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.

A big thanks to Salina McIntire, Membership Director with The Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce for her assistance in planning this event and others. And we definitely couldn’t do it without the help of our sponsors – Microarts, Vital Design, Patti Fousek of CreativeMind Search Marketing and Awareness. Thank YOU!!

I am also very excited to be able to bring you live music from The Sea Captains!!

Adam Flaherty @aflaherty_media (also a member of @TheSeaCaptains) created this awesome video to help promote the event while we were at @RedHookNH yesterday afternoon. Check it out!!

See you on 2/18!!

NH Tweetup :: Retro TechUp 2/18/10 @ Redhook, NH from The Sea Captains on Vimeo.