Social Media is about connections between people.

Travel & Tourism is also about connections between people.

Social Media and Tourism can work together like hand in glove, but only a few of the early adopters are really starting to seriously consider the exciting future impact of Social Media on Tourism Marketing.

Enter Douglas Lampi – Presenting next week at the Northwestern Ontario Tourism Association (NWOTA) Annual General meeting for the second time in as many years.

Douglas will give a brief lecture on how Social Media can help Tourism Businesses build their connections, brand recognition and word-of-mouth recommendations.

Watch here for more details.

In the never-ending search to bring my web visitors the latest and the best, I’ve been joining and learning about the various forms of Social Media Sites.

After joining groups and communities, learning what they do to build their memberships, I started creating groups and communities within the Social Media sites too.

Though my journey of registering at

• the sites listed with Profilactic.com,
• all the video sites fed through Tubemogul.com,
• all the blogging sites supported by flickr.com and YouTube.com,
• all the micro-blogging sites that Ping.fm distributes to and
• all the additional social media sites compiled by SecondBrain.com and lifestream.fm -

I’ve come to understand that I’m not in Kansas anymore.

Even as a full time web-nerd, I’m shocked at how different things have become.

Now for The Search
Given #1: I can install software and build websites on Linux and Windows servers.
Given #2: Open Source software exists for running a social media website.

I’ll start my search on Sourceforge.net – a great place for any Open Source software you may need, and I’ll work my way through testing out the demo software that I find.

Here are three systems I’m reviewing:

Truthfully social networking platforms, A SOA system for lover and friends.provide a reliable, fast, social networking package.Easy to install,use,manage,and have web service api raise your business to the next level.

IB Social Network System – Complete social networking system for school clubs, small in-school programs, and even entire schools.

Elgg – Elgg is an open source social networking platform developed for LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) which encompasses weblogging, file storage, RSS aggregation, personal profiles, FOAF functionality and more.

Another great place I search is HotScripts.com

With a quick search in the php area, I found a nice list of Social Networking software, but I don’t think these are Open Source, and they are not likely free. However, you do get to save a lot of headaches by surfing through some example sites that are already running on the software.

Many of these systems offer similar features to Myspace and Facebook, but, as I’m reading through, I don’t see one that also includes feed aggregation from other social media sources…

Many include features like social bookmarking, tag clouds, profiles, image voting, classifieds, events and calendar, clubs, e-cards, forum, polls, bulletins, flash chat and instant messenger.

Some of the better scripts also included audio and video blogging, voice and video messaging, audio and video comments, video chat, music and videos, FLV and MP3 players!

My favorite features -

• address book import (supports Yahoo!, GMail, AOL, Hotmail, MSN, MySpace)
• PayPal IPN support

Missing Features -

• Feed Aggregation from other sources
• Widget tool for users to share their content
• Clear mention of RSS Feeds created

I’ll let you know more as I experiment with different software and scripts -

but, if you have your own social networking website, and you are happy with how the site is working for you, please recommend the software here through your affiliate link.

Today’s web gives you the power to create a detailed array of relevant links to your website thru the use of Blogging sites, Social Bookmarking sites, Social Networking sites, Photo Sharing sites, File Sharing Sites, Video Sharing Sites… and the list goes on.

In fact, the list is so huge, a host of new services have evolved to help coordinate and centralize the information flow from all of your various profiles.

These new Web 2.0 Sites are called Feed Aggregators.
They aggregate your RSS Feeds into one stream of updates.

Since I’m always seeking to better use the web for marketing, I set up a few Aggregators for a number of my feeds.  After a short time, I noticed that I was getting indexed in Google within minutes of when I posted to my blog, and, to my surprise, the aggregator websites were also ranking within the top 20 search results! And so, following the principal “If it works, do more of it”…

Today I am reviewing a List of RSS Feed Aggregator services
as I go through the process of registering for all of them. 

Because I market to a number of different niches, I figure it would be best for me to create an individual account at each Aggregator for each of the unique niche’s I focus on.  Tedious?  Rather!  But I only have to do it once, and the Aggregator does its Search Engine magic for a long, long time without further maintenance.

GETTING PREPARED
Start by visiting all your blogs and profiles and collect up the URL’s for all your RSS Feeds.  Save them all in a unique file that is easy to find and update when you add your business information to a new service.

• www.Filtrbox.com – looks like a powerful service.  It has two different paid levels – so I’m figuring it must have some great PageRank juice because of high trust in Google… but it’s not intuitive to set up, has how-to videos – and I’m on dail up at the lake right now.  So I’ve added this one to my list so you can review it, but I’ll set it up further when I’m on highspeed.
• www.Feedkiller.com – no registration required.  Name your stream, add your RSS Feeds and click Build It.  You are given an URL where your feeds are collected into one centralized RSS Feed stream… So I Stubbled the new feed page, and added the RSS Feed to my list that I’ll add to the next aggregators on my list! (note: this new aggregate feed didn’t work in Whereisme.com)
• www.Feedtweeter.com – Feedtweeter says it’s ’A little service that allows you to link Twitter and Plurk to your other activities.’  Feedtweeter can now monitor your Identi.ca posts too: Post something in Identi.ca, and it will appear in Plurk and/or Twitter too. (with a few minutes delay).  This is a cool service, but I’m already set up on www.ping.fm - a more comprehensive version of the same service… 
• www.lifestream.fm looks great.  I’ve applied for an invitation code and Tweeted to my twitter followers to see if anyone has an invitation code they could send me. 
• www.whereisme.com  - a web identity aggregator. It takes all the places you do things on the web and centralizes them for you to show off. This is a *great* place to collect the RSS Feeds from all of your blogs and a wide selection of the biggest Social Media sites, like Blogger, del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm and several other top names.  Get a cup of coffee – this one’s worth your time.
• www.daylife.com – a new way to explore the world, they say – which is pretty vague to me… it’s a collection on online news sources where you can “star” things of interest.  I looked for a way to add my feeds, there was a link at the bottome right of the footer in the page where I suggested my feeds… If you are looking for an aggregator for your own feeds, skip this site.
• http://linkbun.ch/ - lets you put multiple links into one small link which you can share over IM, Twitter, email or even a mobile phone SMS. So, I put all my fishing blogs into a bunch, and this service created an individual page, listing my bunch of links!  Another easy way to create one-way links to your website. 

Ok – I’ve gone over-time in writing this post.  Here are a few more RSS Feed Aggregator Services that I’ll be registering with – I haven’t tried them yet, let me know which are best!

•  
  • www.dailyme.com
  • www.streamy.com
  • www.turtilla.com
  • www.Afrigator.com
  • www.blastfeed.com
  • www.feedfeeds.com
  • www.feeds2.com

Yesterday I worked with my sister to work on promoting her ebook using the online marketing strategies that are getting a lot of buzz these days – the social networks.
Preparation – information you will need

Your profile name
profile email address
small profile picture
150 word intro paragraph
set of best 5 keyword phrases
website address you are marketing

Purpose – why are you doing all this?

Ultimately, all the social attention should gain you new visitors to your main website, new email subscribers and new customers.

You achieve this by establishing a relationship with people who are already in your niche – and by building a means to communicate with them in the future.

Day One

Step One – Register Everywhere

Now you can find WoWGrrl on your favorite social networking sites! And add her as a friend! We started our social networking journey at www.profilactic.com.  It was easier to tackle the project when two of us split the list of sites that are supported, and started registering a new profile on every social bookmarking, file sharing, video sharing, Web 2.0 sites we could find.

As we went through this list of almost 200 Web 2.0 style sites, there were a few that stood out – these were ear-marked for another visit and more development.

These exceptional information sharing sites also included a way to build a friends list and create groups on your topic.

Step Two – Aggregate the Feeds

Another social networking service I found were a few rss feed aggregation sites.  After creating almost 200 new profiles across the full range of social networking sites, it seems impossible to monitor and manage everything.

List all of the sites you have registered with with services like profilactic.com, blogcatalog.com, superglu.com and pownce.com – the beta toluu.com my also be of interest.

Day Two

Step Three – Get Connected
within each community site, join groups, search on your topic to build your friends lists.

Update your profiles – before you start adding friends, be sure to upload a profile image, copy and paste a description the includes a link to your site or offer…etc.

Step Four -
Create a unique ‘Group’ on a theme relating to your topic, update the Group Profile page to include links to your offers then invite your new friends to join your group.

One Week Later

Community Building

A simple and effective way to bring people to your group – a fun contest on pictures and videos.  These simple contests give reasons for members to invite their friends to the group.

One Month Later

Community Partnerships

After your friends list and group membership has grown to a few hundred people, you can start making promotional swaps with other group owners. i.e. I’ll send out a notice about your group to my members if you’ll send out a notice about my group to your members…

Now your groups can start growing to be in the thousands!

How To Gain Fans On Facebook

Five Reasons You Need A Facebook Fan Page

1. Community building
2. Search Engine Optimization
3. In-depth analytics
4. Communication
5. It’s completely free

A Facebook Fan page is a great social media vehicle that your business can easily take advantage of to reap a number of awesome benefits. Learn How To Market Your Tourism Business on Facebook.

Facebook is a massive social networking site.  By it’s very nature, Facebook lets people connect up to groups, people, events and fan pages, based on their interests.

On the other hand, Facebook lets marketers connect up to people using Facebook Ads, based on the interests they have expressed through word, and by preferences they have indicated through action.

Recently I have been working with two artists to help them connect up with people by using Facebook as a starting platform.  These artists are local watercolour painters with amazing skill and a small inventory of beautiful paintings to sell.  They have an established and growing reputation, and need an online presence to help promote their work.

They are both new to Facebook, and don’t have a history of personal data on their profiles.  In fact, they haven’t been actively growing their friends list at all.  This is good – both artists were OKay with the idea of using a business page on Facebook as a marketing tool – and only use their personal profile as a personal way to connect with family.

5 Steps to Get Established in Facebook:

Step 1

Find people with a similar interest. Join several Facebook groups in the subject area of your target Niche.

Step 2

Build you friends list.  Review the Members List from these group for individuals who match the profile for your ideal customer and invite these people to become your friend.

Step 3

Create an Interest Group.  Make your own original Facebook Group and invite your new friends to join.  Establish a monthly activity to give group members some recognition.

Step 4

Create a Facebook Fan Page – promote your Fan Page in your profile AND in your Group.

Step 5

Add the RSS Feed from your Blog to your Facebook Fan Page!

Now you have established a growing presence in Facebook that is easy to update from an external blog or RSS feed!  All of your Fans get a notification within Facebook each time you update your blog!

Want a hand to guide you through the process?

Check out my Blog Coaching, and also, sign up for this free Facebook and Social Media Marketing Course.

Set up your own Free Hosted WordPress with a range of specialized WordPress Plugins pre-installed.

Aimed at a financial audience, www.forexfrat.com is a community of blogs on futures trading, stock trading and the forex markets.

Quetico Internet Marketing is your Online Traffic Specialist

Douglas Lampi provides Internet Marketing insight into more that just top Search Engine Rankings. Today, visitors should be coming to your site through many differnet sources – and your business is at risk if your main source of traffic is from Google.

An Online Traffic Specialist must have broad knowledge and actual experience publishing in all the various media formats in order to benefit from visitor sources like

video sharing sites,
podcast sharing sites,
photo sharing sites
news feeds,
blogging sites,
social bookmarking,
social networking and
special interest groups,
from joint venture partnerships,
from purchased advertising sources like PPC and interstitials,
from Blog commenting,
from article writting – as well as
from link trades and
gaining consistent top search engine rankings.

In the new world of Web 2.0 – your ideal traffic footprint should include dozens of referral sources.  Including bringing Offline sources to view your online messages.

Your Online Traffic Specialist can help you
Achieve Internet Marketing Diversification!

[display_podcast]

Hi everybody and thanks for tuning in to the Internet Guru Watch Podcast by ipmal.com. I’m your host, Doug Lampi. My website can be found at ipmal.com.

When you get a moment if you haven’t already, sign up for my free tips newsletter where I cover more information on this same topic, and where I answer your questions on the Internet Guru Watch. Also, as part of my tips newsletter I give out exclusive resources that have been bookmarked by the top Internet marketing gurus and you don’t want to miss out on those.

You never know when I am going to talk about something that may help you. So go to your computer. Go to ipmal.com and sign up for the free tips newsletter now.

You know you are in great company of people from all over the world who are listening to the Internet Guru Watch. Our top listening countries are Canada and the United States. But this podcast is being listened to in all corners of the world. It’s just amazing. And it’s just amazing to get emails and success stories from people everywhere.

Thank you for listening to the Internet Guru Watch and for passing it along to all your friends and colleagues. Truly the Internet is such an amazing tool that anyone can use to share their passion and connect with similar minded people.

OK. So let’s get the show going. In each Internet Guru Watch podcast I introduce one new successful Internet marketer. We look in on their current projects and I collect any of their RSS feeds on ipmal.com so we can easily keep updated on their latest activities.

PART ONE

In this, the premier edition of the Internet Guru Watch, I’m going to feature one of the most consistent sources of cutting edge marketing strategies there are – Michael Campbell. For 136 months Michael Campbell has been publishing the Internet Marketing Secrets website and email newsletter.

In September of 2007, Michael started podcasting his newsletter. I highly recommend that you visit iTunes right now, search for Internet Marketing Secrets and subscribe to Michael Campbell’s podcast.

The last two podcasts by Michael Campbell were particularly interesting. In response to his recent survey, Michael has conducted a series of interviews to uncover the best traffic generation strategies, the biggest marketing pitfalls to avoid and some little-known tactics that most people underestimate.

Maybe you have heard of some of these heavy hitters that Michel Campbell interviews – Dr. Neil Shearing, Colin McDougall and Ginette Degner in the first podcast and Jerry West, Mike Liebner and Sherman Hu in the second podcast.

Each of these successful marketers that Michael interviews offers a unique and different approach to making money online. The first time I listened through these podcasts I was traveling in my car. The second time I listened, I was sitting at my computer, and I was able to implement the specific strategies as I listened through.

Just one week later, I’ve already received over 1000 unique visitors from new traffic sources that I set up in less than 30 minutes.

One of the reasons I have remained a loyal subscriber to the Internet Marketing Secrets newsletter is because Michael Campbell always provides real-world examples and he is enthusiastic about sharing statistics that demonstrate what really brings traffic.

But the biggest influence – his most important lesson – is that you should focus on gaining traffic for keyword phrases that people use when they are in the ‘buying’ frame of mind.

I recommend the Internet Marketing Secrets newsletter and podcast for three main groups of people – first of all for a business owner who contracts a web designer to do their website, second of all, for web designers and third of all, for the work-at-home entrepreneur.

PART TWO

In the second part of this inaugural Internet Guru Watch podcast, I’m going to feature a lesser known Internet marketing expert from Ontario Canada by the name of Todd Lucier.

Todd is a motivational speaker who has become an Internet marketing expert by jumping into the trenches and promoting his own tourism business.

He has given workshops and seminars for tourism-based businesses across Canada, from the Yukon to Newfoundland. Recently Todd completed another series of workshops that has become an annual event across northern Ontario. The participants in this sold-out venue learned about more than just website technology. In just a few hours we were introduced to a full range of various media that one can use to market online.

In his live, hands-on workshop Todd had us create a Gmail account and a blogger blog. We registered with Picasa and uploaded 12 to 15 sample images that we had been asked to bring along. Then we registered at animoto.com and used our images from Picasa to create an animated video with music.

Todd demonstrated how the video could be easily embedded into your blogger blog by copying and pasting a small bit of code. Starting from nothing, Todd showed us how easy it could be to create some pretty amazing content in just a few hours.

And to demonstrate just how far blogging technology has come, Todd snapped a picture with his cell phone and made a voice phone call. He spoke his message and hung up his phone and continued on with the seminar. A few minutes later, he refreshed the web page of his blog. And there was the photo of our seminar. In addition, his voice message had been transcribed to text and was included in the blog post.

Todd introduced us to Really Simple Syndication, or RSS feeds, and showed how travelers can subscribe to the RSS feed of your blog with a feed aggregator, such as iGoogle.

The two-day seminar was chock full of dozens of important and useful marketing technologies and strategies that could be used for tourism businesses. One of the biggest media types that Todd introduced – and that I had overlooked – is that of Google maps. But more than just publishing, Todd shared studies that helped shed insight on the shopping behaviors of people who are searching for a vacation.

While it’s easy for everyone to agree that a word-of-mouth referral is the single most powerful method for gaining new clientele, Todd pointed out a new opportunity to use social networking sites to connect with your customers and gain some new, free exposure with all of your customers’ friends and family.

You can find more information about Todd Lucier’s most recent workshops by visiting tourismkeys.ca.

You’ll also find that Todd is an active blogger. It’s part of my morning routine to look over Todd’s shoulder, so to speak, by checking his RSS feeds to which I have already subscribed. Visit tourismkeys.ca and click on the ‘blog’ link to follow along with this great marketing instructor.

With all the publishing media available online today, a typical search result page in Google can include a video from YouTube, a PDF document on scribd.com, a social bookmark on StumbleUpon, a listing from Wikipedia, and maybe a tag page from Propeller or WordPress.com.

It seems like marketing on the Internet has become more and more complex, and organizing and managing all of the various media forms can seem like an overwhelming task.

But the truth is, it’s easier to market online today than it has ever been before. All you need is a coordinated sequence of RSS feeds and you can power an entire content distribution network from one single source.

For example, you could use your digital camera to record yourself giving a brief tour of your facilities. With just one post, you can syndicate your video on over a dozen video sharing sites and automatically post your video to your network of blogs and update your Facebook page all at once. Your video is also converted to an audio podcast and transcribed into text that can be added to your blog later to gain even more natural search engine traffic.

Now, the process of setting up this network of sites so that you can power your videos on YouTube, your podcast on iTunes, your text, your blog post, your social networking sites and your opt in email newsletter all from one source, is easier than it might sound. However, it is a rather tedious process, and it does require a thoughtful organization of the various services that make it possible to tie everything together so neatly.

If you want to learn more about coordinating your online publishing, visit ipmal.com and click on the ‘Build Me a Network’ link.

Well that’s it for this episode of the Internet Guru Watch. Thanks for listening to this podcast and a special thanks to those who have shared this podcast with your friends and colleagues.

OK. The question I’m going to leave you with today is a bit of a survey. You can answer these questions in your head or you can visit ipmal.com, click on the ‘Survey’ link and see how your answers compare. Check off all that apply:

My website provides the following ways to connect with people:

• an email newsletter
• an RSS feed for subscribers
• a Facebook page or MySpace profile
• social bookmarking links like del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Reddit
• a free download in exchange for contact information

So, how did your website compare in the survey? Did your website provide all of those five ways to connect with people and bring them back to read your marketing message a second time?

If your website isn’t performing the way you want, don’t worry. You can start today and in no time, you can start bringing new traffic and building relationships with new potential customers.

You can make this happen. I know you can.

So keep checking in on ipmal.com as I have been adding new Internet Gurus that you have suggested and a variety of services and products that could help you on your quest to have the better website marketing that you really do deserve.

I would love to help you out in any way that I can, and it might be something you would be interested in if you have listened your way through this podcast.

I’m now offering an exclusive marketing opportunity for tourism businesses in Canada. Visit ipmal.com and click on the ‘Build My Network’ link where you will be presented with two options. You can opt to have your own network of sites organized so you or your staff can manage your content distribution across the full range of media types, all from one post.

Or two, you can opt to test out the waters and have your content distributed across my network of 17 video sharing sites and 12 blogs and a one-year listing on five fishing lodge directory websites for a single one-time fee.

So, go to my website. And if you haven’t already, sign up for my free email newsletter. It’s free, and it provides a list of hot resources that have been bookmarked by the Internet gurus we watch.

Thank you so much for joining in today. Please pass this podcast along to friends and colleagues and thanks to those of you who have already passed it on. You are helping to make the Internet Guru Watch a worldwide phenomenon.

Until next time, remember: creating content is fun. Creating content is easy. It’s taking pictures. It’s shooting video clips. It’s just talking about the benefit of your product or service the same as you do every day.

Podshow PDN {podshow-043f449c62de2fc078f8ec663f7590f5}

Thinking of expanding your web presence by setting up a Web 2.0 web site?

By providing your visitors with the means to publish content about your niche by using your website, you gain the advantage of building a relationships of repeat visits with your visitors.

Give them a place to become engaged. 

One example – offer an article submission area that also lets people start their own blog for no cost.  Your visitors can post press releases and blog updates!

 - Powered by ArticleLive

After you have set a Web 2.0 Website for your business, you still have to promote it.  And of course, you should use the benefit of all the other Web 2.0 sites to market your new service!