It’ll be years before the victims of this disaster recover, if at all. But, as we can’t unring that bell (or in this case, put the oil back in the pipe), we have to focus on what we can do to facilitate recovery for the lovely coastal towns whose beaches and reputations were stained by this disaster.

If you’ve got marketing dollars, now is the time to spend them.

Your tourism, visitor’s bureau, local or regional website needs to be addressing all the wonderful features of your town and reminding vacationers that you’re still open for business.  If you’ve got local photographers, invite them to submit new photos and then get those photos out through Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

Build a social media campaign, like this one run by the Jamestown Foundation that encourages past visitors to talk about their vacations and events. If you’ve got a YouTube channel, so much the better. Link to vacation videos that show your sparkling beaches, your lovely shops, your friendly locals and fantastic restaurants. Need some inspiration? Check out Currituck County, North Carolina. Now is an excellent time to invest in a pay-per-click campaign that helps users reconnect with your town or find you for the first time.

Family vacations, reunions, honeymoons and holidays are all still happening. Make sure these people know that good things are still happening at your place, too.

Melissa Baumann is a Search Marketing and Tourism Specialist as well as a seasoned world traveler.

The dynamic marketing team of Currituck County Department of Tourism and Travel recently came away winners at this year’s Destination Marketing Achievement Awards hosted by VisitNC. The awards are designed to recognize the best innovations in tourism marketing for the state, and we’re proud to say that Simple Tourism, the premier tourism SEO and social marketing firm, had a hand in their success. Of special note for Currituck with regards to the Gold and Platinum level awards received for Best Outreach and Best Marketing Initiative were the use of their Outer Banks tourism website and social media networks to communicate with travelers. Simple Tourism has assisted Currituck with a number of these initiatives, which include paid social advertising via Facebook ads, regular monitoring of Twitter and Facebook (now with over 3300 fans on their page!), and more recently mobile accessibility of their website. Vacation planners can now download the free VisitCurrituck app for their phones and plan their itineraries on the go!

We congratulate Currituck County for their hard work and excellence in online marketing, and are happy to be a part of their success.

Not everybody is happy with Facebook right now. Accusations of breach of privacy and disregard for online safety have prompted grassroots protests and mass deletions of accounts on the premise that not only does the social network do nothing to protect user privacy, but actually encourages distribution of information not necessarily meant for everybody’s eyes. If you use Facebook, perhaps you’ve seen viral status messages from friends imploring you to make adjustments to your settings to ensure that the complaint you make about your boss isn’t broadcast to the free world. Reports that some users prefer to delete their profiles altogether may concern other diehard Facebook fans, and as a business with a strong Facebook presence you might wonder if this backlash will affect the way you promote your products and services.

The privacy concerns making the news, naturally, concern users who are wont to share personal information and photographs on their networks. While they believe at first only select friends have access to the data, neglected privacy settings may allow certain (read: embarrassing) information to be found in Internet search. We’ve all heard stories of people getting fired from their jobs or losing out on other opportunities thanks to a slip of the keyboard – an outsider might opine, “Well, don’t post anything you wouldn’t shout into a megaphone,” yet one can argue users and Facebook need to meet halfway on ensuring security measures.

As a business, you want exposure for your Facebook page. Despite the grumbling, Facebook is still one of the most used websites on the Internet – it’s a powerful search engine and marketing tool, and as you amass fans (or people who “like” your page and company, per the new policies) the opportunity to expand your reach grows. If you are concerned about losing fans due to a protest against privacy settings, know that you do have a few options for keeping your page visible and the information available, even to people who don’t use Facebook.

1) Integrate the content into other networks. Feed status updates into your Twitter account to capture that audience, and place a fan box on your main website. If you use Squidoo, there is now an option to embed a fan box in a lens, too. Anywhere you can place your page’s RSS, take the advantage.

2) Keep your page active and visible. Offer as much data on your page to new visitors and those who do not use Facebook. As a business page, you should feel comfortable with the information you post there. Don’t give away any trade secrets, but encourage participation with the content you do provide.

3) Be respectful of current fans. Make sure whoever monitors comments on your page is courteous to posters. Just as the products and services you impart online are available to others, so are bad vibes. If you receive a complaint, be tactful in your response, because that’s what people will see. The impression you make on Facebook coupled with the timeliness of your information will keep people on your page.

How will Facebook fare in the future? Like Google, it may continue to grow and offer amenities we can’t live without, or it could go the way of lesser social networks if and when another player comes along. Whatever the fate for this network, it is still a top used site and as such holds importance in your social optimization. Mind your p’s and q’s on your Wall tab, and you should be fine.

Kathryn Lively is a social media specialist assisting clients with social media promotion and Virginia Beach web design. Clients include European hotels, real-time global trade forums, and vendors of pet supplies.

What I didn’t expect to find this afternoon was this:

For those who don’t know, Lamebook.com is a Web site dedicated to all things ridiculous, hilarious and/or disturbing about Facebook user activity. (That’s where I found this little jewel.) So far, this status has accumulated more than 70 comments, and they keep rolling in.

As for the fans of Columbus (Ohio), feelings of confusion and disappointment are pouring out in response.

One user has summed up the overall feeling of the group:

You know, I appreciate a good joke, but we all know what you were intending. The fact that you are trying humor through misdirection is irrelevant. The fact remains that you used widely known internet acronym. Trying to reinvent the words that comprise it does little, the post was offensive. Doesn’t matter how you try to justify it to yourself.

What’s the lesson learned here? After you decide to post anything on Facebook, think about it, then think some more and before you click submit, make sure you’ve thought about it again. Maybe we won’t know what the intention was from the administrator. Perhaps it was a joke, maybe it was an honest oversight. Either way, people are now removing themselves as fans of this page, and Columbus has taken a blow to the face of its reputation.

Even though this isn’t the official Columbus, Ohio CVB Facebook page, most will probably (unfortunately) associate the entire city of Columbus with this status update, and each official social media outlet of the city (and even the state) will have to put in some overtime to do some damage control.

Takeaways:

• Constantly monitor your brand and know what is being said about it across the Internet. The sooner you can take a stand or release a statement either supporting or disassociating yourself from a mention of your brand, the better.
• Although it’s a worthy goal to get yourself noticed, bad press is WAY worse than no press at all, especially when future tourism traffic is involved.
• Know your audience. If it is mostly homogeneous in personality and you think certain jokes or links you post will go over well, go for it. When in doubt, leave them out.
• For heaven’s sake: brush up on your Internet vocab and know what abbreviations mean before using them.

Jessica Swink is a freelance writer specializing in articles about SEO for travel and Facebook marketing.

The Benefits of a Specialized Phone App

For convention and visitors bureaus and city tourism departments, the development of an app for the iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android can prove useful in boosting travel to your area and patronage of local hotels and eateries. While programs that offer local listings provide reviews, maps, and supplemental information, a specialized app gives you the opportunity to offer visitors something extra. Let’s say you operate the tourism marketing for a beach town on the Mid-Atlantic coast, and while visitors spike in the summertime you want to boost interest for the winter months. An app for your area, while useful year round if it features business listings, can also be developed to feature seasonal specials and discounts. You can entice visitors toward your destination by arranging area vacation rentals to offer cheaper rates with smart phone codes.

While general apps like Yelp provide useful and updated data, it isn’t guaranteed they will list every single inn and diner. A specialized program for your destination can offer visitors categorized guides to your city, suggested itineraries, and a local view of your town.

The Challenges of a Travel Phone App

With every benefit, however, comes a number of challenges to consider. Having an application developed could cost you several thousand dollars, depending on the functionality you want. Also, as businesses open and close, it’s important to stay on top of your data so that you always provide updated information for visitors. There will also come into question whether or not you should charge for the app – convention wisdom would advise no. Because of the costs involved in development and hosting, it’s important to make sure your marketing budget makes room if you choose to have a program created.

For the beach destination, metropolitan region, or rustic desert retreat, a smart phone app can entice visitors to book vacations and keep locals interested in area businesses. Take into consideration the benefits and challenges to creating an app for your city as part of your tourism marketing strategy.

Kathryn Lively is a social media specialist assisting clients with social media optimization and travel social media services.