Posts Tagged ‘trust’

Do you have “mommy bloggers” in your marketing plan?

April 28th, 2010

I’ve been to Galena, IL.  I saw the Ulysses S. Grant home and attended my first wine tasting there.  

It’s been about twelve years, but I remember Galena as a fun place with a lot of tourism potential.  I had heard about the community from some friends who lived in nearby Dubuque, IA. This raises an important question:  “How do rural communities get the word out to tourists?”

 

The transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0

The old way of marketing a community was to print a brochure, join a tourism association, create a website, and maybe try to attract the attention of some tour operators.  That’s so Web 1.0.

Galena may still be doing those things, but they have also moved on to include Web 2.0 strategies in their tourism efforts They recently invited 8 “mommy bloggers” from the Chicago area to tour their community.  The obvious hope was that these influential bloggers would write about their experience and encourage their readers to discover Galena’s hidden treasures. 

Why mommy bloggers?  According to the blog post where I learned about the event:

Mom bloggers were specifically targeted because when they reviewed who was following their Twitter account they found moms to be the common thread. Plus, families are taking shorter trips closer to home and Galena is a 3 hour drive from Chicago – where many of the women are from.”  (source:  Esther Brady Crawford, “Rural Jo Daviess County Turns To Mom Bloggers For Tourism Boost,” She Posts, April 22, 2010.) 

 

It’s about Trust

Great idea.  Reach the decision maker in the family through a source of information they trust, their favorite mommy blogger. 

Some people may criticize this approach saying that the old way of marketing offers the potential to reach more people.  They are right.  You can print a million brochures and pay to get your community recognized by Google. 

But I’d respond to those critics by asking them to consider how I got to Galena twelve years ago, in the days before social media.  I didn’t Google a website, I didn’t pick up a brochure at visitors center.  A friend told me about it.  Someone who’s opinion I trusted.

Social media has helped us discover new friends, and rural communities need to figure out ways take advantage.   Congratulations Galena.  We look forward to hearing more about the project and what you learned in the process.

 

( Thanks to Becky McCray for sharing the post via Twitter. )

Photo Credits:  Ulysses S. Grant House  (top right)  by Yark64 – Flickr and Galena, IL (bottom left) by Josh Be Me – Flickr

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Posted in Economic Development, Rural | Comments (5)

Tech Trendy South Dakota

April 6th, 2010

Yesterday, Keloland TV in Sioux Falls featured Tea, SD and the Facebook page created for the community by its economic development director, Jenni White.   


 

(Note:  Thanks to Jonathan Garcia  answering the “help request” I posted on Twitter last night.  I initially had to post a link to the Keloland site because their embed code wasn’t working. Jonathan sent me this YouTube file, which I’m able to embed Thanks Jonathan!) 

White says she created the tool as a way to share information with the community’s residents.  Even though it’s only been around for a few months, the page has attracted almost 400 fans.  Nice job Jenni!

But Tea is not the leader in the pack of South Dakota communities using Facebook.  I marvel at how effective Miller, SD has been with their Facebook page.  Any community of approximately 1500 residents that is pushing 1000 Facebook fans is doing a remarkable job.  And there are others. I know of half dozen other communities that are using Facebook pretty effectively, including Lennox, Miner County, Chamberlain, Webster, Deuel County, and Oldham.

But you know what?  Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that so many communities using Facebook.  After all, South Dakota a national leader in our percentage of Facebook users. 

 

Mashable give us the goods

Yes, you heard me right.  Yesterday, I learned about South Dakota’s high adoption rate for Facebook in research posted by Muhammad Saleem on Mashable. 

In short, the research tells us that South Dakota has the highest percentage of its population with Facebook accounts-coming in at 31.1%.  (Get all the goods with the graphics below or at the Mashable article. )

I’m proud of this statistic! It wasn’t all that long ago that I considered South Dakotans as social media/networking laggards.  When we started ReImagine Rural in the fall of 2008, I conducted an informal survey of rural community development leaders asking about their social media usage.  I didn’t find anyone with a Facebook account (myself included), and only 10% said they read blogs with any regularity. 

 

Why should we care?

The Mashable research has me thinking about what this means for South Dakota.  I’m actually perplexed by why our Facebook usage is so high, especially when compared to our neighboring states. Why do you think that is?

But the bottom line is that Facebook is a great tool for South Dakota communities to use as they attempt to “build community.”  In rural communities, we used to have stronger “third places” that helped build this sense of community. 

In their absence, I think Facebook and other social networking tools offer an alternative for getting people together for conversations that helps build trust.  That doesn’t mean face-to-face conversation isn’t important.  Hopefully, communities with Facebook pages like Tea, Miller, and Chamberlain discover ways to use Facebook to generate more offline personal interaction.   

It’s when this starts to happen, that we will really be able to say “South Dakota is Tech Trendy.”

Note:  Thanks to Hugh Weber at Deep Bench for drawing my attention to this info. 

 

 (source:  Muhammad Saleem , “By the Numbers: Facebook vs the United States (Infographic)” Mashable, April 5, 2010).

 

 

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Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Rural | Comments (5)

Trust Agent Authors from OTA Sessions

April 1st, 2010

In addition to Mitch Joel’s interview (which I previewed on Tuesday), Lindsey and I were able to interview Julien Smith and Chris Brogan, co-authors of Trust Agents.  Along with Mitch, both Julien and Chris are spreading their ideas about the future of social media. We were fortunate that all three, as a part of the “Building Trust in a Connected World,” kicked off the OTA Sessions.

Here’s a bit of what Julien had to say in an interview with Lindsey. 

Julien Smith on “breaking habits”

 

Without mentioning it specifically, Julien described the basic concept of ReImagining Rural.  He recommends people step out and try new things.  As they do, people will discover new ideas and ways of doing things. Isn’t that what we are calling on rural communities to do? 

Most of us recognize that what we’ve been doing in small towns for the last 50-80 years hasn’t been working.  So why shouldn’t we try stepping out into new experiences?  That, in part, is what motivated me to do these interviews.   I’m never going to become Tom Brokaw, but hopefully, by stepping out into new experiences, I will continue to grow and develop new ideas.  Hopefully, along the way, my new experiences will lead to successes and failures that all rural communities can learn from.

 

Chris Brogan on saying “I See You”

 Of the three “Building Trust in a Connected World” presenters, I was the most familiar with Chris Brogan.  I discovered his wisdom when I first began the process for developing ReImagine Rural, and I really started paying attention to him based the connection he had with Small Biz Survival blogger, Becky McCray.   (And thanks for the introduction Becky. Chris is incredibly gracious and down-to-earth, as were Mitch and Julien.)


 

Chris nails his description of why “I see you” is so important today.  We’re all tired of people not recognizing us for who we are.  Rural leaders seeking to promote their communities can’t just rely solely on traditional marketing because it’s a one-way conversation.  We need to build relationships that recognize people for being unique and make each person feel special. 

And this brings us back to how we treat each other in our day-to-day, face-to-face lives.  Chris suggests an opportunity is present for rural communities to tap into people’s increasing desire for human interaction; it’s supposedly something we’re good at. But is it?

We often like to talk about how friendly our small towns are.  I’m not sure I buy it.  Does the ceremonial small town wave mean that we’re really friendly?  Or does it mean that we’re good at saying “Hi”?  In today’s world, casual greetings won’t cut it.  We’ve got to become better at seeing each other for who we are.

Mitch, Julien, and Chris:  Thanks for the great presentations and for being so generous with your time.

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Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Rural, Training and Events | Comments (2)