Tag Archive for: social media

2016 Trends in Social Media

Dave Serino, TwoSix Digital’s Founder and Strategist, recently shared the following trends in social media in a recent CenStates Travel and Tourism Research Association newsletter.  He will be presenting a session on using analytics to drive successful advertising campaigns at the organization’s annual conference in Rapid City, South Dakota on September 23rd.

A few of today’s trends in social media landscape we’re seeing:

The Battle for Ephemeral Visual Media Continues…..

SnapchatSnapchat – a great example of ephemeral media, which are short-form video & images that makes a claim for our attention in the age of contemporary screen culture – is being seriously challenged by Instagram, a Facebook owned property.

The challenge comes in the form of Instagram “Stories” – a series of images and videos that will disappear in 24 hrs.  The reason it could be so devastating to Snapchat? Instagram has a simple user interface and a larger network of users  – 300 million compared to Snapchat’s 150 million.  

And, another advantage to Instagram – an ad network supported by Facebook that includes multiple levels of targeting based on known interests and geo settings. Read more

Social Media Workshops Highlighted at Conference

Pure Michigan Social Media Workshops Quickly Approaching!

social media workshops announced

Credit: Grand Hotel

Exciting news this week with Vice President of Travel Michigan, Dave Lorenz, announcing the upcoming social media workshops being hosted by TwoSix Digital at the 2016 Pure Michigan Governor’s Conference on Tourism. That conference – attended by more than 800 tourism and hospitality industry members – was held in Lansing and provided some excellent networking opportunities with new connections being made and existing partnerships being strengthened.

On Monday morning Lorenz broke down his state of the tourism industry in Michigan and showed attendees some very cool things on the horizon for the Pure Michigan brand as it hits its ten year anniversary. Lorenz mentioned the importance of more than just those in the MEDC strengthening the Pure Michigan brand before mentioning the social media workshops being led by Dave Serino and his team at TwoSix Digital. Read more

Content Creation Without Reinventing the Wheel

Content Creation doesn't have to be hard

Content creation doesn’t have to be hard

By Grant Kenney, TwoSix Digital Senior Digital Strategist

One thing I’ve heard from clients no matter what industry they’re in: “it’s so hard to find content to write about every day!” Having been on that side of the conversation before as a social media manager I can sympathize, but I have found ways around this persistent issue. Here are a few tips on what you can do to improve your content creation without reinventing the wheel every day.

Could I be overthinking my content creation?

Yes, absolutely. It can be a daunting process to think about all of the channels you need to write content for, but it doesn’t need to be. If you’re armed with something your audience doesn’t know you’re already off to a great start, and guess what? You know more than you think and there’s great content all around you.

treasure

As Calvin told Hobbes, “there’s treasure EVERYWHERE!” Don’t go looking too hard for it.

Raid your website

Remember back to your hiring at the company or position you’re in now when you were learning the history and details of your company, DMO or brand by studying the website? ALL of those little things you learned early on may seem mundane now but were kind of interesting when you learned them. These are solid pieces of content now.

Try pulling some interesting talking points from your website and then craft them into informative and interesting social posts that send people back to your website for extra traffic. The great thing about this content is that it’s always there, always useful and always informative. Read more

Twitter & Periscope Strategies for Content Marketing Success (VIDEO)

brianets15

Brian Matson presenting at E-Tourism Summit

By Brian V. Matson, TwoSix Digital Senior Director of Strategy and Education

I recently had the opportunity to make my first trip to San Francisco, CA to attend and be a presenter at E-Tourism Summit. It was a fast paced few days with a talented group of destination marketers.

I’ve heard about this event for several years but have never had the chance to attend. My luck changed when I was asked to present at the Summit. Event organizers asked me to present my thoughts on Twitter and Periscope…in 15 minutes. 15 minutes!? I’m used to doing half day workshops! Needless to say the short timeframe provided the perfect opportunity to deliver a quick, informative (and somewhat brutally honest) take on the two social channels.

When it came to Twitter I stressed how important it is to get back to basics and to use the network to give content more opportunities to succeed.

  • Listening VS Engagement – Of course a huge part of Twitter is listening but when’s the last time you went and started a conversation? Get off your heels and be more proactive. Too much waiting around happening.
  • Be Human – We’ve been chanting this “be human” thing for years but it’s still something that users need to be reminded of. Put the robot voice down and be an approachable human being.
  • Recycle – DMOs have boat loads of content that is far too often  seen as a one hit wonder. Develop sharing schedules to get content pieces out into the world again.

Jn9mecpThe main takeaway that jumpstarted a bit of a larger conversation came in extending the stories being told on Twitter. Instead of telling the same stories or sharing the same pieces of content from network to network we talked a bit about how we could extend the story with different perspectives, additional content and more integrated layers to extend the discovery process.

Attendees were mostly interested in Periscope and my handful of tips seemed to be well-timed as attendees were starting to give the application a go.

  • Go horizontal – Periscope opened up horizontal video! This is actually huge as the broadcasts are actually usable in other channels now.
  • Engage with audiences – Get some help monitoring and recognizing commenters. A second pair of hands can go a long way.
  • Developing a regular schedule – By all means experiment with Periscope, but success comes when it finds a regular home in your content planning process.
  • Using WiFi Networks – Save your data plan and find strong WiFi networks. The app can eat a data plan like nobody’s business.

Screen Shot 2015-12-10 at 1.00.05 PMThe biggest point that really got people thinking in terms of broader content marketing opportunities was within the simple flip of a switch in the settings of the Periscope application. The saving of broadcasts lead to a great discussion about distributing Periscope content within your greater content strategy.

There currently aren’t a lot of DMOs that are leveraging this tool but those that are doing experimenting are doing some great things. St. Pete/Clearwater is broadcasting sunrises, seal rescues and other various events. Leroy Bridges presented an additional session with Periscope examples at the summit that is worth checking out. Periscope and live streaming applications in general certainly were getting a lot of notice at E-Tourism Summit.

I was happy to see that the session got a solid response from those in attendance. It was voted the best session of the summit which considering the massive amount of content and speakers at the event was a real surprise. I had a great time in San Francisco and look forward to another E-Tourism Summit in 2016.

In case you missed the session you can check it out below!

You can download a copy of the presentation slides here.