marketingsa

media type="custom" key="22728052" align="right" **#MarketingSA:** **Marketing Local Travel: Social Web Tips for South Africa** related: marketing, social web, south africa slideshare: [|Marketing Local Travel: Social Web Tips for South Africa] (40,000+ views) facebook: [|event] google+: [|event] twitter: [|@thistourismweek] [|@ronmader] [|@localtravels] [|@TransAbroad] [|@alastairmck] [|@the_GTBS] hashtag: [|#marketingsa]

In May 2013 [|Planeta.com] and [|This Tourism Week] teamed up to present practical social web tips to tourism pros in South Africa.

The venue was a responsible travel conference on the South Coast hosted by [|Ugu South Coast Tourism]. Martin Hatchuel of [|This Tourism Week] presented in person at the event in [|Umtentweni] (Umm-Tin-Tweenie), while Ron Mader of [|Planeta.com] joined the conference in the wee hours of the morning in Americas from his base in Oaxaca (wa-HA-ka), Mexico.

The presentation summarized lessons learned from a series of weekly, unscripted, real-time hangouts conducted online [|Google+]. Highlighting responsible travel practices and the emerging local travel movement, the chats focused on social web tools that local tourism providers (hotels, restaurants, museums, artisans, tour operators, tour guides, and others) are using to build web presence and virtual footprints.

We challenged participants at the Umtentweni event to be creative and generous and to make the most of the social web ... and we challenged those not in South Africa to use the social web to learn about this country, to ind local info via Facebook and Google+ pages, Flickr photos, tweets and more and amplify local voices by liking, retweeting, google-plusing (?) and other forms of being generous. Sharing can be caring.

What surprised both Martin and Ron were the adventures of creating the Google hangouts. On this page you'll find the raw videos that document the week-by-week learning that took place.

FYI: In 2013, this page received 6,500 views.

Timeline
May 23: Future of Travel and Tourism (Futrchat) June 5: World Environment Day August: Indigenous Peoples Week September 27: World Tourism Day October 16: World Food Day February 10-16 2014: Responsible Travel Week

May 22 Review
Buzzwords: Anna Pollock, Benchmark, Catherine Mack, Durban, Don't Stop with Jam, Firms of Endearment, Horticulturalist, Ireland Green Travel, Mossel Bay, Technical Problems, Tick the boxes, Utantu (?)

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May 15 [|Responsible Tourism Conference]
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 * Buzzwords**: Coast, Collaboration, Communication, Declaration, Food, Mindset, Silo, Smartphone, Storytelling, Sustainability, Toolkit

October 30 Mossel Bay Travel Festival
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"We are very good at keeping secrets"
 * Key Words:** Atlatl, Culture and advanced technology, paint, strawberries, lanyards

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 * [|April 3]: Storytelling and Local Travel ([|YouTube video])**

Recommended Listening: [|How to fix what's wrong with Tasmania] [|Blog]
 * [|April 10]: Geolocation: What's so important about Foursquare?**
 * Buzzwords:** Alebrije - Archive - Beta - Check In - Claim Your Place - Customize - Flow - Foursquare - Game - Gameification - Geocaching - Geography - Geolocation - Geotag - Google Earth - Google Maps - GPS - Idle Time - Ingress - Livestreaming - Local - Location - Maps - Nearby - Privacy - Protected Planet - Recommendation - Smart Phone - Stream - Time Sink - Virtual Reality - WTTC

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hashtag: [|#marketingsa]
 * April 17:** Smartphones and QR Codes: Can your phone do this?

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April 24: Future of Trade Shows and Events
http://storify.com/ronmader/nytf http://ronmader.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/futuretravelevents http://www.slideshare.net/planeta/engagingevents http://www.flickr.com/photos/planeta/4360353385 Examples: Indaba, Trenz, NetHui, RTWeek2014

Results
1. Voluntweetism 2. Mossel Bay Travel Festival 3. Mossel Bay Storytelling Festival
 * Share Mossel Bay:** A new three-pronged approached to marketing [|Mossel Bay] using social web / real world mash-ups from ideas developed during our April Hangouts:


 * Media release:** [|Mossel Bay Tourism proposes new on-line marketing programme]

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 * Buzzword Bingo**: Ambient, Bandwidth, Beer Drinking, Breakout Rooms, Buyers and Sellers, Higher Standards, Indaba, Interaction, Livestreaming, Nethui, New Marketing Paradigm, Open, Rings of Local, Sharing, Social Web, Storify, Streaming, Ugu, Ustream, YouTube, Wiki

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May 1 Local Travel Hangout
http://www.flickr.com/photos/planeta/8696264093 http://leweb.co - https://twitter.com/leweb http://planeta.wikispaces.com/mosselbay http://planeta.wikispaces.com/southafrica http://planeta.wikispaces.com/afrikaans http://youtu.be/f9rtmxJrKwc Buzzwords: Ambient Conversation, Serendipity, Sports, Transparency, Voluntweetism (Vrywilligetweetisme)

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**Join us during a Hangout**
Our April 10 Hangout proved that Twitter is an effective way to ask questions and make comments for anyone who's watching the lives stream. Please use the hashtag #marketingsa media type="custom" key="22730744"

SoundBytes
Responsible travel is a new way of traveling that requires a new way of marketing. - Martin Hatchuel, [|April 3 Chat]

For some reason, the mayor of a Foursquare venue wears a crown. - Ron Mader, [|April 10 Chat]

You have to be where people are looking in order to be found. - Ethan Gelber, [|April 10 Chat]

If you are using geolocation, make sure the people are having fun and they will do the marketing for you. - Martin Hatchuel, [|April 10 Chat]

The social web is best way to communicate with potential international visitors ... before and after their journeys. - Ron Mader

The social web *IS* marketing, and we need to be more articulate about explaining its role in marketing. - Martin Hatchuel

Destinations are different to commercial brands (which belong to homogenous corporations). Destinations like South Africa are eclectic mixtures of people, nature, and places, so they have to be marketed differently. This is where the social web comes in. Story-telling: it's all about story-telling. - Martin Hatchuel

Google Hangouts
[|Google Hangouts] are an incredible tool that bring together colleagues in different places for a real-time, online conversation that can be viewed by an unlimited number of people. Archives are automatically uploaded to YouTube for future viewing. 15 minutes before chats begin we will announce where to view the conversations via Google+ and Twitter.

Get an account on Google+ which requires a Gmail address. Let the hangout facilitator/organizer know of your interest in participating.
 * How to join a Google hangout**

If you simply want to watch a hangout, no login is required. You can view the hangout live or archived on YouTube.

Agenda for the April Hangouts
Status Update Soliciting Questions/Feedback with #localsa hashtag on Twitter Introductions and show-and-tell Spotlight on a particular social web concept and tools of the week Globalize Yourself: Lessons from small businesses around the world Any other questions? What's next?

Confirmed Guests
Ethan Gelber Greg Hubbs Alastair McKenzie Andrea Nicholas

Deliverables
Workshop for local travel businesses RT Photo Safari and other activities FourSquare geolocation challenge Recorded Google hangouts Playbook: Social Web Tips and Motivational Posters

Core Skills
Ask: what core skills do small businesses and destination marketing organisations need in order to communicate on line and in person? Core Skills for individual businesses Core Skills for tourism authority Core Skills for both
 * Creating time for the social web
 * Empowering team members to tweet and post to facebook
 * Identifying stories
 * Story telling

Questions

 * What % of businesses on the South Coast have business accounts on Facebook?
 * What % of businesses on the South Coast have business accounts on twitter?
 * What % percentage of businesses on the South Coast have smart phones?

[|@Insitumezcal]

Tips
Keep it simple. Figure out routines for tweeting and facebooking. Figure out the whys of geolocation Get helpful feedback from colleagues.

Examples of business on the right route
[] [] - a site selected to be featured on the [|Joomla Community Showcase]

If there is interest, we will hold a customized social web workshop ...

Registration Worksheet
Facebook Foursquare Google TripAdvisor Twitter YouTube
 * Do you have an account on the following social web channels? **

Facebook Foursquare Google TripAdvisor Twitter YouTube
 * How often do you upload to the following social web channels? **

Do you upload to the following social web channels from your smartphone? Facebook Foursquare Google TripAdvisor Twitter YouTube
 * Do you have a smartphone? **


 * What are your current talents using the social web?**


 * Which social web skills would you like to develop?**

Host
[] [] [] [] http://www.umthunzi.co.za/


 * Poll: When you are booking accommodation, how important to you is it whether the hotel, guesthouse or B&B has a star grading.**
 * it’s a very important indication of quality
 * it’s a nice-to-have, but not essential
 * it’s not important at all
 * I only go to places I know, so it doesn’t matter
 * I don’t trust grading systems

Facebook Examples
[|Responsible Tourism South Africa] https://www.facebook.com/pages/South-Coast-Tourism/386798744879

Flickr Examples
http://www.flickr.com/places/South+Africa/Western+Cape/Mosselbaai http://www.flickr.com/places/South+Africa#umtentweni

Google+
https://plus.google.com/108152801205887384647/posts/WJBmCuEBZsP

Slideshare
http://www.slideshare.net/AnnaP/high-value-tourism-low-volume-footprints http://www.slideshare.net/planeta/marketinglocalsa

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugu_District_Municipality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsiZulu

Zulu Lessons
Ugu is Zulu for 'coast'

Links
http://ronmader.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/marketingsa http://www.thistourismweek.co.za/newsletters/marketing-south-africa-join-the-conversation/comment-page-1 http://travel.xcuz.me/2014/02/leave-a-positive-footprint-marketing-south-africa-travel-thistourismweek-ronmader-marketingsa/

Misc
Technical question: Any tips on following the responses via Google+ and YouTube? I found the Google+ comments but only after our chat. I'm assuming there's an easy solution out there somewhere but I haven't found the magical tool yet.

2013 News
A total of 9,188,368 international tourists visited South Africa in 2012, 10.2% more than the 8 339 354 tourists who travelled to the country in 2011, President Jacob Zuma announced in Cape Town today. South Africa’s tourist growth rate in 2012 was more than double the rate of average global tourist growth of about 4% estimated by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation in 2012. South Africa saw particularly good overseas tourist growth (tourists from outside of the African continent), which grew by 15.1%, one of the highest growth rates in the world last year. - [|http://www.southafrica.net]

Google Maps
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Slideshare Presentations
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Artwork (Art on @Flickr)
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YouTube
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Buzzword Bingo
App - Ambivert - Arrivals - Blog - Blue Sky Thinking - Brainstorming - Brand - Buy In - Cape Town - Coast - Collaboration - Communication - Conscious Travel - Cue Yourself - Destination - Doodle - Durban - Engaging Events - Experience - Facebook - Failure Report - Flickr - Food - Foursquare - Frame - Freedom - Geolocation - Globalize Yourself - Google - Google Glasses - Hangout - Human - Humanize - Hybrid - Indaba - Inspiration - Interruption - Invictus - Live - Local - Local Travel Movement - Marketing - Movies - Narrative - Nearby - Open - Outdoors - Paradigm - People - Place - Podcast - Remix - Responsible Travel - ROI - QR Code - [|Sardine Run] - Sharks - <Slideshare - Slow - Smartphone - Social Web - South Africa - Story - Tours - Trade Shows - Trip Advisor - Twitter- Ugu - [|Umtentweni] - Visitors - Wages - Water - Wiki - YouTube - Zulu

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