Tourism New Brunswick and Google added to ORCTV

Two more interviews have been launched on ORTV,  Carol Alderdice from Tourism New Brunswick  and Daniel and Carl from Google! Carol is speaking about how they worked on a collaborative effort with multiple agencies for Tourism New Brunswick.  This was a great  case study that was presented in 2009 in Niagara Falls.

The important takeaway Carol has about working with multiple agencies is to bring all of the stakeholders to the table at once. It is a really good point  because us chicks  often see clients working with numerous agencies, yet they are all working in silos on a project.

The Title and description was  from Online Revealed last year was:   

TourismNewBrunswick.ca – A Collaboration Story of Multiple Agencies and 1 Strategy 

Description:  How do you combine the strengths of multiple agencies to execute a shared marketing strategy and deliver a consistent user experience?   How do you avoid duplication, share content and data, and execute while harnessing the best of many teams?  Tourism & Parks New Brunswick has learned the real-world answers to these questions by uniting its 4 agencies to work together over the past few years.  In this case study, we’ll share the strategy and practices that delivered on a single online strategy, integrated user experience, and common web platform.  Join this session to learn about the opportunities, challenges, and best practices to consider when leading multiple agencies to execute an integrated marketing strategy. 

Presented by Carol and T4G this case study was extremely well received by the attendees!

Who thought Google could have names? As Alicia  refers to them as “A Couple of Googles. Com” it was a pleasure to have both Daniel and Carl join us in Niagara from California last year.  Their top takeaways for 2009 for  must do in online marketing from Google were:

1. Remain accountable..be sure you measure your online marketing programs
2. Think about where you want your marketing to be- Be relevant
3. Where and who do you want to target- is it geo or demographic

Google will be back in 2010, not sure yet if Daniel and Carl will be here or other Google-ites! However their session is a must attend:  Get the most out of Google’s suite of products, both paid and free,
with an in-depth look at Analytics tracking, AdWords reporting, and some fun Google Maps options! See how you can maximize your travel industry presence online at a time when the name of the game is ROI!

Registration is open!

Yesterday registration for the 5th Annual Online Revealed Conference Opened and I was amazed at the number of registrations on day one! I have been busy speaking with potential workshop leaders. I just love the way the community has come forward wanting to share their stories and teaching others how to do it.

One of the biggest requirements I have regarding the workshops is the they are not infomercials.  What makes our conference different is we strive to be the leader in hands on application, the place you come to learn how to do it!

The topics on the agenda were approved by the advisory committee but you will see more detailed descriptions as we finalize the workshop leader and they provide a more detailed description.

This year we removed the learning levels of beginning , intermediate and advanced based on the feedback from the community. So this year we have divided the workshops into categories, SEO/SEM, Techy Stuff and Social Media.  As always you can mix and match your tracks  or stay in one discipline if that is what you like.

Another difference this year, instead of 4 tracks of 4 we now have 5 tracks to choose from. This means all participants can attend up to 5 workshops this year! For those of you who are facing budget constraints, we have provided three registration levels as well. This allows you the flexibility from a budget and timing perspective.

On a final note, I do have workshop slots still available and am looking for workshop leaders. Today I will be organizing which ones are filled and which ones are open for teachers. If you ahev an interest please contact me!

Patricia

Fully Connected!

 

Ok so this is a true story but I have had to change the names to protect the “connected” A friend sent along an email signature from a colleague they work with,  and this person is “Connected!” In their email signature they had links to all of these social networks. ( I removed the hyperlinks but you can imagine how hysterical this signature looks!

                              Office

                               Voice

                                Fax

                               Skype

                               Twitter

                               Blog

                               Podcast

                                Video Channel

                               RSS

                               Facebook

                               LinkedIn

Is this what it’s coming to as far as various channels one needs to be hooked up to? As my friend wrote me

“I’ll opt for “old-fashioned” email or the phone…:-) I’m sure there is/will be a market for some sort of search engine device to comb these channels to consolidate messages…kind of like a tv remote control that can operate all the gadgets  If this lady monitors all of her connections…I wonder if she has any time for anything else, or maybe she has lots of assistants. Let’s just hope she doesn’t check them while she is driving!

My question was, “I wonder what she does when goes on vacation??

It is confusing to navigate through all of these networking sites and decide which ones work best for you personally and professionally. We hope you join us at the 2010 Online Revealed Conference, where we will navigate through all of these channels including  the Real story on Facebook and Twitter.

Until then I would love to hear from you so please feel free to Skype me, poke me, email me ,add me to linked in, Facebook me, bing or google me or if you really are bored, just pick up the phone and call me!

Patricia

“I am on Twitter and I don’t know why?”

 Alicia and I have just returned from doing a number of workshops this fall including Charlottetown PEI, Vancouver Island Tourism Conference, and Canadian Society of Club Managers in Victoria, Society of Incentive Meeting Planners, Destination Halifax Workshop and Lunenburg. 

One of the best sound bytes of all the workshops was when I asked one group to tell me who they were, what they did and why they were here. The first gentleman in a somber tone said, “My name is Ron and I am on Twitter and I don’t know why?” I really laughed because he sounded like he was at an AA meeting. In fact a number of participants shouted back “Hi Ron, we’re on Twitter too and don’t know why” 

One lady had the courage to admit she had started a facebook group and couldn’t find it! In the last couple of months alone we have spent time with almost 500 travel professionals who keep saying the same thing; we need to learn how these tools work and how to use them for our business. Then in addition how to explain to the boss why we need to use them and how to show an ROI! 

Alicia and I often refer to ourselves as the “Dear Abbie’s of the internet!” There are limited places for people to educate themselves on what the online tools are and how to use them. This was the very reason we started Online Revealed. 

Our conference is NOT like any others out there. You can attend a number of hotel conferences and listen to a lot of people talk about trends, numbers, case studies, but then you turn around and say “Now what? How does this apply to me?”  The Hospitality Industry is cautiously approaching 2010 as recovery for travel is not certain.

A Couple of Chicks are working with numerous hotels and tourism organization that are planning their 2010 marketing budgets. What is interesting is everyone will admit they know their customers are spending over 80% of their time online but their online marketing budgets are still only reflecting 10-15% at best. Yes there are those ones who are ahead of the curve and have allocated over 50% to Online Marketing.

 The whole point is not how much but where are you going to use it? As a Digital Agency we see a lot of other vendor’s contracts and pricing for everything from Link Building to Social Media is all over the place. There appears to be numerous companies trying to “cash in” on the wave, especially when it comes to social media like Facebook and Twitter. 

Which brings me to the point of this post; you can come to Online Revealed in January and have your choice of over 15 hands on workshops that will provide you with the tools to get started. I still have workshop leader spots available so if you are interested please contact me!!

Until we see you in January start planning to incorporate some type of online marketing activity ( free or for a fee) for each and everyone of your market segments! Just remember, if your customers are not on Twitter, you don’t have to be on it either!

Selecting workshops for 2010

It’s a cold and rainy morning this Friday of the long weekend. It is so hard to believe Thanksgiving is already upon us. We have our first 2010 Advisory Board call today. I am really excited as we have an outstanding Advisory Board that gives a great representation of East to West, Hotels and DMO and pair it with a couple of suppliers!

This year the board consists of:

William Bakker, Director, eBusiness
Tourism British Columbia

Michael Bower, Director of eCommerce and Marketing
Marriott Hotels & Resorts of Canada

Stephen A. Joyce, President
Sentias Software Corp.

Aaron Nissen
Travel Alberta

Melinda E. Van Patter, Client Relations Manager
Marketwire

Tom C. Wilson, Director of Recreation & Tourism
County Victoria, Cape Breton Island

and of course, My Co-Chair:

Edward Perry, Senior Director of E-Commerce
WORLDHOTELS

The first order of business will be to narrow down 25 workshop topics to 15  confirmed workshops for Online Revealed. We had some outstanding workshops last year that will return in 2010 including “The real Story on Twitter”, “Everything Google, by Google” and “Managing your online reputation” by TripAdvisor!! One new one that is confirmed already is “What about Bing?” In fact today I will have the speaker and topic confirmed by this new Decision Engine.

If you have a workshop topic to suggest or would like to teach a workshop, please contact me!

Thanks

Patricia

Online Revealed Offline…The Magazine!

"Online Version of Offline"

 

 The fourth edition of Online Revealed Offline will be produced again this year by our Co-Producers RadonicRodgers Design and Marketing.  The magazine has been such a great add on to the conference keeping the conversations going and becoming an additional resource for the community.

That’s right Community! What makes all the elements of Online Revealed so special is we are NOT and association or government agency, just a community of tourism professionals working together to provide online marketing education. In fact all of the content in Online Revealed Offline comes from the community not paid writers. This is yet another example of how we bring Real People, Real Solutions, Real Canadians together.

So I need your help! I am shouting out for content for our 5th Anniversary issue of “OFFLINE” .  So what type of content am I looking for? Well in addition to any articles you would like to submit an interesting comment came out during calls with our advisory board. What was brought up more than once was the interest in hearing what others had learned at Online Revealed and how they put it into practice.  I would love to hear about that too!

If you took some of the knowledge you learned last year and applied it toward your online marketing programs, we want to hear about it! Share your case studies, your success stories and new things you tried with all of us.

Please send your articles or ideas for an article to myself at pbrusha@acoupleofchicks.com. We need to gather the content by the first of December so we have adequate time for layout and printing. ( Remember I know most of you out there and if I don’t hear from you I will come and ask you!)

Also please let me know if you would be interested in purchasing an ad in the magazine. Rates are reasonable as the money just goes to offset the cost of producing the piece!

Plans for 2010 are underway!

Hello Online Revealed Community! Our poor little blog sat all by itself all summer but us “Chicks” were busy planning for our 2010 conference.  It is really hard to believe that this will be our 5th Anniversary of Online Revealed! Wow and we are extremely excited about rolling out the 2010 program!

First a couple of updates, as you may have heard we have moved the conference to Jan 25-27 at the Delta Centreville in Montreal. Why did we do that? Well the community asked us to bring our conference closer to Canada e-Connect so they could save on costs. You spoke, we listened! That’s what makes this grass roots effort so popular, we can be very nimble and accommodate requests from our community!

Second we signed a deal with Big Picture Conferences to produce the event logistics. What does that mean? It means the Chicks can stay focused on what we do best, developing the content and the workshops, marketing and planning the parties!! Big Picture will take care of all the other stuff for us. For those of you who have ever attended the Hotel Association Conference or the Canadian Hotel Investment Conference you’ll know what an outstanding  job Big Picture does in organizing an event. Plus wait til you meet Orie…she is fantastic!

So what are we going to do to celebrate our 5th Anniversary?? Well to start with we are having TWO MAJOR KEYNOTE presente rs!! First Geoff Ramsey the CEO and Founder of E-Marketer.  As his website states…”Geoff Ramsey is one of the Internet’s most exciting digital marketing visionaries. As CEO and co-founder of eMarketer, Geoff is on the cutting edge of new research statistics, trends and best practices, covering every aspect of marketing in the digital age. He is frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNN, BusinessWeek and Advertising Age.

A highly regarded speaker with an engaging presentation style, Geoff speaks at major digital, media and corporate events around the globe, including the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), The Conference Board, Economist Conferences, Google and Yahoo!” We are thrilled and honored to have Geoff speak in Montreal!

Second, if you haven’t heard about Jeremy Gutsche   you soon will! His book “Exploiting Chaos”  is tearing up the charts and becoming a Must Read!!  As stated on the website, “Already named one of CEO Read’s Books to Watch in 2009, featured in BusinessWeek, Metro, CityTV, The Toronto Star, the Chicago Tribune, 100s of blogs and 1,000s of tweets, Jeremy Gutsche’s text is about powerful ideas and vivid stories that will help you stimulate creativity, identify opportunity, and ultimately, Exploit Chaos.”

What an explosive opening lineup for day one! More coming soon on workshops…does a rumor have it that we may have both Google and Bing???

Patricia

The World We Live In – Online Revealed

Opening video for 4th Annual Online Revealed Canada Conference - “The World We Live In” produced by 180 Marketing.  Lots of interesting technology stats.

Thanks for the Memories & Highlights of Day 2

Wow – thanks to the amazing ORC team for hosting and organizing a great Online Revealed Canada conference in Niagara Falls. Special thanks to 1) the 305 delegates - for your wonderful support, attendance, and input into making this the top event for Tourism Online Marketing in Canada,  2) the 35 presenters – for sharing your knowledge, expertise, and experience on tourism online marketing with the conference delegates,  3) the sponsors & partners for their tremendous support and valuable contributions to this conference , 4) Niagara Falls Tourism, TravelZoo and Ottawa Tourism for the wonderful networking opportunities & special evening receptions, 5) Sheraton on the Falls Hotel -what a great conference venue & staff  and 6)  A Couple of Chicks e-Marketing & Radonicrogers design+marketing for producing this event.

Here are my personal highlights for Day Two -  1)  Opening video of Richard Kuntz , T4G, and William Bakker , Tourism BC, & using Marketing Automation Solution for Social Media, 2) Ed Radonic, Radonicrogers design+marketing - blogging is about passion, 3)  Southwest Airlines use of social media &  the passion Christi Day & David Alston brought to their presentation, 4)  Social Media and Jenn Lowther, 5) Understanding the benefits & importance of Anayltics – Stephen Joyce, Rezgo, 6) the Real Story on Twitter - the amazing panel and the fun, interactive & energy of this session 7) closing keynote speaker David Pavelko, Google, travel searches using more words, and more people watching travel related videos when researching.

The Calgary ORC08 it was about the paper clip and blogging,  and Niagara Falls ORC09 - social media and twitter, What will Ottawa ORC10 be ?????.  I know I am going to miss seeing the view of the falls in the morning and at night.  But I can’t wait to see the new Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. Your ORC blogger has been Tom C. Wilson, Director of Recreation & Tourism, Municipality of Victoria County, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Thank-you for allowing me to share with you some of my thoughts, moments and photos of ORC09. It has been a wonderful conference. 

Below are some photos & moments of Day 2, the final day of the conference. Click on the speaker (top left hand corner) to hear music with slideshow.

The Real Story on Twitter

An all-star lineup of panelists made this session incredible. It was fun, interactive, educational and  so timely. Chaired by Alicia Whalen, with panelists Stephen Joyce, Joe Bulher, Terri McCulloch, William Bakker, David Alston, Christi Day, this session really opened your eyes to this important social media tool.  

Alot of practical tips were given by the panelists and Alicia such as tagging and setting up a group ie. #orc09,  using tweetdeck,  personal and business information, be authentic, real, revelancy, branding, destination tips, travel writers following you, marketing, travel, and tourism online groups, finding useful resources, searching, putting your picture up, profile and much more. I was able to get a few tips from panelist Terri McCulloch at lunch on using the settings feature and adding background picture, background colour and font colour.

Below are some pics of our panelists with some music by Natasha Bedingfield – Soulmate. You can turn it on by clicking the speaker at top left corner. To turn it off click it again.