Bill Geist's Zeitgeist

Turning a Public Goof into Gold

Discovered The Business of Sports last weekend while trolling for back-stories to use in a presentation Monday to the National Association of Sports Commissions. Blogger Russell Scibetti comments on the world of sports, marketing...and anything else that comes to mind.

I so loved his take on how the Washington Nationals could turn a recent embarrassment to their favor.

The story: Apparently some of the Nationals players have been wearing jerseys on which the team name is misspelled. Russell suggests that rather than trying to hide from the gaffe, the team should sell the jerseys for charity.

He has a bunch more ideas too...and I'll send you to his post to read them.

The Knowable Future

One of the bloggers I follow is a guy named Jason Baer (Convince&Convert). His post from yesterday so resonated with me...and elicited a laugh. Because I approach questions in exactly the same way. Google and Wikipedia. And my family always laughs as well, as they watch me reach for my iPhone or laptop when a question with no immediate answer is posed.

You too?

If you're a Destination Marketer, change the title of the post to "The Future of Destination Marketing." Best lines in the post: It strikes me as both exhilarating and terrifying that my children...will live in an age when everything is knowable. No conjecture. No mysteries...Doesn’t the balance of power shift from those that know stuff through study or experience, to those that don’t need to know, but know where to look?

And when we all know where to look, will DMOs be the source of the knowledge the consumer craves?

We'll need to be.

The Commercialization of Social Media

The commercialization of virtually anything that has previously grown organically is often a bad thing. And while we've been encouraging DMOs to enter the Social Media space for the past couple years, the resulting response has often made us cringe.

There have been some interesting posts over the past few weeks about how Traditional Marketing in the Social Media doesn't work. Indeed, it was never gonna work...because the majority of people that have gravitated to Social Media are resistant to traditional advertising. And, because we are interrupting them.

Now, with over 100 North American DMOs flooding the Twitter space with messaging that goes from sublimely effective to horribly ham-handed, one wonders whether we (and other advertisers) will foul these waters...or just be ignored.

Dead on post by one of my favorite marketing bloggers. It deserves your read.

And then your thoughtful consideration of how you are employing Social Media.

Got Social Media?

Oh yeah...and beyond yesterday's post regarding the high incidence of video viewership online, new research from Sway indicates that 40% of American Moms (aged 18-42...and the travel space's most influential consumer) belong to a Social Network.

Thinking about putting off your entry into this medium for another year?

Not a smart move.

A Quick Survey on DMOs and Social Media

My friend Martin Stoll (of GoSeeTell) is in the midst of surveying DMOs on their current utilization of social media. Responding DMOs get the aggregated results.

C'mon...you know you don't really want to dive back into work this morning. Take the survey.

2008 e-Marketing Insight Conference / Day Two

Day Two Highlights from the e-Marketing Insight Conference in Providence:

GoSeeTell's Martin Stoll shared his insight into the explosive growth of social media. Right off the top: you can't understand social media if you are not participating. Dive in. And don't delay. 70% of consumers are influenced by user generated content. 60% are involved in at least one social network. Social Media is crucial to the future of marketing because the consumer (faced with way too much clutter) is only listening to who they chose to.

Big take away: if you don't establish your destination in the social media sphere, you face the chance to be brandjacked...and someone else will occupy that space (just like URLs). Interestingly, not that he cares, but I have (in a sense) brandjacked the "other" Bill Geist with my various presences on social networks and this blog.

Don't fear reviews. 95% of the reviews on the GoSeeTell network are positive. Find those that are talking about you and engage them to be evangelists for you.

Being actively involved in social media gets you a seat at the table. Watching through the window gets you nothing.

Chris Adams (Miles Media) and David Kirschner (Omniture) released data from their new White Paper entitled "Monitor, Measure and Manage: Best Practices in Web Analytics for DMOS." They urged attendees to go past traditional web analytical tools and begin focusing on the steps that consumers to take to insure that your tactics are working. Page Views per Visit shows the level of engagement with your site. Monitor your most popular pages and top exit points to enhance your site. "Stickiness" was all the buzz in the '90s...and, with Web 2.0 tactics, it's baaaack.

Test several versions of your landing pages to reduce Bounce Rates. Track critical activity...like stuff that impacts intent to travel.

Unfortunately, I was presenting to DMMI on Travel Trends during Dave Serino's presentation. Check out his blog for his high points.

The Social Media Gap

Looking forward to hanging with my friend Martin Stoll of GoSeeTell this week at Dave Serino's eMarketing Insight Conference in Providence.

His Monday post of the "gap" between those in the Destination Marketing space that "get" Social Media...and those that don't is dead on. And scary.

The most telling paragraph: "At Marketing Outlook Forum I saw a “social gap”. On the one side those who are already using social media to their advantage, on the other side those who look in awe and try to figure out a way into the game. The problem is that in social media there are no shortcuts. It takes time to build meaningful engagement. The longer you wait, the bigger this social gap will get."

Hope we'll see you there... the conversation should be fascinating

A Few Seats Left

Just a few spots remain for the upcoming e-Marketing Insight Conference, being held in conjunction with DMAI's Destination Management & Marketing Institute, November 12-14 in Providence.

Founder Dave Serino has gathered some of the brightest voices in internet marketing for the event,  including Erin Francis-Cummings, Dave Bratton, Tania Leichiter, Martin Stoll, Chris Adams and David Kirschner.

And, yeah...I'll be there too.

Hope to see you there!

And Happy Halloween...

Not the Movie You Hoped For

To land a movie in your community is a dream come true for most Destination Marketers. But, when that movie doesn't exactly portray your destination in the most positive of lights (think "Fargo" and that wood-chipper), what to do?

That's the issue before Tony Smithers at the Humboldt County (CA) CVB as the premier of "Humboldt County" is just days away. Not unlike the dilemma we posted on yesterday, what is a DMO pro to do when the message is, well, OFF-message?

For those that haven't seen the trailer, "Humboldt County" chronicles the misadventures of a mismash of characters involved in the marijuana trade. And, as Tony explained in a recent e-conversation, "any motion picture featuring my county—especially one named for my county—would seem an ideal branding springboard. On the other hand, the pervasive dope theme of the movie works to undo all of the positive brand connotations we’ve been working on for years. Yes, the county looks lovely in the film…but the people don’t."

What to do? Tony took a different tack by pushing their own video content onto YouTube and getting incredibly cool results. As Tony explained:

"It all started with the YouTube phenomenon video “Christian the Lion,", which has racked up over 12 million views. We rushed out our own parody video, "Bigfoot Reunion," and twisted it into a pitch to visit the Redwoods. In the first week on YouTube we got over 100,000 views. The video was blogged by the LA Times, which sent THOUSANDS of visitors to our website. We created a Bigfoot sweepstakes with special landing page, and pushed the video out through MySpace, Facebook, Vimeo, AOL video, etc.
 
Part of the success was timing—we launched the day before the “Georgia Bigfoot Hoax” press conference and there was a lot of interest and search going on. Our filmmaker also nailed the parody (the maker of the Lion video gave his highest praise). We think we’re on to something and are waiting for the next inspiration to strike."

So am I.

You Smell Like Toast

That is, if you are not paying attention to what your customers are saying about you online.

New research from the Opinion Research Corporation indicates that 82% of consumers do online research before they travel. 80% say that online word of mouth posts influence their decision.

As Ben McConnell (Church of the Customer Blog) says "monitoring online word of mouth has graduated from a future to-do, to a must-have."

As in...now.