2010, that went by quick. In the briefest of summaries 2010 was a year of education; both for us and our clients.
We noticed early in the year that each of our clients had a myriad of questions about the implementation, promotion, benefits and changing technology of social media. We also noticed that many of you were asking the same set of questions.
2010’s most successful product was staring us in the face. Our clients were hungry to learn; wanting to know how social media fits into the overall marketing plan, what a social media strategy would look like, how to handle negative PR, what kind of resources (both financially and time wise) are required to successfully operate in the social media realm and much more.
We worked with industry leaders in e-commerce and tourism to develop a suite of tourism, travel, accommodation, tourism-related businesses and hospitality specific social media workshops. Our thanks to Paul Cubbon & William Bakker who were instrumental in design of the workshops. The original course has evolved approximately 127 times due to the speed of social media, more relevant content, dated stats, and new concepts. It will remain dynamic as long as we are helping people learn more about how social media can help their business.
In 2010 we conducted workshops with over 200 tourism organizations, covering content ranging from strategic planning brainstorms to social media 101.
The most gratifying moments for us come from seeing the most skeptical attendee in the room (and there is always one) finally ‘get’ social media. Educating an entire organization was like watching a giant weight being lifted off everyone’s shoulders because they could finally see why social media has a place and how they could collectively get started.
And what did Think! Social Media learn from all the workshops? A lot! Basically every workshop took a massive amount of time and energy to develop, why, because just like a destination, every attendee, company and organization is different. Each course required different research, materials and knowledge. There is no cookie cutter method to social media education and there never should be.
We learned just how unique the tourism industry is and how social media has a special role to play. Each destination has its niche that can be emphasized in social media. The exciting thing to look forward to in 2011 is that social media could be the tangible medium that brings ‘collaboration’ to the tourism industry, allowing destinations to collectively market on the premises of their niche strengths. We will elaborate on examples of this in future posts.
Another thing that we recognized is that people are excited to learn new things but the social media space is moving so fast that we need to be constantly updating ourselves with new technology, to refresh our knowledge and be motivated to raise the bar.
If you, your team or your members are looking to keep learning more about social media in 2011 please let us know about your specific requirements and we can discuss tailoring a workshop to your needs.
To everyone that was involved in a Think! Social Media Workshop in 2010, thank you very much for participating and I want to congratulate you all on taking Rodney’s advice of, “Start something small tomorrow.”
Please think about this over your break … what do you want to learn in 2011? Leave a comment, give me a call or come into our office and meet the Think! team.
Hope you had a happy New Years and we look forward to working with you in 2011.
I attended a social media workshop that was split up intwo sessions – beginner and intermediate. The attendees were members of San Diego’s tourism industry, mostly hotels, restaurants and tour operators. I found that a lot of people skipped the beginner session, perhaps believing that the subject was too elementary for their skill level. The room was packed in the intermediate class. These intermediate attendees had a lot of social media 101 questions that were addressed in the beginner class, which leads me to believe that one of the roadblocks to management incorporating social media is that they may think handling Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc is TOO EASY and doesn’t require a lot of planning or thought.
Perhaps this explains why many of the people who have been given the duty of handling the hotel’s social media accts in San Diego are front desk staff, sales admin assistants, even revenue managers who don’t have the time nor content creation experience to fully optimize their social media presence.
So, one of the biggest challenges I’ve had this year is convincing tourism managers that social media needs a strategy, tech know-how, constant research of new programs and technologies, creative and enticing content, and time, rather than thinking that social media is a side-project that the front desk staff can handle between their already robust duties.
Comment by Junvi Ola — January 4, 2011 @ 10:33 am
Hi Junvi,
Thanks for the comments, you are spot on. Sorry to hear the workshops were structured wrong. We always start with the strategy because if they do not get the importance of social media then showing them the tools is pointless.
Let me know if you have a contact at San Diego Tourism, I will give them a shout and see if they are doing anything in 2011 for their members. We could team up and do a workshop together.
Have a great day and enjoy 2011.
Cheers, Ben.
Comment by Ben — January 6, 2011 @ 12:28 pm