How about some inspiration?

Here are some industry leaders who have already updated their Facebook business page to Timeline and are showcasing their credibility, niche and specialty while increasing their exposure.  Enjoy!

Upgrade tip:

• Choose wisely.  Consider a product shot, gorgeous photo of your niche market or top selling destination.  Think about what will attract your perfect clients.
• Think Inspriation and Aspiration.
• Be certain to use photos that are yours, are royalty free or that you’ve purchased from a reputable on-line source.
  • Consider I-Stock or Fotolia
• There are a few things Facebook doesn’t allow in your Cover Photo:
  • Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
  • Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
  • References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
  • Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

Tips for Travel and Tourism Pros:

1. You may consider changing your cover photo to highlight destinations during their peak selling period.  For example, in fall when you’re selling sun vacations change your cover photo to sunny destination photos you’ve taken, purchased or acquired the rights to use.
2. Travel Agents & Tour Operators may want their cover shot to speak to their current clients as well as potential new clients by using photos of people enjoying a focal point of your business.  For example, if you provide cultural tours how about a photo of group participants enthralled by a private docent led museum tour.  If your focus is culinary tours, how about a photo of a group entranced by a chef-led cooking demonstration.  As a travel agent, you may consider showing yourself or your clients enjoying your top selling destinations.
3. Highlight the destination you’re focusing on in your regular Facebook posting calendar.  For example, if you’re talking about Italy on your page and highlighting things to do, fabulous museums and cycling tours, change your cover photo to match the theme and show guests of yours pedalling thru the beauty of Tuscany.
4. Travel agents may also want to focus on aspects of their marketing mix.  Perhaps feature a photo of a bride during the prime wedding booking season.
5. Consider focusing on photos of people enjoying the main parts of an attraction or resort with family and friends.  Be certain that you obtain any releases you may need to use photos of people.
6. If you sell dinner shows or specific venues you may want to show groups of people participating in and enjoying the entertainment.  Future clients will be drawn to people who look like their demographic laughing and participating in the fun.

Encore Destination Weddings and Honeymoons

Rome with Us Travel

Cruise Planners

Linda Dancer

Jazz On The Road

Donna Salerno-Travel

Sherry Laskin

Cruise Maven

Journeys by Jo

Travel Tidbits by Carol (Thomas Cook Escape Travel)

Global Travel & Cruises

Sun and Dreams Travel

Central Travel

Tselana Travel

The New Breed of Travel Agents

Sports Travel and Tours

What does your new page look like?  I’m interested in hearing and seeing your successes. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  You’re welcome to post your photos on my Facebook page and I’ll make my best effort to comment and shed some light on your choice.

How about some inspiration?

Here are some industry leaders who have already updated their Facebook business page to Timeline and are showcasing their product and increasing their exposure.  Enjoy!

Upgrade tip:

• Choose wisely.  Consider a product shot, gorgeous photo of your property or people using your service.  Think about what will attract your perfect clients.
• Be certain to use photos that are yours, are royalty free or that you’ve purchased from a reputable on-line source.
  • Consider I-Stock or Fotolia
• There are a few things Facebook doesn’t allow in your Cover Photo:
  • Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
  • Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
  • References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
  • Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

Tips for Travel and Tourism Pros:

1. You may consider changing your cover photo to highlight destinations during their peak selling period.  For example, in fall when you’re selling sun vacations change your cover photo to sunny destination photos you’ve taken, purchased or acquired the rights to use.
2. Tour Operators may want their cover shot to speak to their current clients as well as potential new clients by using photos of people enjoying a focal point of your business.  For example, if you provide cultural tours how about a photo of group participants enthralled by a private docent led museum tour.  If your focus is culinary tours, how about a photo of a group entranced by a chef-led cooking demonstration.
3. Highlight the destination you’re focusing on in your regular Facebook posting calendar.  For example, if you’re talking about Italy on your page and highlighting things to do, fabulous museums and cycling tours, change your cover photo to match the theme and show guests of yours pedalling thru the beauty of Tuscany.
4. As a hotel, you may consider capturing the attention of visitors by showcasing a different property each week or month based on selling patterns and/or availability.
5. Hotels may also want to focus on aspects of their marketing mix and feature a photo of a bride during the prime wedding booking season.  How about focusing on corporate meetings, conventions or conferences during the time you’d like to boost this business.
6. Attractions can focus on photos of people enjoying the main parts of the attraction with family and friends.  Be certain that you obtain any releases you may need to use photos of people.
7. Restaurants and dinner show venues may want to show groups of people participating in and enjoying the entertainment.  Future guests and group buyers will be drawn to people who look like their demographic laughing and participating in the fun.
8. Edit the names and graphics of the apps/tabs that appear on your page.

Industry Timeline Examples

Starwood

A Loft Hotels

Ritz Carlton

Barcelo

Globus

Tauck Tours

Sports Travel and Tours

Now you can easily harness the power of video and combine it with e-mail in one simple tool.

Imagine being able to send an e-mail with your video (not just as a link), but with the player right in your e-mail. That’s right! Your clients open your e-mail and see your smiling face in the message box. WOW! I’ll bet they’ll see you in a whole different light! (yes, the pun is intended)

Marketing Tactics
1. Introduce yourself to new clients
2. Market your upcoming group departures
3. Showcase a particular feature of your hotel or attraction
4. Send a thank you, birthday or welcome home message to your clients.
5. Bonus! Welcome a group leader or potential client to your hotel, restaurant or attraction.

Check out Eyejot! It’s the most fun I’ve had with video e-mailing in a long time. Once you sign-up you can choose the free or paid version and begin creating your own video. All you need is your computer with a web-cam. Now there’s also an app for the I-Phone.

Here’s what the create screen looks like:

With the free version you can send an unlimited number of 5 minute messages to any e-mail address. Spread the word socially using the embed code or URL link to paste into your blog, website, Facebook or Twitter. With an upgrade you can even send documents. Vimeo offers a similar service.

Once your client receives your video e-mail they can easily reply for free!

How cool would it be to send an Eyejot to a potential cruise client direct from your next ship inspection?

Impress your potential clients with an Eyejot after a crucial meeting.

Hoteliers are using Eyejot to follow up with group leaders prior to arrival.

Attractions use Eyejot to introduce themselves to new Tour Operators. Think about using your mobile device and filming your Eyejot in front of a signature part of your attraction.

Recording Tips
1. Make a test recording and check the background of your video.

• a. Is it a clutter-free area?

• b. Does it reflect a scene that would entice your clients to book with you?

• c. Can the viewer see part of your hotel lobby, attraction or restaurant that’s crucial to their decision making process?

2. Test your voice and adjust your distance from the screen or mobile device
3. Have some fun and let your personality shine!

What successes have you had with video email?

Check out my Facebook page for more social media, marketing and business development tips, tricks and tactics.

Do you want a new way to visually display your credibility?

If you answered YES to either of these questions, Pinterest is a solution for you!

This new photo and idea sharing site is the platform where users Pin items of Interest to a board on their page.  Think tack board with high-tech pins!  Others then follow, repin, add, Like and comment.  It’s a distinctive new way to spread the word visually about upcoming group departures, areas of specialty and your top selling destinations.

Last August I began hearing about Pinterest at an industry function and found that there was a groundswell surfacing for DMO’s and CVB’s.  Now is the time for travel agents to focus on this creatively popular social tool!

Build Credibility Strategically

To best showcase your business you’ll want to strategically think thru these questions and write down the answers:

#1   What are my top selling destinations?  List 3-5

#2  What group departures do I have planned?

o   Focus on current offerings as well as potential future tours

 #3:  What activities do my clients enjoy?

o   Are they foodies?

 o   Do they live for adventure travel?

 o   Are they museum buffs or beach buffs?  

#4 What Specialty or Niche markets do I serve?

 o   Cruise

 o   Luxury

 o   Family travel

 Visual Showcases

Once you’ve written down the answers to the above questions begin to planning your boards to capture attention of your current clients and potential new clients.  Create boards that will appeal to clients who fit into the categories you’ve described above.

For example, cruise clients would love photos of ships that you frequently sell. Focus on activities and amenity shots that may not be available on the cruise line website. More importantly, they’d love to see you aboard these ships enjoying the activities, a photo of a child taking a belly flop into the pool or you chatting with the captain or crew members.  Talk about credibility building along with fun!

Your Foodie clients would love to see a board of signature dishes from top new restaurants.  How about including recipes?

If your next group is departing for Italy think about the power of showcasing the hotels, restaurants and activities you’re including in this tour.  This will give your people a chance to see this trip come alive.

Here are some more tips:

#5   Feature a board for each specialty you promote; weddings, soft adventure, cruising

#6    If you focus on wine or culinary tours feature a board for each region; California Wine Country, Cooking in Thailand, Winemaking in Italy

• How about including recipes to accompany the food photos.

#7   Health and Wellness specialty can be a board to itself focusing on top spas on land and sea

• Here you could also include fitness tips offered by spas you feature

#8   ‘Pin’ your last fam trip and increase your credibiity

#9   How about creating a travel trivia board listing little known or quirky museums, shops or entertainment.

 Early Adopters = Market Leadership

 Here are some Visitors Bureaus and DMO’s that are early adopters of this new engagement tool.  When you’re looking at their sites notice the names they’ve created for their boards.  I love the HA! Board on the Wyoming page.  As a colleague says “Quirk Works”! 

• Experience Columbus (expcols)
• Explore St. Louis (explorestlouis1)
• Glacier County Tourism (glaciermt)
• Hawaii (GoHawaii)
• Indiana Tourism (visitindiana)
• Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri  (funlakemo)
• New Mexico Tourism (nmtourism)
• North Dakota Tourism (ndtourism)
• See Monterey   (seemonterey)

Travel Agent Examples

Sherry Laskin has done a fabulous job, in my opinion, of highlighting her top destinations while adding some fun with the board on European dogs and silly license plates. Her branding and personality shine thru in her profile statement as well as in the naming of her boards.

Lisa Sheldon is another prime example of how a travel pro can brand and boost credibility using Pinterest. I believe her profile description does a great job of branding.

Deb Watt is beginning to grow her boards.  I especially like her board “Been There” as it speaks to her credibility as a travel pro.

SEO Enhancement

Pinterest adds to your SEO by giving you another searchable channel of communication along with boosting credibility.

The cool thing is that Pinners can email an image URL from a Pin or share the content as a Facebook Like and post on Twitter.  All this means that your message will spread more quickly and increase your virality and reach.

Best Practices for Travel Agents

#10  Re-Pin and like other people’s photos and use a variety of sources for your own boards

#11  Tap into the resources of your suppliers, DMO’s and Tour Operators

#12   Optimize!  Add a keyword rich caption to each photo along with your website or Twitter username

#13   Add other content to the description boxes as you Pin.   Some Pinners get creative and add a recipe for a signature dish at a restaurant while others add a link to more information on their website.

How to add a Pin

Bonus Tips

*  Ask your social and web fans to pin your blog, photos and recipes to their Pinterest boards

*  Get involved with your followers and avoid blatant self-promotion

*  Seek out and ‘follow’ those that are pinning and re-pinning your content or related content

As a travel pro, here are ­­­­­­­­­­3 tips and tricks, plus an important bonus tactic, to keep you ahead of the game.  I know, you’re probably overwhelmed by bookings, accounting and keeping up with supplier changes.  Now you wonder how you’ll manage to tackle another Facebook change.  I’ve put together a quick update for you with how-to’s and strategy designed for the travel and tourism pro.

#1 – Your new Cover Photo

This exciting change gives you the opportunity to showcase your specialty visually!  From a marketing standpoint this is awesome news!  You can now highlight:

• •Your best-selling destination
• •Upcoming group departure
• •Your latest fam trip destination and focus on your credibility
• •Photos of people enjoying your services (you may want to get a release from those pictured)

Tech stuff:  This new cover photo needs to be 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall.  Most people choose a high-definition photo that captures the essence of their brand, the business model and their key specialty.

Tip:  don’t use a photo that doesn’t belong to you and follow Facebook’s rules on cover photos.

How to add your cover photo:

If you don’t have a cover photo yet, log into your business page and you’ll see a bar at the top that will walk you thru setting up your new page.  You can choose where to upload a photo from, see example

If you already have uploaded a cover photo and would like to change it, hover over “Change Photo” when you’re logged in as an Admin on your page.

Tip:  you can reposition the photo up and down, but not sideways.  Be certain to do any cropping prior to uploading your photo.  See example below:

How to change a cover shot

Here’s an example of a travel consultant who has used the cover photo extremely well to highlight her business:

Journey’s by Jo example of Cover Photo

Tips for Travel Pros:

1. You may consider changing your cover photo to highlight destinations during their peak selling period.  For example, in fall when you’re selling ski vacations, change your cover photo to ski photos you’ve taken, purchased or acquired the rights to use.
2. Highlight the destination you’re focusing on in your regular Facebook posting calendar.  For example, if you’re talking about Italy on your page and highlighting things to do, fabulous museums and cycling tours, change your cover photo to match the theme.

#2 Messages

Great news!  Your clients can now send you private messages in addition to posting on your Wall.  This gives you a chance to have a private conversation about bookings, dates or concerns without the Facebook world knowing.

You can turn this feature on or off from your Admin dashboard by clicking Manage Permissions.

The message feature is enabled by default.  To disable it, click and remove the check-mark.  As a page Admin  you can reply to a message, but not send one to a fan.

The reverse of this is also true, you can now privately message another page owner.  Think of the power of messaging a supplier.

 

#3 Highlight posts on your Timeline

Imagine your best photos and videos you’ve included in posts being spread out across the width of your wall.  What a great way to showcase photos from your last fam trip and visually entice clients to book with you.

When you ‘Highlight’ a post by clicking on the star (see example below) it enlarges the post to the size of the bottom post in this example.  (see arrow) Talk about attention-grabbing!

How to Highlight a post

 

Travel pros love the benefit of being able to showcase upcoming group departures, packages that are hot-sellers as well as unique destinations that will excite and inspire clients.

BONUS!   Pin to the top of your Page

Do you ever wish your best posts could stay at the top of your page?  Leverage that article you’ve written about an upcoming group departure so it doesn’t get hidden in the flow of other posts.

Now you can ‘Pin’ a story to the top of your page for a week.  Making it stick to the top of your page gives you the chance to fully market a unique product, highlight a new destination or a special you’re providing to your clients.

Here’s how it works:

• •Find the post you’d like to appear at the top of your page.
• •Hover and click the pencil icon at the top of the pos
• •Click ‘Pin to Top’
• •A small ribbon-like graphic will appear at the top of your post indicating it’s been ‘Pinned’

 

How to Pin a Post

Savvy travel marketers are using this feature to Pin stories, promotions, offers and events to maximize their visibility.  Only 1 pinned story is allowed at one time.  You can change the pinned messages at any time.

The potential for pinning is powerful!

Imagine:

1. pinning a top suppliers’ newest product to the top of your page
2. prominently featuring your next group departure
3. showcasing an article you’ve written about your latest travel discovery
4. providing a link to your website or on-line booking engine

This is just the beginning of a series of articles on these changes at Facebook and how they will affect you.

For a quick cheat-sheet, Facebook has put this together to highlight the newest features.

If you run out of time for your own social media presence, remember I’ll do the work for you! 

Build your site?  YES

Maintain your site with multiple postings?  YES

Coach you on your social marketing?  YES

Connect with me online

Join me socially:  Facebook, Twitter , LinkedIn and Pinterest

Market Your Events

Do you want 3 new ways to market your events and tours? In this audio podcast we’ll explore the power of Facebook Events and how to create them. We’ll look in depth at the power of LinkedIn Events. Don’t miss the last part where we delve into secrets of integrating new and traditional media.

Check out this short audio podcast. I’m interested in hearing your success stories. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Twitter Mistakes

140 characters may seem too short to make a mistake, yet here are a couple common things to avoid.

1. Twitter is about making personal connections.  Avoid being too ‘corporate’ or ‘sales-ey’
2. Don’t forget to respond to direct questions quickly.  Check out your Twitter feed daily for mentions (@) and search your company name.  This will quickly allow you to find conversations and join them quickly.  You can even set up your Twitter feed so that it appears on your screen as a live stream.
3. Some people only post pre-scheduled tweets.  Don’t forget to join the live conversations happening in our industry.  You’ll be amazed at what you’ll learn and who you’ll meet.
4. Your photo or logo is imperative!  If you’ve not uploaded a photo or logo, Twitter will insert an ‘egg’ for you!  How impersonal is that!   People, especially your clients, need to see YOU!
5. Participate in Twitter Chats.  You’ll have a chance to meet fascinating people and learn from your peers.  I find that I meet so many interesting people and begin to follow them.  The bonus is that some follow back.

If you’re interested in tips & techniques to begin your foray into Twitter or grow your following, we’ll cover essential strategy and best practices for the travel & tourism industry in this audio podcast.

Check out this relevant short audio podcast.  I’m interested in hearing your success stories. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Facebook Questions

The “Questions” feature on your Facebook page is a secret tool to easily and quickly add a customized question directly to your page.

You’ll find this feature on the Share bar on the top of your Wall.

I find this underused tool generates more attention because the photos of your respondents appear beside their answers.

Question Strategy

When you leverage this tool to learn from your clients you’ll better understand their interests and upcoming travel dreams.  You may ask them questions like:

1. What’s your favorite city to visit?
2. What you’re favorite beach?
3. Which would you rather do on vacation…lay by the pool, visit an ancient historical site, hike, learn about a unique culture, take classes in cooking or wine tasting.
4. If you could be on vacation tomorrow, where would you go?

Consider seeding your answers and including YOUR top selling destinations or upcoming group departures. Then follow up this question with posts on the destinations or activities that are most appealing to your audience.

For industry examples of contests, polls and landing pages, click here

Think about the potential!  Tour Operators can ask what destinations clients would like to visit.  Hotels could have guests vote on a new color scheme.  Attractions could test out interest in a new feature.  Travel agents can poll clients to learn what they’d like to buy!

I challenge you to start engaging your fans now. Start with the warm welcome of a landing page, entice them with a contest and discover their desires through polls.

What questions have you asked your clients recently?  Which questions do you need to ask?

For other tools to leverage your business success on Facebook, check out 3 Tools and 6 Contest Best Practices, 2 Polling Tools.  Jumpstart your fan engagement! and 1 BIG way to Gain Attention for your Social Pages. Land more clients!

Let’s keep the conversation relevant. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Polls

Want to Jumpstart your clients Facebook experience?  Want to land more new fans?

Polls are a powerful way to engage people as you’re asking their opinion…what person doesn’t want to express their likes and opinions.

The key is to ask relevant questions that will help you understand your audience and then aid you in putting together relevant posts as well as new tours or additions to your attraction, hotel or destination.  It’s a bit like dating; the better questions you ask the better you get to know your date!

Facebook has a number of intriguing polling applications to make your queries pop on your page and help you understand the analytics of the answers.

Polling Tools

“Polls” application.

Download the app by searching “Polls” in the Search box or clicking on the above link.  You’ll find a dashboard to fill in the blanks and create your poll. As you continue thru the process you’ll be provided with a Viral Dashboard that gives you a variety of methods to promote and spread your poll to your fans and others in your circle of influence.

This would be a great way for a Travel pro to identify which destinations clients would like to visit.  Hotels and attractions can use polling to figure out which amenities or features are prized by guests, thereby enabling the company to build on its successes.

Advantages and Disadvantages:

1. Easy to use
2. Invite 8 people to participate at a time
3. The feature to publish on Fan pages you ‘like’ is useful if you want to engage a wider audience.  I believe one would want to be an active participant on a Fan page before you put a poll onto another page.
4. The Direct Link is really helpful if you’d like to send an e-mail blast to your clients and invite them to your Facebook page and the poll.

“Poll Daddy” application

Images and photos are a huge part of the draw to this polling application.  Imagine if you were going to poll your clients on their favorite beach and you were to add a photo of each of their choices.  Powerful!  This is a great opportunity to learn what is most attractive to your clients and what you can emphasize in your next newsletter, e-mail blast or conversation.

Advantages and Disadvantages:

1. Add an image when you enter your question.  As we all know photos and any type of graphic will draw attention and encourage people to act. Tour Operators will love this!
2. Customize the answers available in your poll and add an image with each answer.
3. The next cool feature is that you can select who you’d like to see your poll.
4. If you’re interested in expanding your client base (and who isn’t) you can check ‘Friends of Friends’ so that you virally reach a wider audience.
5. In addition, you have a chance to write a comment about this poll thereby bringing some context to your question.
6. Invite as many friends as you’d like!
7. Add and delete polls on a dashboard

These Facebook applications will make your page visually interesting and stand out from other pages your clients may browse.

The key benefit to polls is that once your client answers a poll or interacts in any way with your page, their friends will see their involvement.  This is an easy way for you to attract the attention of friends of your fans.  What a way to leverage your new business leads!

For other tools to leverage your business success on Facebook, check out 3 Tools and 6 Contest Best Practices and 1 BIG way to Gain Attention for your Social Pages.   Land more clients!

What questions have you asked when polling your clients?

Keep in touch as I’m interested in hearing of your successes. Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Contests

Contests are quickly becoming an engagement tool perfectly suited to our industry.  See what’s happening by searching “Contests” on

Facebook for a list of contests, sweepstakes & promotions

When you consider developing your own contest here are some of the platforms that are Facebook approved;

• Wildfire apps,
• Offerpop
• Votigo

Facebook has very stringent rules on contests and sweepstakes, so please make certain to use an approved contest building platform and carefully read the fine print.

Pricing varies as do inclusions such as mandatory liking and uploading ease.

When a client of mine wanted to generate more ‘likes’ as well as user generated photos for future advertising,  we created a custom landing page (see the previous blog post 1 BIG way to Gain Attention for your Social Pages.  Land more clients!)

for their Facebook page and their website.  A new banner and long profile on these sites was created to tease and intrigue fans.

In the first 5 days of the contest 60 new ‘likes’ were generated as well as 40 photo entrants.  It’s an exciting way to take your social presence viral.

Best Practices

1. Plan your goals and strategy
2. Integrate your strategy across all your sites; website, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn.
3. Powerful Call to Action!  Relate your call to action to your goal.
   1. Create a photo contest that focuses on a specific new tour you’re promoting.
   2. Make it FUN & Easy!
   3. Measure & monitor your successes.
      1. Measure click-thru rates
      2. Assess sales as related to your contest
      3. Track new ‘likes’
      4. Use Page Insights or another monitoring tool
      5. Leverage your involvement in other social platforms.
         1. Tweet about your contest using an appropriate #
         2. Put info onto your LinkedIn page
         3. Join conversations on Twitter and Facebook to spread the word of your contest.

Generating more ‘likes’ and, most importantly, more fan interaction takes hard work, the right tools and marketing savvy.  When you check out these tools, plan your marketing calendar and pull the pieces together your fans will multiply!  There is magic in that!

What contest platform have you used?  What was your opinion of it’s ease and simplicity?

What other tips and best practices would you add to this conversation?

In the next post, we’ll look at polling tools. Subscribe to this blog to make sure you don’t miss out!

Let’s keep the conversation going! Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn