Apparently, “that which does not kill us only makes us stronger”, so in a time when budgets are tightening and consumer confidence is declining an unprecedented emphasis is placed on creativity and differentiation.

And a few brands are raising to the occasion and using their, shall we say assets, to gain attention in new, authentic and honest ways.  Whether or not you would deem these strategies effective or complete flops they are at the very least unexpected.

25 years and still red hot

The story and brand attributes of Virgin Atlantic are widely known, and that is precisely why this ad, celebrating what at times seemed like an impossible milestone, is so effective.  See for yourself:

Anniversary commercial

However, you do not have to take my word for it, Richard Branson, explains his airline’s success:

Who’d have thought 25 years ago that Virgin Atlantic would be the leading airline player it is today?

Now, we use 38 aircraft to fly six million people a year to 30 destinations around the world.

Our 9,000 staff have built an airline that, after 25 years, is still red hot; an airline that focuses on being the best, not the biggest, and injects customer service and innovation into its daily philosophy.

By emphasizing the same brand attributes that have engaged and intrigued audiences for 25 years, Virgin Atlantic created a spot that is both authentic and entertaining to consumers.

Philadelphia: a good sport with a sense of humor

All things considered it could have / should have been a really tough week for the great people of Philadelphia.

First of all their beloved Eagles lost to the Arizona Cardinals, which is rough enough, but to make matters worse their twitter account (@visitphilly) was forced to use a Cardinals logo as their avatar for the week.

This costume change was part of a friendly wager they engaged in with our friends at the Arizona Office of Tourism (@ArizonaTourism) prior to the game.  While this could have been a convenient time to take a Twitter time-out the account has been active all week, dressed as the Arizona mascot.

Then while minding their own business the City of Brotherly Love was the butt of some of political humorist, Jon Stewart’s jokes.

The original blog post is witty and well written; so there is no need for me to rewrite it for you, find all the details here.

Once again the city responded in stride, willing to let it go, but not before they got a couple of their own good-hearted digs out against Stewart. “Well, Jon, we’re used to this kind of thing and we know how to respond: Philadelphia, the city that bleeps you back.”

Proving that having a sense of humor and sharing your personality especially in the world of social media can only serve to boost your brand and inspire your enthusiasts to rally behind you.

No visitors, no problem

Ontario Tourism has created a contest that Algoma hopes will put it on the map.

The Great Ontario Outdoors Adventure of a Lifetime contest will hand out a week-long adventure for four through Algoma’s wilderness and along Lake Superior’s northeast shore.

And the big winner will be the area’s tourism industry, says the executive director of Ontario’s Algoma Country.

It is the lack of visitors, serene surroundings and available excursions that make Algoma the perfect location for this adventure seeker’s dream vacation. While it is yet to been seen if this promotion will be enough to put Algoma on the map, as they hope, the honesty regarding their tourism is refreshing.

Additionally, Ontario has turned what most deem as a negative, a lack of visitors, into the centerpiece of their promotion.  In the current economic climate there is no better time than the present to position negatives as positives.

Rather than try to recreate the wheel with your marketing efforts try using attributes, situations or even perceived weaknesses that your brand currently possesses and repackage them in new ways in order to gain attention and build authenticity.

What do you think, are there other great examples that we missed?  Please let us know.

Thank you to MPR529, Rubenstein and mike_miley for photos.

Tourism Queensland yesterday launched a big user-generated-content campaign: the Australian version of “Island Idol”. Visitors are invited to submit a casting video on www.islandreefjob.com and apply for the job of Island Caretaker in the Great Barrier Reef:

The Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef is a newly created position. There are a few minor tasks that need to be taken care of, but the most important duty is to report back to Tourism Queensland (and the world) and let us know what’s taking place on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.

The promotion was launched on a very nice (but flash heavy) microsite and supported by a very clever PR campaign.

Videos are submitted to the site but hosted on YouTube. About 30 videos have been submitted so far. Tourism Queensland will select 10 candidates and the public can select one wildcard candiate. All will be flown to Queensland where the final selection will be made. And one lucky winner will get to live in the Barrier Reef for 6 months and be paid to go sailing, snorkeling etc. and blog about it. Oh, the salary: A$150,000 for six months.

Another destination that launched a video contest today was Discover LA. For the launch of the new “That’s so LA” campaign consumers are asked to submit a video (or a photo) for a chance to win one of 5 LA weekends and $1,000 in cash. Videos are uploaded on the site and also hosted on DiscoverLA.com. Very few videos have been submitted but some of the ones that have been uploaded look like they might infringe on copyright for music used in the background (but then - I am not a lawyer.)

And the third destination to launch a YouTube video contest is CapeTown Tourism. The contest does not indicate whether it is the work of the official Capetown Tourism organization or somebody else. Users can submit a video to win 2 tickets on a cruise that departs on Feb 14th. Winners for the contest will be announced just 2 weeks before on Feb 2nd. Does not give the winner a lot of time to pack …

Overall thoughts:

The Tourism Queensland campaign is not cheap but beautifully executed. Great idea, great website, great YouTube integration, great PR. They will get their money’s worth, even with the high cost involved. By hosting the videos on YouTube Tourism Queensland minimizes the risk of copyright infringement plus benefits from the power of YouTube - the YouTube channel for the contest was the 4th most watched channel in Australia today. By hosting the videos themselves Discover LA misses out on the viral opportunities YouTube offers.

But YouTube alone is not the way to go as the Capetown contest shows. I challenge you to find the information about the rules and the prize on the site. Without a microsite to support it is hard to run a video contest on YouTube.

The biggest challenge for video contest is the high hurdle for engaging people. If you do not get a lot of people really excited about the idea and/or about the prize you will not get a lot of videos.

So don’t do a video contest it if you can not do it right.

Anybody wants to guess how many videos will be uploaded on
- Feb 2nd when the Capetown Tourism contest closes
- Feb 22nd (or earlier if more than 30,000 applications are received) for the Queensland contest
- June 1st, when the Discover LA contest closes?

Your thoughts on video contests in general?

When we were doing a social media workshop for Convention & Visitor bureaus in Michigan last year we had one participant who was very doubtful that Twitter would be useful for him. We discussed the various ways Twitter can be a useful tool. Besides using it to listening to customers and talking to them we pointed out that Twitter can also be a great tool to talk to media and politicians. Why? Because if you want to pitch a story to a newspaper or talk to your congressman via “traditional” channels, you face a lot of competition. If you use Twitter, you are - at the moment - one of very few using this medium. Hence you have a much better chance of being heard.

At our workshop we quickly did a search for Michigan politicians on Twitter (this was before Twittersearch was castrated) and wouldn’t you know it - the head of the Ways & Means committee for the Michigan house was on Twitter. Not an unimportant contact when it comes to state budgets.

Fast forward to today (Jan 7th): the Florida Tourism industry started a Twitter account to share their thoughts on the proposed 40% cut of the Florida tourism budget (see story here). Why are not more tourism organizations doing this? Get on Twitter and tell your story - economic impact, job creation, tax revenues etc. If you use traditional media you compete with banks, the automotive industry and - who knew - the porn industry (see story on CNN here) who are all lobbying for money and all have much deeper pockets.

Are you following your politicians on Twitter? Have you ever talked to them on Twitter? Why not?

To get you started I have prepared a (very ugly) list of some politicians who I found on Twitter (surprisingly there is no complete list anywhere, if you find one, let me know. The Twitter Fan Wiki lists many branches of the US government and their Twitter accounts but some of the accounts for politicians are fake).

Now go and find your local politicians and connect with them as well. Can you imagine 40 or 50 constituents contacting a politician on the same day to talk about a specific subject? Maybe also tell the press about it … I guarantee this would get noticed.
It will be interesting to see what Florida Tourism will make out of the Twitter account, it would be nice if they would add a description and a link to a website so people can find out more information. Oh, it would also help to follow some Florida politicians and media. But overall a great step in the very right direction.

Feedback and comments as always very welcome. Leave them on the blog or find me at @coldinpdx .

If you have any interest how other destinations are having success with Twitter make sure to read a very insightful comment from @paadventure on yesterday’s blog post. Thanks for sharing!

Based on your feedback we have added more destinations to our growing list of tourism organizations on Twitter. 
@travelynnmo pointed out a very good point: many destinations have several Twitter accounts “powered” by different staff members. While this is a very valid strategy we are tracking (at the moment) just the main Twitter accounts as otherwise this exercise would get out of hands. But please share with us all accounts your organization is using, then we can start a separate list.

So, are more and more tourism organization starting to chirp?

See for yourself:

The two phases for growth were certainly influenced by a hands-on social media workshop we did for DMOs in Michigan at the end of September and a workshop ChicagoPlus did for it’s member DMOs in December.

And for sure we are still missing many other tourism organizations that are using Twitter. To make it easier for you to tell us which ones we are not tracking we have prepared an overview per state (US & CA).

We have added new destinations over the last days to the list, however we do not have data for them for number of followers and updates, even if they joined before Dec. 31 of 2008. 

While the number of followers in itself can be a misleading indicator (quality vs. quantity) I find it nevertheless impressive that of the DMOs we are tracking @VisitChicago or @BaltimoreMD have more followers than all DMOs from Florida and California combined.
 

But these can’t be all! Who else are we missing?

We want to know, even if this growing list is becoming more and more work …

Over the last 12 months we have talked to a LOT of companies and and organizations about social media. Most feel overwhelmed, some are scared and fewer and fewer are doubting that social media is here to stay and will change how organizations interact with customers, suppliers, partners and employees.

Here is our top 5 list of answers we heard most often when asking organizations about social media in 2008:

1. “We did not have time to look into that”
Under which rock are you living? It is almost the year 2009! Twitter is old news, Facebook even older. If your company or organization does by now not understand that you need to have a presence on sites like Facebook or Twitter than you can probably only hope for some sort of bailout down the road. At a minimum register accounts to ensure nobody is “brand-jacking” your social media identity.

2. “We are monitoring the space”
Or even better: “we are actively monitoring the social media space”.
Clearly you are not “monitoring” closely enough, otherwise you would see that to really understand the power of social media, one has to do it. So get your hands dirty, sign up for a Twitter account and see what happens.

3. “We let our interns handle social media”
Good thinking: let the “young” people handle this. Throw them a bone - after all they are not even getting paid. The only two problems: do you let your interns also handle your brand-campaign and press releases? No? So why do you trust them with your social media efforts? And problem number 2: even if you have an intern who understands your brand, your products, your customers, your competitive situation and your procedures (yes, these are some of the things to keep in mind when starting with social media), that intern will be gone after 6 months. And with him/her he/she takes the relationships and insights gained and so your organization will start all over again.

4. “We are just experimenting with social media”
This is definitely a step in the right direction. But the danger of “experimenting” is that the efforts are not taken seriously. Which makes convincing results less likely.
You need to integrate your social media activities into your overall strategy. That does not mean paralysis by analysis but the willingness to allocate resources (mostly time), to learn and adapt without loosing the overall goal out of sight.

5. “We do not have clear goals yet for our social media efforts”
How will you know whether you are successful or not if you do not set yourself some goals? So after the “experimenting” phase is over, think about what you want to accomplish and write down some numbers. How many followers on Twitter, how many fans on Facebook, how many comments on your blog etc.? And while numbers are definitely not everything (quality beats quantity) it is good help to understand how your social media efforts will help your organization achieve it’s overall goals.

So how should companies and organizations tackle social media?

It just takes four simple steps:
1.    Do it.
2.    Learn from it.
3.    Measure and benchmark it
4.    Repeat first 3 steps.

Did we miss a step? Are you hearing the same answers we are hearing?

GoSeeTell provides technology solutions, thought leadership and support for the social media space. Connect with us on Twitter @coldinpdx or @ariannap .

Thanks to andwat for the photo.

Do you have maps on your website? Check out this really cool implementation of a Google map.

“Senghor on the Rocks” is a book-as-a-website with an integrated Google map. The book is in German but to see how the map is integrated you do not need to understand German. The setting of the book takes place in Dakar (Senegal) and on each page a Google map shows the area the characters are moving through.

Click on a page to turn it over and go to page 9 to see a really great example: you can follow the characters of the book on their drive through the city. The Google map in the satellite view gives users a really nice feel for the city.

Using the Google maps API it is not complicated to animate maps, why are not more websites making use of this? Animated itineraries come to mind …

And why are not more destination websites showing Google maps in a satellite view instead of a map view? If you are just trying to get a feel for a city or region the satellite view or the terrain option tell a lot more than the street map.

The only tourism website I could find using Google maps this way is the Idaho Tourism website (which I just realized today is a website with some very neat features and design elements). For the map see for example the listing for The Coeur d’Alene Resort.

So who has the best maps out there? Which other travel websites have neat mapping features that really make you want to visit?

Last week the fake Tourism Milwaukee clip on YouTube lead to a whole debate on Twitter about real and fake destination videos.

Time to look deeper into the mysterious world of destination videos. And what timing! Tourism Australia, a national tourism organization with slightly deeper pockets, just launched a new destination video titled – how appropriate – “Australia”. You will not (primarily) find it on YouTube but rather playing in the movie theatre closest to you.

All jokes aside: while Tourism Australia did of course not commission a 130 million dollar movie with Nicole Kidman as a marketing piece, they did align their whole new marketing strategy with the movie. The hope is to have the same benefits New Zealand had with “Lord of the Rings”.

They even went as far as to ask Baz Luhrman - the director of the movie - to shoot several inspirational trailers (which also can be found on YouTube) that use some of the themes of the movie. Cost for the campaign: 26 million dollars. The entire Tourism Australia website also got a makeover to match the new campaign (not all an improvement in my opinion, the site is now very text-heavy).

So a lot is riding for Tourism Australia on the success of “Australia”.

But now comes the fun part: all of Australia is taking the movie very serious. All of Australia? No, a tiny state in the South of Australia is daring to make fun of it!

Have a look at: “Tasmania - Bigger than Australia”.

Great idea, great execution. Have a look at the details on the website like the footer or the clip of the director talking about the stunt scenes. Somebody had fun with this project!

And of course the main video is on YouTube – over 40,000 views in less than 2 weeks is not too shabby.

But wait, it gets even better: over 100 people left comments on the video. Have a look here and be surprised / shocked / embarrassed how passionate/angry people get about this spoof and Tasmania claiming to be “bigger than Australia”. And be warned: some of the comments are NSFW, but I guess that is just how Aussies and Tassies are.

So my questions for you: what do you think of Tourism Australia basing it’s marketing strategy almost entirely on “Australia”? Do you think “Tasmania” is bigger than “Australia”? What about the comments about Tasmania on YouTube? Does this type of engagement help or hurt?

When we talk to tourism organizations about social media we point out the usual advantages social media provides. The key ones are obviously the opportunity to listen to, talk with and engage visitors – before, while and after they are in a city or region.

This sometimes creates an interesting reaction, usually from the convention side of the business. They phrase it nicer but it comes down to this: “We do not care that much about visitors once they have made the decision to come to our city”. Really? Did I just hear you say that?

Well, not so fast.

Have you had a more detailed look at your budget lately, Mr. VP of Convention Sales? Chances are a good chunk of money is spent on something called a “Visitors Center”. It is a place where visitors can go to get information during their trip – way after they have made their decision to come to your beautiful town.

Probably you will now say that that money is well spent. After all the visitors will have a much better time because they get guided to the right places. And then they can write in one of the books that are lying around at the visitors center and share with everybody how much fun they had. Everybody who reads the book that is.

You see, you do not need a “Visitors Center” - you need a “Twisitors Center”. A way for visitors to get the advice and recommendations they are looking for – no matter where they are. A place to share stories, photos and experiences with millions of people all over the world - before, during and after the trip. Tools like Twitter are cheap, offer great ways to measure success and are what more and more visitors are using to get - and share - their travel information.

So, what are you doing for your Twisitors?

Two destination blogs (re)launched last week that both integrate social media elements in a very nice way:

Travel Oregon Blog

Travel Oregon (full disclosure: we work with them and provide content to them) relaunched their blog last week.

The blog was already considered by many one of the nicest and most successful destinations blog around before the redesign. The new blog is - in my opinion - even more interesting.

Travel Oregon now integrates not only videos (from YouTube, Vimeo etc.) but also Flickr photos into the blog. The “Oregon Snapshots” come from the Travel Oregon Flickr group. The blog footer invites readers to follow Travel Oregon on Twitter, the sidebar now includes a polling module. All great social elements for a blog and best of all - they do not cost a lot. 

If you want to see best practices in action do not miss the RSS feeds offered for the blog - not only are different feeds for the different categories available, the feed page also explains how feeds work and offers good resources. We need more examples like this to drive RSS adoption to where it should be!

Experience Columbus

Experience Columbus launched their blog last week and while they are a little bit later to the party they for sure come in a nice dress. The blog includes several interesting social media elements.

In the sidebar all staff members (18!) who are on Twitter are shown with their Twitter icons.

Also listed are links to the Experience Columbus Facebook page, myspace page and Flickr group. Unique is the integrated delicious feed for websites bookmarked by staff on the social bookmarking site. This can turn into an interesting resource e.g. for journalists who are looking for background info on the city. The only thing I would like to see improved is an easier navigation back to the main ExperienceColumbus page, maybe in the top level navigation. 

While playing around with the main Experience Columbus site I found some great elements other destinations should have a look at. 

The individual listings for hotels, attractions etc. include nicely integrated Google maps. But other destinations offer that as well. What I have not seen anywhere else are events listings that are tied to the individual member listing and therefore tied to the map location. So if I look at the Motorcycle Hall of Fame I can see all events taking place at the Hall of Fame in an extra tab. 

The infrastructure should allow Experience Columbus to very easily do even more as the events data is tied now to geo-data. Example: A Google map that shows all events taking place during a certain time within a certain radius around a specific place: “Let’s see what events are taking place within a mile radius from our hotel for the weekend we will be in Columbus”. Events are also available via a different RSS feeds.

Oh, the possibilities …

Almost every session at the TIA Marketing Outlook Forum in Portland talked about social media. Luxury, millennial travelers, hotels, attractions, DMOs – it was mentioned in almost all presentations or panel discussions (and there were close to 30). This was not surprising given the fact that the conference deals with marketing trends and few would argue that social media is THE thing happening at the moment.

But another thing was very surprising: there seems to be a quickly widening gap between those that are involved in social media and those who are now trying to get on the train before it pulls out of the station.

When asked what they had the biggest success with in the last 12 months and what they would focus more on in the next 12 months those being already involved in social media said they would do even more. Those who are just getting started or have not even started to dabble in this space said they would focus on various other things.

The session about online marketing / social media for attractions was very interesting in that regard as well. While the presenters showed great examples for pretty sophisticated social media campaigns, the Q&A session revealed that many in the audience where feeling overwhelmed and close to panic. And who would not feel for them?

Imagine being a destination, attraction, hotel or organization that has no experience whatsoever in social media. No Facebook account, no photos on Flickr, no blog, no Twitter account. And at the same time you competitors have already thousands of followers, fans or subscribers. But even worse: they have already made their mistakes and (hopefully) learned from them. You still have this ahead of you while your “social” competitors are setting new benchmarks.

At Marketing Outlook Forum I saw a “social gap”. On the one side those who are already using social media to their advantage, on the other side those who look in awe and try to figure out a way into the game. The problem is that in social media there are no shortcuts. It takes time to build meaningful engagement. The longer you wait, the bigger this social gap will get.

Are you seeing this social gap too? Are there any good examples of organizations that started late and yet were quickly very successful? What should those do that are just getting started?

(Thanks to mwichary for the photo).