Bill Geist's Zeitgeist

Making Something Hard Easy

It's frustrating how so many people don't understand how Destination Marketing and increased visitation power so many facets of an economy...and our collective Quality of Life. But, really...why should they?

That a visitor is lured to town by the DMO and then spends money at hotels, restaurants, nightspots, retail shops and gas stations means little to someone not directly impacted by those purchases. And, their interest stops right there. They don't take the time to understand that jobs rely on that spending. That government relies on the sales tax generated. And that their favorite restaurant or nightspot might not survive without visitor spending.

It's not an easy concept to grasp...which is why what Richard Scharf and his team at Visit Denver have done is such a big deal. They've made the difficult concept...easier, with a YouTube video.

Best of all...they created the video so that other DMOs can easily adapt it to their own use, with Visit Denver's compliments.

Visit Denver...you so rock!

Thanks to Aurora's Naomi Colwell for the catch!

Danish Tourism Video Confounds

The video features a young Danish woman who is reaching out to locate the American father of her baby. They got drunk one night, had unprotected sex and, well...she doesn't even know his name.

It now turns out that this was an attempt by Visit Denmank at a viral video to get people talking about Denmark. And, what? How easy Danish girls are?

I'm not so sure I understand...

Neither, apparently, do the Danish people or marketing critics.

The Next Gen for Twitter

When it's all about location, Destination Marketers need to pay attention to Twitter. In the very near future, the micro-blogging juggernaut will be debuting location based code in every Tweet.

While the new service will be defaulted to "off" for personal security reasons, imagine the opportunity to target messaging to Tweeps in your destination, offering deals and packages to a finite target audience.

Still think Twitter is stoopid? Think again.

What Did You Mean When You Said You're Sorry

Dave Carroll is back with Round Two in his "United Breaks Guitars" Trilogy. The first video has been viewed by just under 5 million people. The sequel is (at this moment) at 6,600.

Let's see how fast this one goes double platinum.

UPDATE: 30 minutes after posting...it's at 59,000 views :)

Content vs. Networking

It's a beautiful thing when you can achieve both at a conference (like last week's Annual Convention of Destination Marketing Association International in Atlanta). But an interesting post from meeting planner Jeff Hurt (and picked up by Sue Pelletier last week) suggests that, more and more, it's the networking that is driving attendance.

Jeff (like many meeting planners) has noticed more and more people registering at the last minute. Many of us figure that this is just our way of making sure we can still make an event, given our hectic and ever-changing schedules. But Jeff's research indicates that it's more about making sure that the people with whom we want to network will be there.

Has the Attendee List become more important than the Conference Program? It's something for planners to consider as they try to increase attendance...

The Hubris of Claiming First

It's a fairly common trait of humans to want to be biggest, best, fastest...first. It's that whole Hierarchy of Needs thing, I guess.

But, when your claim is so out in left field that you're in a completely other ballpark?

In a recent news release, the Maastricht Convention Bureau announced they are now utilizing Twitter and Facebook. They also claim that, "worldwide this is the first site of a convention bureau effectively making use of web 2.0 and social media marketing techniques."

Errr...not quite.

In my friend Martin Stoll's latest ranking of DMOs utilizing Twitter, he's tracking over 350 DMOs maintaining accounts. DMAI recently announced that roughly 150 of their DMO members have Facebook accounts. I'm fairly certain at least a few maintain both...and have for months.

Or maybe I'm reading the quote wrong. Maybe the MCB is claiming that they are the first DMO in the world to do it right.

Don't know if they're playing on attending the DMAI Annual Convention...but, if they do, I'm thinking there''ll be a throwdown.

Thanks to my friend Sharon Linton of the Meydenbauer Center for the catch.

The Power of Viral

When I picked up on this music video rant about United Airlines Tuesday morning from Chris Elliott on Twitter, it had been viewed on YouTube 320 times. Last night it was at 218,000.

The backstory: Last spring, the Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and Dave Carroll's Taylor $3500 guitar was severely damaged. United didn't deny the experience occurred but, for nine months, the airline refused to accept responsibility and finally said they would do nothing to compensate him for his loss. So he promised the last person to finally say "no" that he would write and produce three songs about his experience and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world.

This is the first song. Word on the street is that United is, all of a sudden, interested in talking with Dave.

But, for over 200,000 of their potential customers...it's too late. United Breaks Guitars.

UPDATE (9 July): 10 hours after this post, the video was at 470,000 views :)

UPDATE (10 July): 24 hours later, the video is approaching 1.4 million views. And Dave Carroll speaks out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7hFIYQFnw  What a class act.

UPDATE (17 July): 10 days after being at 320 views, the video has surpassed 3 MILLION views.

Linking Illegal?

It could be if an Illinois judge has his way, according to an article in the Guardian (and thanks to our buddy Meilee Anderson from Seattle Southside for the catch).

Influential Chicago Appeals Judge Richard Posner is concerned that newspapers are a dying breed. So are we. We think they are because they haven't embraced the internet correctly and report nothing but terrifying economic news, in the attempt to snare readers. Except, when they scare the shit out of their readers, their readers stop buying products. When readers stop buying, businesses don't have revenue with which to buy newspaper advertising.

Is it any wonder that newspapers have been complicit in their own demise?

But Posner thinks that it is the bloggers and twitterers linking to newspapers' online content are the culprits. But don't they deliver even more eyes to the online editions of these newspapers through their links? Eyes that wouldn't have, any other way, been there? Shouldn't bloggers and twitterers be thanked (even compensated) for their referrals?

Instead Posner suggests that copywrite laws be expanded to prohibit linking without permission (permission that would ostensibly carry a modest cost). In her e to me, Meilee brought up a very salient point. What happens to DMOs that rely on the ability to link to our partners to promote our destinations? While I doubt that permission wouldn't be granted by most...the time and paperwork that would be required would be astounding.

As is the case in so many areas these days, the attempt to save something seems to screw up the world for everyone else. Here's hoping the web stays free.

The e-mail vs. Social Media Smackdown

There really isn't one. While video may have killed the radio star, Twitter and Facebook have not killed e-mail as an effective communication tool.

Great post from Jason Baer in which he reveals the highly unscientific (but insanely interesting) finds of a recent Twitter-based survey: “Which do you check first in the morning: Twitter, email, voicemail?”

76% check e-mail first. A stat even more interesting because the question was only posed to Twitter afficionadoes.

And more interesting still...less than 5% checked Voicemail first.

While it's not as immediate, e still rocks...and it's not a question of one or the other. It's how to manage them all.

300+

Our friend Martin Stoll has released his May analysis of Destination Marketing Organizations that maintain (in varying states of effectiveness) Twitter accounts. Over 300 North American DMOs are using the service with over 70 boasting over 1000 followers.

Martin is quick to note something that we've feared from the start...that those without a clear strategy and an understanding of what social media means to the target consumer may well be screwing it up for all of us.

Just as spammers screwed up e-mail. As business is screwing up MySpace and Facebook. And will probably do the same to Twitter.

Unless we all get much smarter about how we are using them all.