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.

People crave their social media networks.

Facebook and Twitter are no longer just Web sites, but verbs used to describe online activity. We are a culture that is tuned in and connected to each other easier than ever.

However, have you ever stopped to realize just how dependent we are becoming to social media?

The wonderful people at eMarketer have recorded these numbers for us, which reveal some valuable information for destination marketing to 20-year-olds.

As soon as people under 25 years old wake up, 31% of them are checking and updating Facebook and/or Twitter. This is significant, meaning that the first priority of these people in the morning before they do anything else is tuning in to find out what happened over night.

How can you use this in tourism and destination marketing? Easy.

• Make sure you aren’t forgetting your 20-something and college-aged audiences when advertising and marketing your destination
• Find unique ways to draw in their attention with words like “affordable” “group rates” and “make unforgettable memories”
• Seek out this age group on Facebook by searching for interests or fan pages. Then, bring them information they want to see about your destination.
• Post to your Facebook pages and Twitter feeds over night, so when this age group is catching up on what they missed over night, they will find your posting

Jessica Swink is a freelance writer specializing in articles about SEO for travel Web sites, European hotel booking,  and professional social media services.

Ever wonder if social media is really worth the effort for your travel or tourism business?

(Insert a resounding “YES” here.)

This week, Ypartnership and the U.S. Travel Association released a survey of 2,200 American adults and found that 59% of the active travelers have visited social networking sites like Facebook (about 50%) or MySpace (about 25%).

The survey goes on to state that 49% of the travelers use sites like Facebook and MySpace to upload photos and videos, 46% rate products and services, and 25% contribute to blogs.

While these numbers stand by themselves to prove the presence of travelers using social media, there are even more detailed statistics about how Facebook is being used in travel planning:

• 1 in 10 Facebook users seek travel advice
• 1 in 20 join fan pages or groups with common travel interests
• 11% ask advice about a destination
• 6% learn about travel deals
• 5% get updates on destinations

What this survey proves is that now, more than ever, travelers have resources at their fingertips to help them make more informed decisions about travel. If you don’t have a presence on popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or MySpace, you are missing out! Right now, future tourists are online planning their trip to a location near you. Are you doing everything you can to give them the information they need to get them to your destination?

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

Facebook is one of the front-line social networking sites on the Internet. With a few clicks of the mouse, users have the opportunity to create a profile online, listing as much or little information they desire including everything from political affiliations to favorite books, interests to work history. Keeping up with friends, coworkers and family has never been easier with direct messaging, photo sharing, status updates and “wall” postings.

Who uses it?

Facebook boasts more than 250 million users, more than 120 of which log in each day. The fastest growing demographic of Facebook are those 35 years an older, and more than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day world wide. With these statistics, it’s easy to see why Facebook has become an integral part of most everyone’s personal and professional life.

Benefits in Tourism Marketing

This social networking site doesn’t just put people in touch with each other, but has the opportunity to put people in touch with your CVB or tourism bureau. Creating a profile for your travel agency is a simple way to have just one more corner of the Internet direct toward your destination. Post videos and pictures on your profile, repost blog entries, provide information about your destination and keep in touch with previous and future tourists.  Also, there are many applications that people use while making travel plans that you can keep yourself familiar with.

How to sign up

To register for Facebook, you must enter a first and last name, e-mail, password, gender and birthday. A confirmation e-mail is then sent to your inbox and you must click the link in the message to activate your account. After this short process, you can get to work on your profile by uploading a photo, joining a network and filling in your information.

Social media optimization defines the use of new portals and sites designed to bring people of common interests together, and travel-related companies have recognized the marketing potential for such sites. At Simple Tourism, we specialize in the maintenance and development of your brand and destination via social media exposure. Social networking sites offer Internet users the opportunity to discover where to eat while on vacation, and which resorts have the best deals. These networks also provide businesses the opportunity to boost the link popularity of their main websites and draw potential subscribers to become regular visitors of their sites as well. When you sign on with Simple Tourism for our SMO package, you have the option of customizing a social media presence as it suits your business or bureau. Contact us today for a free quote.

Jessica Swink is a freelance writer specializing in articles about Social Media Optimization and SEO for travel Web sites.

Delicious is a straight-forward social bookmarking site that allows users to search for articles by keyword, or tags. You can also join networks, allowing you to find friends and interesting people to see what they are bookmarking. Sending and receiving pages of interest can be achieved by a few clicks of a button.

Who uses it?

Anyone can use Delicious, although it is probably mostly used for people who are constantly reviewing and searching for information online. Delicious allows you to organize your favorite pages and find others who may find the same things interesting, yielding similar results.

Benefits in Tourism Marketing

Delicious allows users to post URLs to notable sites. After submitting, you have the opportunity to assign tags to the article, putting it in the same category as related page. For example, if you are trying to promote your travel agency, you can submit the URL and tag it with “tourism,” “hospitality,” and “resort.”  This allows it to come up in all searches with these keywords, allowing people to find it faster. The more places your site is published online, the more chances it has to direct more web traffic to your site. Also, if your business has a blog, each article can produce a different URL, allowing for more opportunities to promote your business online. You can use Delicious to search to see what people are bookmarking the most, giving you an insight on what people really want in each category.

How to Sign Up

When you register for a Delicious account, you must provide your first and last name, along with an e-mail address. Create a username and password, enter a captcha and move on to the next steps. Steps 2 and 3 in the registration allow you to download a toolbar to easily bookmark favorite pages, as well as import existing bookmarks from your browser.

Social media optimization defines the use of new portals and sites designed to bring people of common interests together, and travel-related companies have recognized the marketing potential for such sites. At Simple Tourism, we specialize in the maintenance and development of your brand and destination via social media exposure. Social networking sites offer Internet users the opportunity to discover where to eat while on vacation, and which resorts have the best deals. These networks also provide businesses the opportunity to boost the link popularity of their main websites and draw potential subscribers to become regular visitors of their sites as well. When you sign on with Simple Tourism for our SMO package, you have the option of customizing a social media presence as it suits your business or bureau. Contact us today for a free quote.

Jessica Swink is a freelance writer specializing in articles about Social Media Optimization and SEO for travel Web sites.