Getting Down to Businesswith Social Media

Tri-state Agritourism Conference

March 22, 2011

Becky McCray

Social Media tools I recommend for most agri-tourism businesses

The Simplified Marketing Plan

Finding the time

Roadmap:

Blog

Facebook Page

Video

Social Media tools I recommendFor most small agritourism businesses

Blogging for agritourism

Should I blog for my small business

Blog = a regularly updated website, or section of a website

Use text, video, audio, photos

Tell your renewal stories

Write down customer questions; blog the answer

Focus on what customers what to know, not what you want to tell them about your business.

Blogger

• Free, can purchase .com domain around $10 per year

• Easy to use, easy to customize

• Easy mobile version

• Post text, photos by email

Tumblr & Posterous

• Free, can purchase .com domain

• Easy to use, not so easy to customize

• Instant mobile version

• Post anything by email (photos, audio, etc.)

• Integrate with Facebook, Twitter

WordPress.com

• Free, can purchase .com domain around $15 per year

• Other add-on costs

• Easier to adapt to WordPress self-hosted later

WordPress self-hosted

• Extremely powerful, well respected

• Hosting and domain name cost approx. $50-$75 per year

• Professional help widely available for hire, and you’ll want it

Picking the right blogging serviceWhat you say is more important than where you say it.

Video for agri-tourismWhat to show

How to use video to promote your small business

Tell your renewal stories

Introduce your people

Profile your customers

Show hands-on demonstrations

Share your community

VideoHow to do simple videos

How to do simple videos for your business

Start with the camera you

have

Prepare and pick the right

spotUse a tripod

Shoot more than once

Edit with your existing

software

Share on your site &

distribute

Posterous and Tumblr:

You email it in

Other Services:

You post it to YouTube

and “embed” it in your site

Distribute further:

You send it through

TubeMogul

How your video gets to the web

Facebook Pages for agri-tourism

Tips from Shama Kabani, Marketing Zen, quoted at Small Biz Survival

Create a Page, not Profile

Build your Page with your purpose in mind

Help customers showcase their own identity

Share renewal stories, photos, videos

Encourage customers to share their photos

Easy to use• Built in audience• Social sharing• Likes videos and

photos

You are not Budweiser• Changes without

notice• Limited analytics• Little search benefit• No archives

Are all your eggs in the Facebook basket?

Ask your customers what tools they use

Spend your time where

your customers

are.

What about Twitter, Foursquare, etc.?

Use Gist or Flowtown to find out more about your customers

Name and describe each

market you need to reach.

List potential methods you

can use to reach them.

Establish the cost in time

and in money.

Mesh this with your

daily habits.

The Simplified Marketing PlanGetting down to business

Source: Small Biz Survival

You have more than one market.

Use Gist and Flowtown to find out more about them.

1. Name and describe each market.You have to know them before you can connect with them.

• Newspapers• Word of

Mouth• Printed

Materials

Traditional methods:

2. List potential methods you can use.Brainstorming stage (evaluation comes later)

• Facebook Pages

• Blog • Video

Online methods:

• Blogging: 8 hours and $5 per month• Billboards: 18 hours to create, $1500 to post*

Estimate the cost of each method on

your list.

• Contact: which get you in front of your target markets?• Interaction: which let you build deeper relationships?• Bottom line: which have the best potential to drive sales?

Balance the cost against the

potential benefits.

• Pick only the effective and do-able• Get rid of old methods that are no longer effective• Recapture that time and money for more effective methods

Focus on the effective tools

3. Establish the cost in time and in money.Then decide which to implement.

*I made that up. The point is to do your own estimates.

Set aside time to work on

marketing daily

Know your action steps

Multiply your

efforts

4. Mesh this with your daily habits.

Take the list of activities from your

simplified planCreate daily goals Make that a

checklist

Use it daily Pick a specific time

Finding the Time for Daily Actions

Update your Facebook status

Respond to all comments on your blog

Tweet 5 interesting links (not counting any links to your own stuff) on Twitter

Post a new picture to Flickr, Facebook or Twitter

Sample Daily Goals

See also: 19 Presence Management Chores You Could do Every Day by Chris Brogan

Finding the time: Multiply your efforts

Write one blog post about a guest’s

experience

Pull the most discuss-able sections

and post on your Facebook Page

Upload the photos and short videos

Edit it for your paper or email newsletter

Tourism Currents

@BeckyMcCray, @TourismCurrents

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