to the mainland. People find that everything they need is right on the island, and they love to talk about the town’s weekly events, great surfing scene and active fitness community.

Q2: What parts of your destination do you include in your social media presence that makes you a “must” friend/fan/follow?

The colorful folks you see walking the Carolina Beach boardwalk are easy to spot on our Facebook wall as well. They’ll post photos of pelicans you can reach out and touch, or chat with us about the different activities they did at Lake Park that week. It’s a vibrant online community, and it paints a pretty compelling portrait of our beach town.
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Because so many of our visitors frequently have young children, we like to raise awareness about the many family-friendly activities around Kure Beach – anything from seeing the new Megalodon shark exhibit at the N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher to hearing the Civil War cannons and touring the fort’s Historic Site. The people who talk regularly with us online still find themselves learning new things as changing seasons bring a variety of things to see and do.
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Wrightsville Beach knows its fans love to visit in the fall, when the weather is sublime, life is easy and visiting families can “own the beach” without the stress of summer crowds. To that end, the beach regularly shares fall packages and off-season specials via Facebook and Twitter, as well as on its website.

Learn More

Hopefully some of our small town experts have given you some great ideas for promotion yourself online.

Need help taking your online presence to the next level? Struggling to measure those important-but-hard-to-define things?   Then check out our free business assessment – it will help you find the focus and direction you need for the next step.

Photos courtesy of the destinations represented.

Other people who liked this article liked these too:

How's your website doing? Our TOP resources make your online presence work smarter. Check out the latest news and tips: http://www.travelonlinepartners.com

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