I am on the delayed 7.30am from Brisbane to cosy Launceston, Tasmania to deliver an online marketing workshop to North Tasmanian tourism associations and organisations and I cannot wait. No, not only to get off the plane but to help passionate tourism stakeholders go one step further with their online strategies.

Twitter, Flickr, TripAdvisor? Where are you hiding?

Whilst the majority of tourism organisations have a "Visit us we say we are great" portal-like website, few of them have developed an interactive, user-enriched social media strategy. Could it be because they only want to push the "positive" about their region and user generated content risks revealing not only the good but also the "not so good"? Is giving control of their brand to their users against their policy? Most probably. My opinion on this is that if people cannot see or leave reviews next to the product they will go away and look for them. Wouldn't you? Thing is, they may not remember how to get back to your site and book! Wouldn't it be wiser to offer the user a one-stop shop experience and get the booking there and then? After all, social media is the number one activity that takes place on the web for a reason. So, if you were to implement a social media strategy for your tourism association and you were very time poor, where would you start? Where would you get the biggest bang for your buck? Read on...

What key aspects of social media should tourism organisations implement in their online strategies?

Those of you who know me are aware of my Italian passion for the web and that asking a short one-line question during a casual dinner generally throws me into a whiteboard-enhanced 5h hands-on training session. However, tomorrow I only have 1h to touch 50 destination managers so I will be brief and to the point and focus on 2 areas:

• Online reputation management
• Photo and video sharing (in the next blog post)

Online reputation management for tourism organisations

Out of the hundreds of tourism destination websites that I have gone through over the past fortnight none offered user generated reviews (or access to them). Let's not dwell on the reasons but focus on the solution. Knowing that 80% of consumers trust peer recommendations imagine how many visits to your site you could have converted into sales if they had a structured social media strategy in place. Don't look back but forward remember... The nice thing with the web is that it is sticky. Those positive reviews and testimonials about Launceston are sill there for you to get a hold of, sift through and leverage to socialise your online presence. Phew. Ok, ready? This is what you need to do to get started:

• setup your Twitter account to hear what is being said about your destination (download Tweet Deck and set up a search). 80% of Twitter usage is done via mobile devices.... imagine how quickly a bad experience could ruin one of your member's reputation. Setup time: 30 minutes
• subscribe to search engine and blog RSS feeds to also know what is being said on your destination. Research time: 30 min, setup time 30 min (refer to the tourism ekit on how to setup RSS feeds)
• subscribe to Google Alerts for your destination. Use keywords such as "Launceston", "Launceston Holiday", "Launceston travel", "Launceston reviews". Setup time 30 min (refer to the tourism ekit on how to setup Google Alerts)
• get a hold of your web developer and add your organisation's Twitter feed to your website, not only will it add a touch of social media glam but most importantly it will give your readers a place to engage via your destination portal (they will know who to follow!) Setup time for your web developer 30 min to 1h.
• set up your destination's page on TripAdvisor (www.tripadvisor.com/owners) - you will get notified on new actions on your page and new comments. This is a good guide which should help. Setup time: 1h

Total time for phase one setup: approx. 3.5 to 4 hours.

Yes, as you can see from the timing above it does take time and yes staff will need to be trained. But it is worth it. Social media is not a fad - it is the number one activity on the web.

Once that you know what is being said about your regions by past and future guests it is time to engage and inform. Don't sell your destination via social media though - imagine how annoying it would be to have a salesman forcing his product on you whilst you were having a nice casual conversation over dinner with friends at a restaurant. This is what selling via social media feels like. Instead of selling information and advise.

Next time on UntangleMyWeb.com's blog, Photo and Video sharing for tourism organisations!