Blue Deer Blog » interview

Promoting tourism through the social media and mobile

Nedra — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:03:25 +0000

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.

Spreading the word online about “being prepared” for natural disasters

Nedra — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:49:47 +0000

Amy Sandoz, Owner of Ready Set Go Kits, has been helping people all over the world prepare for natural disasters. Her website offers different emergency kits for different situations (work, school, home, car), there’s even one for pets! Amy’s learned some great strategies to spread the word on her life-changing kits. Her interview highlights why businesses use social media and how connections are made that would have never happened in the past.

Who does your business help and why?

Ready Set Go Kits sells emergency preparedness products, specifically 72 hour emergency kits for homes, cars, schools and offices. The idea is to provide complete 72 hour kits so that families, schools and businesses can be prepared for emergencies quickly and easily without a lot of maintenance.

What social media tools have you experimented with? What’s worked the best?

Right now we have a blog (www.readysetgokitsblog.com), a Twitter page, a Facebook Fan page and a Facebook profile. I’m using su.pr to post to both my Twitter and Facebook profile and it tracks the clicks I receive from my posts. I am finding that my Twitter posts are receiving the steadiest forms of traffic back to my website.

How do you see social media changing businesses over the last year?

The open forum format of social media gives consumers a platform to voice grievances or give thanks that is highly influential. Businesses have had to devote manpower specifically to address this forum and create relationships with their clients on a more personal level. This outreach builds a new level of trust between a business and its clients that creates an obligation for businesses to start acting with social interests in mind.

Have any funny or touching connections you’ve made using social media?

I love how social media gives you the ability to share information and advice freely with strangers. One entrepreneurial Facebook group I joined had a member who sent out a blast asking for advice on a start-up website. I most likely will never meet this person in real-life but he was able to benefit from hearing about my struggles and successes without having to pay for a seminar, book or class. Exchanges like these make social media very powerful.

Building an audience with your blog: Dave Knows Portland

Nedra — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:18:47 +0000

Being a native Portlander, David Strom knows his way around PDX. Over the last year, he’s become an important online source for Portland events and festivals. Starting off slowly and building an audience, Dave started a blog called “Dave Knows: Portland‘ and has developed a great formula of providing the right content and keeping people coming back for more. Learn how he got started and where he’s headed with “Dave Knows: Portland“.

What inspired you to start your blog?

In Portland during the summer there’s something going on every weekend
- street fairs, beer fests, cultural festivals, etc. These are the
kinds of things that interest me. A few years ago I found myself
keeping track of upcoming events and coordinating my friends’
weekends, via email. Basic information about these kinds of events,
date and time maybe, could be culled from newspapers and other
websites, but other than for the bigger beer fests, it was really hard
to find information about them. I’ve noticed that if it doesn’t have a
corporate sponsor, most mainstream media will relegate an event to
some obscure, usually reader submitted, “community happenings”
section, or not mention it at all.

One day in Spring 2007, I was hanging out with friends when someone
asked “Hey, when’s the Polish Festival?” Another friend, a long time
recipient of my weekend coordinating emails, immediately answered
“Dave knows!” That was the Eureka moment. I was working in web
development at the time, and knew setting up a blog was fairly simple.
I already had the basic infrastructure for the blog already, in the
form of bookmarked webpages and my email archive. In addition to my
interest in festivals, street fairs, and beer, I have an insatiable
curiosity about Portland, pinball, soccer, accordion music, poutine,
and other esoteric things that, by mainstream media standards, are too
obscure for them to waste much time on. I knew there was a niche in
Portland for these sorts of things.

What’s been the best/most effective way to promote it?

Definitely, the best and most effective way to promote the blog has
been to understand and embrace blog culture. I always credit and link
to other bloggers’ work if it in anyway influences my post (something
traditional journalists are loathe to do – they don’t want to miss the
appearance of having a scoop!). It’s the polite thing to do, it builds
up camaraderie in the blogging community, and frankly, it helps us all
get better google rankings.

I’ve experimented with reddit and stumbleupon, and some other local
and topical aggregators, but self promotion is usually discouraged on
these sorts of sites, and ultimately I’m happier with steady, somewhat
predictable, growth than occasional weird spikes in traffic.

Right now the blog has some bus ads running (a fabulous birthday gift
from my awesome girlfriend!
http://portland.daveknows.org/2009/12/18/dave-knows-on-the-back-of-the-bus/),
but it’s hard to identify visitors to the blog who visit because
they’ve seen a bus ad. Traffic has been up the past few months; I
like to think some of that is due to the ads.

How has your experience been being a blogger in the Twitter community,
what have you learned?

Twitter has proven to be a great boon to my blog. It’s not entirely
frowned upon to self promote – if you’re measured about it.
Ultimately people can just stop following you if your Twitter habits
irritate them. But of course, you don’t want to irritate them. When
I have a new post I announce it on Twitter, but that’s about the only
self promotion I do. Lots of the folks I follow on Twitter have blogs
or other creative projects, so I get updates on those in real time,
and I can retweet the things that interest me; similar to blogging,
there’s a Twitter ethic of retweeting with credit.

What’s the future of Dave Knows Portland, where do you want to be in a year?

The blog has opened some doors for me that I would never had expected.
I’ve been a guest on Portland Sucks and Savor
Portland. I’ve been asked for interviews [by
you!]. It’s been somewhat disconcerting for me, as an introvert, to
find that in some circles my alter ego, “Dave Knows”, is a
“personality”, and considered a source of “news”.

My girlfriend and I are constantly brainstorming for ways to maybe
possibly someday make a living from our blogs (Heather blogs at
http://mile73.com and we share the blogging duties at
http://portlandpoutine.com), and we have a few long term ideas I’m not
at liberty to discuss I just started offering advertising space
on my blog (http://portland.daveknows.org/advertise/), but so far the
blog barely makes about $1/day from Google Adsense. Over the next
year the staples of my blog will remain events, beer, and soccer news.
But my blog posts on fellow Portlanders’ creative projects have been
fun to work on, and are well received. I plan to do a lot more posts
like them in the future.

Engaging customers with a pair of earrings

Nedra — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:43:16 +0000

Oh, my, how the internet has changed our lives. Who would have imagined years ago that we could construct beautiful pieces of gemstone jewelry through a website? Gemkitty has tapped into this niche and has become a destination for ladies to create their own stylized jewelry.

How do they attract followers to come make a necklace? Check out my interview with Arwa Jumkawala, one of the owners.

What’s your business?

Gemkitty, Jewelry Designed by You is a online jewelry retailer, where you can customize your own gemstone necklace with a few mouse clicks. Your design is then handcrafted especially for you.

When did you start using social media and why?

As a web-based business, we knew we needed to be involved in social media in order to truly engage with our audience. Primarily, we use Twitter and Facebook, which we set up as part of our launch. Social media gives us a chance to have conversations that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, and the real-time nature of the feedback has been fantastic.

Has social media changed your business?

Yes! In addition to being able to build relationships with our customers, it’s also helped me keep connected with fellow entrepreneurs. And it’s proved really effective at keeping me in the loop with jewelry fashion trends and local events.

How to you envision social media changing in the future?

I think companies engaging in social media will become smarter at actively engaging, rather than just broadcasting messages to their audience. We’re already seeing that trend, but it’s surprising to me how many people still don’t seem to understand why fans might be annoyed if all you tell them is: buy me, buy me, buy me.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?

Recently, we wanted to thank our earliest Facebook fans for their ongoing support. So we messaged them and offered them two pairs of earrings for free. No strings attached. One pair was for them and one for a friend of their choosing. We received a lot of positive feedback, including emails from fans sharing who they decided to give their second pair to and why. Our fans seems to really appreciate the ability to treat a friend and we got a chance to expose our brand.

Local magazine uses social media to reach audience

Nedra — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:27:27 +0000

Brian C. Johnson is the man behind the local Portland magazine: Mix. Mix is a great mixup of food and drink, interviewing restaurants aimed at foodies, sharing recipes, and covering “what’s new” to consume. How does a magazine use social media to help broadcast its news?

What’s your business?

MIX Magazine, Portland’s #1 Food + Drink magazine

When did you start using social media and why?

Began in the summer of 09′ primarily to reach out to those interested in the food + drink category, have dialogue with them and encourage them to read our
publication.

Has social media changed your business?

It has helped us as publishers to have a better understanding of our audience, so I would say it has changed it yes.

How to you envision social media changing in the future?

It will need to continue to be relevant to the consumer. This is the greatest
challenge for any media of our day.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?

We recently did a story on a particular cocktail featuring a local
distiller and a bartender who served this drink at a particular
restaurant in town. We posted the story on Facebook and the restaurant
told us they had so many new customers come in to order the cocktail
that they ran out!

How artists engage in social media and touch lives

Nedra — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:52:47 +0000

Bridget Benton is a super busy lady. She’s a mixed-media artist, art teacher/facilitator and creativity trainer – supporting people in the care and feeding of their own creative spark. If you need inspiration or instructions for numerous art projects, check out her website: Eyes Aflame. Bridget and I crossed paths when I attended a mentoring session offered by a local business education program. Thanks to Bridget’s mentorship and encouragement, I took charge of my passion for social communication for businesses and educated myself about social media by attending classes, etc.

What’s your business?

I’m an artist and an art teacher – I work in a wide range of media, so my
teaching isn’t very media-centric; it’s much more about process. I really
believe that everyone is creative, and I love to help people find that spark
in themselves during my workshops. I work with adults – there are a lot of
great folks out there working with kids. I feel like my job is to help
those grown-ups who did have a bad art experience as kids rediscover their
joy in making stuff!

When do you start using social media and why?

I first joined Facebook with some reluctance because I had classmates in
grad school who were using it to stay in touch; and I signed up on Twitter
because a lot of the people whose blogs I followed where also tweeting, so
it seemed like a good way to stay in touch and find out what was going on!
What I discovered was that Facebook connected me to a lot of my friends and
family, and that Twitter kept me in touch with a lot of resources and events
in the arts, crafts, and creative community.

Has social media changed your business?

The way that I market my classes and my artwork is constantly shifting; I
used to rely a lot more on flyers and list serves. At the heart of it,
though, I believe that marketing is about building relationships.

Social media, especially Facebook and Twitter are a new way for me to build
relationships – and it makes keeping my friends and family up to date on the
classes I’m offering and the shows I’m in a lot easier. My friends and
family are on my e-mail newsletter list, but a lot of them don’t really read
it. This gives us an easy and low-key way to talk about our mutual creative
endeavors.

When I tweet and post on Facebook, I try to consider whether the information
I’m sharing has some interest or entertainment factor – I ask myself, “Will
this be of interest to or entertain my potential clients, my friends and
family?” My clients are like friends who are looking to get something very
specific out of our relationship – creative inspiration for their personal
and professional lives. One of the things I discovered by engaging more
fully in social media is that my friends and family often look to me for the
same thing – they get curious about my new artwork, or the new classes I’m
offering. They’re just as interested in the resources I pass on about the
entrepreneurial climate or a great craft project I found on-line. Now I
don’t feel so embarrassed about “marketing” to my friends and family,
because it’s just one one more component of my life that I share, and it’s
one more component of our relationship. And frankly, that makes it a lot
easier to “market” to my clients, too, when I consider that much of why
they’ll choose to take a class from me is because they feel comfortable with
me or identify with me in some way.

What are you looking forward to social media changing in the future?

I almost have to laugh at this one – I’m not much of an early adopter when
it comes to new technologies, and have no idea how things might shift in the
future. I do know that blogging and engaging in social media is keeping me
in touch with people all over the country – so one of the big questions for
me now is how to offer courses, services, and creative inspiration to those
people outside of my immediate geographic area. There are lots of ways to
do it – e-books, on-line classes, etc. I just have to figure out the way to
do it that fits best with my personality, style, and mission.

conversing with reviewers: Yelp Best Practices

Nedra — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:37:08 +0000

Yelp has been a breakthrough in reviewing businesses online. Never before could you look up restaurants or dentists in your home town and see how others had experience with them.

There are some ups and downs that come with this responsibility of reviews, especially on the business owner’s end. Yelp is set up so that anyone can sign up for a yelp account and review different businesses. On the business end, a business can either create an account and encourage clients/customers to write reviews – or – a business can claim it’s account if Yelpers (yelp users) have already start reviewing on their own.

Pink Sherbet Photography

Here’s when things get tricky. Let’s say you own a restaurant and you have an account on Yelp and over the past few months, you’ve gotten some reviews. Most of them are 3 and 4 stars, but you also got some one or two 2 star reviews. At first, you might feel defensive and reactive about how the customer reviewed your establishment and want to react. I’ve read business owner’s reaction to low ratings and it can go either way.

Some business owner choose to use this opportunity as a frustration outlet and lash out at the customer, blaming them and accusing them of behaving badly, ordering the wrong food, having too high of expectations and overall, being defensive. This defeats the whole point of a site like Yelp. On the flip side, I’ve seen some business owners react openly to negative reviews, responding to the customer and asking them to give them feedback to improve the experience. It simply could have been a bad day or night for the business or the staff and it came through to the customer. That happens, but I think it’s so important for the business owner to see how they can be a part of this communication process and turn the corner. Often times, once the reviewer has communicated with the business owner, they will update their review.

The message is simply – don’t lose out on gaining a customer for life. Bad reviews happen but business owners have the power to turn them around. Your customers are huge part of the new wave of advertising, there’s nothing more powerful than hearing a recommendation from a friend to a friend. It’s magical and it can spread like wildfire.

Being authentic & sharing through Twitter

Nedra — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:40:26 +0000

Some folks are really great at connecting with people. Shona Lepis from Eye Design Studio has figured it out. I got to know her through Twitter and have really enjoyed the links and projects she’s shared. How can you personally brand yourself through Twitter?

What’s your business?
I have a boutique design studio called Eye Design Studio. Eye Design Studio creates artisan handcrafted design for web and print. We work with lifestyle brands to build their business with creative design solutions. We work with a lot of small to medium sized business to help them build their brand. Eye Design Studio focuses on Visual Identity suites (logo design, custom Web site design, branded social media, email templates, business cards, letterhead).

When did you start using social media and why?
I happen to be a bit of a technology geek and love to learn and try out new things. I was at first skeptical about how social media. I decided to keep current and relevant I really needed to just jump in and embrace social media. I have to say I love it and find that it has been an amazing resource. I love to share links and useful tools and resources I find.

Has social media changed your business?
Social media has allowed me to build my personal and business brand online. By frequently sharing tips, design projects I’m working on,etc. People get to know me a bit more personally so they know my design style. I’m a bit personal in what I share but believe if you are authentic people are interested and get to know me a little more so they can tell if my design style would be a good fit for them.

What are you looking forward to social media changing in the future?
I think social media will just become part of our social fabric and everyday life. I think as technology keeps moving it’s exciting to see how many new tools are there and that “there is an app for that”. I love how the tools keep us connected and like we are part of a community. I work with an international team of with colleges in Paris, France and Bali, Indonesia and the tools make it possible.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?
In fact I do have a funny antidote. I was recently at a Halloween party of a designer friend. The invite asked that we bring a dish to share. I had just gone to another holiday party with the food and of course tweeted about it. (Going to a pumpkin carving party w/ pumpkin cheesecake dip served in a carved pumpkin w/ ginger snaps. http://yfrog.com/iyv1lj) When I got to the party someone said hey “I think I follow you on twitter, I saw you post about the dip.”. It was a funny moment and a great example of how real life connections are made in person from sharing and building a community online.

Reaching out to small businesses -what’s the best way?

Nedra — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:25:46 +0000

If you are active on BizNik in the Portland area, you’ve probably seen some good articles and activity from Kaya Singer. Kaya has a very unique background, she’s owned a pottery business, been a family therapist and is now a small business coach. She has recently launched her book, The Entrepreneur’s Handbook to Money & Freedom.

It’s impressive how active Kaya is in communicating with businesses through Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Read below and learn how powerful online communication can be for a business coach.

What’s your business?

Awakening Business Solutions – I offer tools, process and coaching programs to solo business owners to help them overcome obstacles and develop a business mind-set.

When did you start using social media? What made you decide to try it?

I began social media as soon as it was available. I was on e-mail before most people. Communication is my focus and I loved the immediacy and the ability to create community with people world-wide.

How has social media affected your business?

It has allowed me to market to people world-wide and develop strong communities and relationships with people I would never have met. It has allowed me to put articles all over the world and make a huge difference in people’s lives.

What is one tool that you use the most?

Not just one. My LinkedIn group – Awakening Women in Business, my blog, Facebook, Twitter, BizNik, EZine articles and I am getting ready to move forward developing a membership site.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?

I was part of an e-mail group called “Powerful Women Entrepreneurs“. There were hundreds of women and it ran as a Yahoo group. The woman who facilitated it decided to suddenly quit so there was no place for all these women to go. On a whim- one morning when I was on LinkedIn, I began “Awake Women in Business” and I invited all the women from the other group. Many of them came and then I also invited other women I knew and posted it on Facebook and Twitter. It was active and involved almost immediately! I love it as I am a natural facilitator, and it is a way to build community with women in business. It is also giving me some training for my new membership site that is coming soon. I love working with women too so this also fulfills that need.

Living a non-conventional lifestyle ain’t easy

Nedra — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:11:54 +0000

I first discovered Chris Guillebeau at a social media training earlier this year – I checked out his blog and really liked his messages. Very inspiring and against the grain, they grab your heart strings and give you hope to leap from the normal way of thinking and challenge yourself. His website has lots of goodies such as “279 Days to Overnight Success“. I was lucky enough to chat with him about his application of social media to share and explain his ideas.

What’s your business?

I help people live unconventional lives.

When did you start using social media and why?

I started right when I started my site, The Art of Non-Conformity. It seemed like a good idea to jump on the train.

Has social media changed your business?

I wouldn’t say it’s changed the business; I’d say it is the business. I write for free, but enough people are interested in my premium things that I can make a living. It’s all due to this thing we call the social web.

What are you looking forward to social media changing in the future?

Not sure on that… I’m pretty happy with the current status.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?
Air New Zealand sent me to the Cook Islands because of people who recommended me on Twitter. About half of my media coverage comes out of social web contacts. I meet people all over the world whenever I travel now, but I feel like I already know them because we’ve connected online first.