Part Two explores how tourism marketing must evolve to include micro communities within social media websites in a strategic way.

As I stated in part one of this article, the population explosion that has occurred in the mega social networking websites such as LinkedIn and Twitter is beginning to resemble a city that did not lay an infrastructure for the number of people who have moved there!  With this growth in social media consumption, marketers are busy trying to keep up – hoping to engage their customers directly via social media (i.e. Facebook and Twitter).

One of the most effective ways to do this is to consider niche markets like meetings, weddings, or seasonal experiences. For example, there may be a cluster of brand hotels in Colorado which all cater to skiers. 

With a niche micro-community approach, one might create a Facebook page for skiers who like the slopes in Colorado to use as a community and resource. It would be rich with information, photos, special offers and of course, comments from "fans" – and all of the traffic would drive back to the cluster of hotels, through a community portal, so the effort serves each property.

Building a community - let's break it down.  Facebook Groups have been developed for everything from weddings to happy hour and often die out as quickly as they were created. These tactics often leave marketers and owners wondering what ROI, if any, they can measure on these independent and isolated initiatives.

Micro Communities are not new; they've just been overshadowed by the attention the mega social sites have recently gotten. Micro Communities by nature are meant to be specialized, creating an interactive space with relevant information to a niche market audience (like our skiers) can prove that quality over quantity can benefit your hotel in measurable ways.

The beauty of the new Branded Micro Community is the ability to leverage different physical products within a brand or different brands within a portfolio to a targeted market. If you are going to build a social media strategy for a cluster of properties in the case of hotels or attractions/specialized activities in the case of DMOs, I recommend an audit of the products to determine what the collective focus and message of the community should be, as they must share something in common. 

If a cluster of properties has extensive facilities for Weddings, perhaps develop a Facebook page targeting brides within a specific city who are looking for planning resources – created and managed by the cluster of properties.

Also key in understanding how to approach the Branded Micro-Community is a clear understanding of the market and the audience. The social media platform depends on where your customers are hanging out. Are they active on Facebook? Do they Twitter?

Once you have determined the details, map the strategy. In most cases where there's a cluster of products participating, we recommend a community portal (or landing page). It's important to have this community center so that the social media efforts aren't isolated.

Everything can point back to the portal, which then allows a transaction or points consumers to the individual products. Remember that the goal of your social media presence is to drive your consumers back to a transaction (a hotel booking, a call to the sales office etc.). Once this community portal is live, social media functionality may be integrated so that traffic drives both directions.

Now is the time to start building your social media campaign points of contact. This will insure that the way these contact points are developed build on the strength of the community and get the products expanded distribution within the search engines and social media platforms.

A niche social media strategy may include:

• Facebook or MySpace strategy (pages & advertising to promote the pages)
• Photo Optimization (Upload to Flickr.com and other photo sites, optimized for your target keywords so the images can be indexed by search engines
• Video Optimization (Building a YouTube channel for the community, for instance)
• Blog (Blogs are great, their content can be imported to social media sites, making them especially productive)
• Twitter page (great for quick and regular interaction with consumers)
• Paid Search (buying keywords in search engines to drive traffic to the community, strength in numbers)
• RSS Feed (where products post all relevant news)

Remember that a social media strategy must engage your "fans" in the way that your fans want to be engaged. And this is not territory for managers with limited time and resources. Know how you will manage content before you launch any of your social media initiatives as each outlet requires a different approach. There isn't a one-size fits all in social media.

Since we've all become comfortable with the excellent analytic capabilities of the web, I often hear "But how am I going to measure this?" It's important to cover all the angles with a robust strategy, so you'll want to consider traffic to the branded micro community (we recommend using Google Analytics) and a close look at referral traffic, Social Media Points of Interaction Tracking (Use Google Alerts and other tracking tools), statistics on video and photo distribution (which can be found on the individual sites) and of course offline inquiry & event bookings information.

So before you jump in and make a Facebook group just because everyone else is doing it, take a step back and create a long-term strategy that will bundle the physical, marketing and financial assets of multiple web assets. This Branded Micro Community will provide the ability to drive sales through targeted niche market offerings while providing invaluable information to the marketer about the nuances of specific audiences and how to communicate with them most effectively.

And remember to have fun!  It is social media after all!

About the Author:
Patricia Brusha is the co-founder of www.acoupleofchicks.com - an Internet Marketing Company focused on travel and tourism, and Online Revealed Canada – the leading e-Marketing Conference for travel and tourism, which will hold its 4th annual event this April 13-15 in Niagara Falls, Canada. Together, the "Chicks" have published over 30 articles, produced a successful online marketing Blog; www.ideahatching.com , and have developed online marketing programs for such notable brands as Marriott International, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts and Nova Scotia Tourism.

Their popular e-marketing workshops have also lead to the upcoming book focused on the "Chicks" non-intimidating approach to marketing online set for release this spring 2009. Check out A Couple of Chicks on Facebook and Twitter too!