Promoting tourism through the social media and mobile
I met Lynnette Braillard at SXSW recently. I was fascinated by her role with Visit Bend and how she promotes tourism through online marketing. If you get a chance, check out their website, it’s a great example of how tourism is changing and adapting with the new wave of media.
Where do you work and what do you do?
I’m the marketing director for Visit Bend, a non-profit, non-membership based organization dedicated to promoting tourism on behalf of the city of Bend, Oregon. I oversee all of the marketing for Visit Bend including creative direction and execution in addition to managing Visit Bend’s day-to-day marketing and outreach efforts, including advertising, collateral, direct and electronic marketing, web development, social media, online marketing and public relations.
How has social media changed the way you market to clients?
Social media has proven to be a successful tool in creating more awareness of Bend and everything we have to offer as a tourist destination. Also, on the PR front it is pretty invaluable. When you have well-known publications and travel writers as followers, you have an opportunity to get some big PR opportunities. We still focus on mixing traditional media like television, radio and print in conjunction with our online and social media efforts. I think a good mix of media is still essential for our specific target demographic.
Have there been any surprises using different social media tools?
Social media used to be hard to track ROI and you had use many tools to achieve what you needed to do. Tools are getting better all the time. I utilize some specific tools that enable me to track how many click thrus a particular post receives and I regularly check in with some of our hotels or activity vendors to find out if their offer that we promoted received any actual bookings or sales. Although, I would love to see HootSuite (one of my favorite handy tools) incorporate TweetDeck’s column filtering for specific custom groups. Our Facebook Ad campaigns have great reporting mechanisms and I love the new weekly Facebook page reports they started sending that actually tell me how many people were on our Facebook page.
Do you notice any trends that are happening that might take off over the next year in marketing?
I think Foursquare is one of those social sites that will really gain a lot of momentum soon. Early adopters have been tuned into it since its launch a year or so ago, but the masses have yet to hear of it. I see it becoming a great marketing tool for businesses or tourist destinations like Bend. I think the online search that Bing is doing right now is something that can revolutionize the way we view and interact with the web–I like where they are headed, although I still use Google myself. Applications and mobile technology will only grow as more and more people upgrade to smart phones. I really see this as a way to connect with people in real-time at any moment.
What are you most excited about using to help with marketing? Where does your passion lie?
I’m excited about some applications we are working on for iPhone and Android that will engage the visitor (and locals like) while they are in Bend or checking it out before a visit. I really like to engage and have our customers share their experiences with others. You can’t beat user-generated content and I think coming up with unique and creative ways to engage the reader, viewer, etc. and encourage them to write about it or tell someone about it is worth pursuing. I’m doing some social media user-generated content promotions right now and I hope they’ll prove to be successful. After all, that’s what marketing should be about anyway–listening to the customer and giving them what they want, how they want it and when they want it.
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I'm Nedra Rezinas:a Portland women with a background in web design, project managment, E-commerce, and providing green web hosting. Join me on my journey as I explore different marketing and e-commerce strategies that can help your business! 
April 21st, 2010 at 1:52 pm
[...] More: Promoting tourism through the social media and mobile | Social … [...]
April 22nd, 2010 at 2:20 am
Listening to the customers and giving them what they want is and always will be key.
Adapting new technology is a force multiplier if utilized properly.
Let's chat about what you'd like to see happening and brainstorm sometime.
Rick
http://www.1stpagelocal.com
May 18th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Hi Nedra. Great post. I thought I would share this with my class at Marylhurst and see if they had questions for Lynette about what they were doing.
Thanks for the info,
-Marco
May 19th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Thanks, the mobile is amazing these days! Hoping to write a blog post on Point of Sale & iPad/iPhone next week!