I was recently asked to keynote the final presentation at the NH Travel Council’s Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Portsmouth, NH. My focus was (shock, surprise) social media. But instead of just talking about social media, which frankly, I think there is too much talk about social media and not enough doing,  I decided to share some real examples of organizations within the travel & tourism space who are doing social media and doing it well.

I have to admit, I was really nervous about this presentation. I mean, I have spoken before, but never as the “keynote” and certainly not for a whole 60 minutes! So, in preparation for my big keynote debut, I leveraged my network and put a call out for some great examples of travel & tourism organizations having success with social media. I got several responses, one of which was from The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire.

Being familiar with The Museum from working with them for one of my NHTweetUp events and because they are local, I chose to include them as one of my featured case studies. So, I took my kids and my video camera and made my way to The Children’s Museum to speak with Heidi Duncanson, director of marketing for The Museum.

I was impressed. Really impressed with how Heidi was spearheading The Museum’s social media efforts. With their Facebook Page and Twitter account combined with their email newsletters (what BlueSky Factory calls the “Social Glue”), The Museum is able to connect with its members while building and nurturing their community.

During my video interview with Heidi (click below to view), she shared the Museum’s social media strategy along with some great examples of how just simply listening resulted in a visit from an out of town travel blogger who then wrote about her experiences within her blog that caught the attention of several other travel writers.

In later posts, I will share some other great examples from my presentation including my talk with Taste of Portsmouth about their social media efforts including their involvement with Foursquare Day in Portsmouth.  Please check back for that.

Hope you enjoy my video interview with Heidi. In case you are wondering who those two little cuties popping up in the porthole of the submarine are – they are my girls!

Know any organizations actually jumping in and doing social media and doing it well? Shoot me a note here or on Twitter @cmajor to let me know. I am always looking for great examples to capture and share.

You have likely seen the ENGAGEMENT db study that Charlene Li of Altimeter Group wrote in conjunction with Wet Paint. If you haven’t, I highly recommend taking a peek. The study looked at the top 100 brands according to Businessweek’s Interbrand Best Global Brands ranking and how they each engaged with different social media channels – a total of 11. What the study uncovered was that a brands’ engagement across multiple social networks significantly impacts its bottom line. Wow! This is great news, right? 

Well…yes, but wait. Don’t go running out and joining every social network you can in the hopes you will immediately see a rise in revenue. It takes more than an “if you build it, they will come” mentality when using social marketing tools. Brands need to go beyond just signing up for multiple accounts and instead focus on actually fueling their fanbase by actively engaging with consumers online – across all channels. 

Getting those accounts set up is just the first step in creating the platforms in which to begin to fuel a fanbase. It takes a lot of work and time to actually manage it all for it to be successful – especially if you are managing multiple channels that incorporate elements like video, podcasts, social networks, Twitter and branded online customer communities.  A few tweets here and there are not the makings of a successful social marketing campaign (sorry). 

The good news coming from early reports is that by creating and managing this type of multi-social-media-platform program, organizations are beginning to realize a multiplier effect that comes from integrating these programs. In other words, when you cross promote your efforts like tweeting a blog entry, you get better results than if you had used each platform independently. 

You’ve heard this over and over again so I apologize for beating this dead horse, but you no longer want to talk TO your audience anymore – it doesn’t work. They won’t listen. Instead, give your customers the opportunity to engage with YOU by creating a multi-social-media-platform approach that will not only fuel your fanbase, but improve your bottom line as it is doing for brands like Starbucks, Toyota, Dell and SAP.

Now you can go and get started!

On a side note….Can I get your vote?

I recently submitted a speaking proposal for the Enterprise 2.0 conference taking place in Boston in June suggesting that my Awareness, Inc. colleague, Mike Lewis (@BostonMike) discuss how brands can and are successfully fueling their own fanbase by managing multiple social networks.  Because Enterprise 2.0 requires that submissions be voted in by the masses, I would very much appreciate your help in making this session happen. If you have a moment, please click here and register to vote  up until  1/20/10 . I would be forever grateful

Thank you!!

While Battle Decks is predominantly for fun, it is a great exercise for the public speaker to be able to speak on their feet about a topic they know nothing about and convince the audience that THEY are the expert at that particular topic. All of the speakers & judges did an amazing job thinking on their feet while, most, made us believe they were the experts on the politics of social media dancing and the dying art of the moustache!

The judges, who were scoring all presenters on a scale from zero to 10, all agreed that both Diane Vautier and John Herman were the big winners of the day as they faced off during the Battle Decks Deck Off. Five slides into the Deck Off,  John Herman determined that there was room for two winners – even though he felt “3″ would have been more appropriate – and stopped.

Thanks to presenters Ed Justen, Steve Garfield, Anthony Liang, Diane Vautier and John Herman and judges Seth Cohn, Tara Sullivan and Leah Carey for participating and making this session a success. You all rock! I can’t wait for the PodCamp NH in 2010 where Battle Decks will be bigger and badder than ever!

Since many of the attendees were from smaller companies, I stressed that any business – big or small – could benefit from implementing some form of social media strategy into their organization. An example I used to help make my point was to compare Starbucks with the Crème Brulee cart in San Francisco. Both businesses are using Twitter and seeing great results to drive business to their location, but one is a multi-national chain and the other is a small food cart roaming around San Francisco. They couldn’t be more different, yet they are using the same tools to connect and engage with their loyal fans.

If you don’t think you need help managing your social media efforts, you might want to take a closer look at the time investment required to ensure it’s done well. Sure, some of you may be able to manage it all while also running your business, but to do it right, it needs to be more than an afterthought – and most executives just don’t have the bandwidth to focus on doing both jobs effectively at the same time.

You also aren’t likely to have the time to “be everywhere” – listening, engaging, responding – but a dedicated social media professional can do this for you. Consistency is crucial to ensure results. A dedicated focus on social media efforts = a quicker time to value.

You also don’t want to have a “Nelson” moment by not paying attention to your brand online. Some examples I used during the Chamber Breakfast included Domino’s Pizza and United Airlines to show the difference between a brand listening and responding immediately (Domino’s) and another that chose to ignore for more than a year (United).

So, what should you look for in a social media professional? We asked David Meerman Scott this question while attending SXSW Interactive earlier this year. You can check out the video here, but I summed it up with this intricate graphic I call “The Anatomy of a Social Media Professional.”

As David also pointed out in his interview with us, when you are seeking help with your social media efforts, it’s important that you do your homework and make sure whoever you hire has the qualifications needed to get the job done. If they aren’t out there practicing what they preach, or if they can’t point to any ROI as a result of their efforts, than you might want to keep searching.

What do you think? Do you think a dedicated social media professional is necessary in business? What qualities do you think a social media professional should have – did we miss anything in our anatomy slide? We would love to get your thoughts in the comment section below.

*This article is also posted on the PerkettPRsuasion blog.