I talked about how visually-focused social networks like Pinterest and Instagram are getting bigger and more important every day. I specifically talked about some of the differences between the two services as well as how some tourism and hospitality organizations are making the most of both of these networks. Check out the full presentation video or the embedded Prezi below to learn tips for driving engagement with your posts and hear about a few contests and promotions run through each network.

Click here to view the entire Making the Most of Pinterest & Instagram presentation on YouTube.

Below is the full Prezi presentation if you want to browse the deck.

Click here to view the presentation on Prezi.com.

Thanks to everyone who attended the workshop, we hope it was beneficial and that you walked away with a better understanding of how to use Google Analytics (and web analytics in general) to help you understand how visitors use your site and how you might make modifications to improve your conversion rates and how visitors use your website.

About the session:

One of the biggest advantages of online marketing (as opposed to traditional print, radio and tv) is that everything done online can be tracked and attributed to specific ad campaigns. The challenge facing most tourism marketers today is that too few organizations are accurately tracking the visitors on their website and how their visitors are finding their website.

During this presentation, the attendees learned some basic things they should be tracking on their websites. They also learned some tips and tricks for tagging advertising links as well as any links they sent out through social media channels like Facebook and Twitter so they could more accurately gauge the value received from different advertising opportunities and social channels.

Attendees learned about some basic stats they should be tracking on a regular basis as well as some more in-depth stats that provided them with a deeper knowledge of how their visitors are using their websites.

If you can’t see the presentation above, click here to view it on Prezi.

If you can’t see the video above, click here to view on YouTube.

About the speaker:

Jeremy Williams is an experienced digital and social media professional whose day job is with the Indiana Office of Tourism Development. Recently recognized as one of the top 25 tourism professionals on Twitter, Jeremy immerses himself in new digital and social technologies and has presented the office’s digital strategies at local, statewide and national conferences. Jeremy is also the volunteer Marketing Director for Indy Social Media, an organization that strives to lift Indianapolis onto a national stage in digital communications, providing simple access to education, networking, and hands-on learning for anyone in Indiana who wants to leverage the social web. Connect with Jeremy on Twitter @JeremyAWilliams or follow his thoughts on the Indiana Insider Blog and the Tourism Tech Corner Blog.

1. More than half of U.S. consumers own a smartphone

It’s hard to believe that the first iPhone was released five years ago. In the five short years since 2007, smartphones have become a ubiquitous fixture in American culture. Since it’s not 2007 anymore, you can no longer ignore the fact that more people have smartphones than feature phones (basically any phone that isn’t an iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile or Android) and they’re using those smartphones to browse the internet. This trend has been predicted for years, but as of March 2012, the majority of Americans now have a smartphone.

The next time you’re waiting somewhere – waiting to get seated at a table for dinner, waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store – take a look around at how many people are passing the time by using their smartphone. This might help you realize how important it is for your company to have a mobile site.

Major Mobile Platforms (photo credit: vodien.com)

2. Mobile users expect a simplified (and a quick loading) browsing experience

While modern smartphones can render full websites (with the exception of Flash for iPhones), mobile users expect a site that loads quickly, is easily navigable (without pinch-zooming) and contains plenty of functions and sections that are pertinent to mobile users.

In the example below, you can see the difference between the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association’s traditional desktop website (on the  left) and their mobile version (on the right). While the traditional version is  a much more attractive website, the functionality on the mobile site is leaps and bounds above the traditional site when viewing from a mobile device. The mobile site is simple, straight-forward and easily navigable by mobile users.

Notice they ask the user to download their app right up front? That’s a great way to potentially turn a single visit into an app download. They also have a “What’s Nearby” link right at the top as well – most of the people who visit your website on their mobile device are going to want to know what’s closest to them, so having this functionality front and center is a great idea.

Below is the Missouri Division of Tourism’s website, also viewed on an iPhone. Again, the image on the left (traditional desktop site) looks awesome on a computer or tablet, but the copy and clickable elements are way too small to be functional when viewed from a mobile device.

Missouri took a different approach from the ICVA for their mobile site. It’s actually simpler and gives the user fewer options, but directs the users to parts of the site that really make sense for a mobile user – Things to Do, Upcoming Events and Places to Stay. It makes them all easily accessible when you’re in Missouri by adding the Nearby feature. Missouri also does a great job of tying in the look, feel and color scheme of their desktop site on their mobile site.

3. Mobile traffic is exploding

The screenshot above details out the mobile traffic seen from Jan 1 – May 28, 2012 versus the same time period in 2011 for VisitIndiana.com. While mobile visitors accounted for just under 4% of all visits in 2011, during 2012 we’re already up to nearly 16%. This falls in line with recent reports that mobile devices make up about 20% of all U.S. web traffic. That means that one out of every five visitors to websites in the U.S. is using a mobile device to do so.

Another thing worth noting – with the exception of a mobile-formatted microsite that saw most of the January and February 2012 traffic, VisitIndiana.com doesn’t (yet) have a mobile-ready version of their website. In early July their mobile site will be up and running.

4. Visitors are using mobile devices to plan trips as well as using them at their destination

This point is directly related to the Tourism industry, but there are still takeaways for other industries.  TripAdvisor recently reported that travelers use their mobile devices to plan their trips and while they’re visiting. Just when DMOs have started to get a good feel for the online travel planning process, mobile comes along and changes it all again.

Users are planning their trips using mobile devices and they’re definitely using them when they’re at your location. Printed travel publications are still important, but it’s just as important to have a functional mobile website that visitors can use while they’re at your location to plan the extra things they do while on vacation – dining out, shopping, a last minute decision to visit an attraction in your area.

5. A great mobile website can eliminate the need to create separate mobile apps for multiple mobile platforms

The chart above shows a mobile smartphone OS breakdown from the past seven years. While the market share of Symbian, RIM, Palm and Microsoft’s OSes have been shrinking over the years the mobile OS market is still very fragmented. Android and iOS (Apple’s iPhone and iPad OS) own the lion’s share of the market, RIM (Blackerry) is still hanging on in the corporate world and will release BlackBerry 10 this fall and Microsoft has created a solid OS in Windows Phone 7 (8 will be coming this fall as well). Palm and Symbian are essentially dead as far as market share, but the thought of designing separate mobile applications for the four major OSes (Android, iOS, Blackberry and Windows) is daunting.

Rather than spending your time or limited budget on even just Android and iOS apps, putting those same resources behind a single mobile website will be a much better investment. Since Android and iOS apps are built using different programming languages, it’s not as simple as just submitting the same app to both app stores. A mobile website also gives you the flexibility that it will display on ANY mobile device, so if your visitors have Blackberrys or Windows Mobile phones, your website will be just a usable to them as it would be to a visitor using an Android or an iPhone.

The most important thing to do when planning a mobile website is seriously thinking through how your visitors would use the site and which information is most important to your visitors. Easy mapping/direction features? Yes Quick ways to email or call your office? Yes. Physical brochure order form? Probably not.

I’ve been writing a lot lately about web-based apps, including ones that you can use to automate social tasks (ifttt) or just save time and batch your updates (Buffer). Each of these apps can help save you time while still allowing you to participate in social media. One of the apps I haven’t talked about yet is an app I use every single day. Dropbox is a free app that allows you to sync files (through the cloud) and access them anywhere you can connect to the internet. In today’s world, work no longer lives 100% at the office and personal matters no longer live 100% at home. That’s where Dropbox comes into play.

You can easily access all of your files at Dropbox.com, through their intuitive web interface but one of Dropbox‘s strengths is installing it to your computer. A quick install and you can either create a new Dropbox folder on your computer that Dropbox will always keep synced or you can specify which folders you want to be synced anywhere on your computer. For example, you can sync your My Documents folder to ensure that all of your docs are synced.

I have created a separate Dropbox folder to keep my important files synced and within that folder, I’ve created a folder of portable applications, so I can access programs I use frequently on any computer where I have Dropbox installed, like my desktop computer at home (that’s little more than a glorified home server now) or my laptop, wherever I bring it.

You can also create shared folders with Dropbox. So, when my whole family is in town, I’ll take a bunch of pictures, then share that folder with everyone so they can download the pictures to their own computer. They can also upload their own pictures to the folder so we can have a private space that allows us to exchange files that might be too big (or too numerous) for email.

In addition to private folder sharing, you can also post files up that can be publicly downloaded. Do you have a whitepaper you want to post on your website? Store it in Dropbox and share the link for people to download.

Dropbox is a free download available for iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad – click here to download the iOS app) as well as Android devices (click here to download the Android app from the Google Play Store), so in addition to being able to access your files on your computer and via the web interface, you can also have your most important files wherever you are by accessing the Dropbox app via your mobile device. Another nice feature about the Dropbox mobile apps is that you can set it up to automatically upload any photos or videos you take directly to a folder in Dropbox. Doing so makes sure you have all your photos and videos conveniently synced across multiple platforms. You also get free additional storage space by signing up for Instant Upload.

If you’re interested in trying out Dropbox, be sure to sign up through this link. It’s a referral link and it means that once you create an account and install it on your computer, we’ll both get an extra 500MB of free storage space.

You can create a Dropbox account for free and get 2GB of space, but you can quickly add more free storage to that by sharing links via Twitter and Facebook or by downloading the mobile app and hooking up Instant Upload. You can actually get up to 16GB of storage space for free through various referral links. If you need more storage, you can upgrade to their Pro 50 account (50 GB – $10/mo) or Pro 100 (100 GB – $20/mo) accounts. If you’re looking to use Dropbox for your office, they even have corporate plans available as well. Find out more about the various plans they offer here.

*Note: I’ve used referral links to Dropbox throughout this post. If you sign up and install the desktop app to your computer through this link, we both get 500MB extra*

Quite simply, ifttt (short for If This Then That) is an app that lets you create automated Tasks or Recipes (tasks created and shared by others). For example, I have a task set up so every time I post a photo to Instagram, ifttt will automatically save a copy to a folder in my Dropbox account. I also have another task set up so when I star an article in my Google Reader, it will automatically add that article to my Buffer account to be posted to my social profiles.

You can create an account at ifttt.com and you’ll get up to 10 tasks for free. ifttt currently offers 41 different channels like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Buffer, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn, Readability, SMS and many more. With all the channels they offer, the number of tasks you could possibly create are nearly endless.

ifttt continually adds new channels, so if one that you frequently use isn’t yet supported, chances are they’ll add it once enough people start using it. Below, I’ll explain how to go about setting up a Task on ifttt.

Each ifttt task starts having you answer a simple question: if this then that. For each stage in the process you’ll select a channel. For example, let’s say I wanted to create a task that would tweet out any picture on Instagram that I liked. Here’s how I would do that.

• Select the Instagram channel in the task creation section of ifttt.
• Click on New liked photo within the Instagram triggers menu

• Select the Twitter channel
• Select Post a tweet with image from the Twitter triggers menu
• Fill out any additional information (I added “Great photo on #instagram: ” to the beginning of each tweet)

• Click on Complete action and you’re done.

The screenshot at right is a tweet that was created by ifttt when I liked a photo on Instagram. If you’re just getting started on ifttt, it can be a bit overwhelming with so many options, but here are a few of my favorite Recipes for you to get started with:

• When Facebook Profile picture changes, change Twitter Profile picture
• Every time you’re tagged in a Facebook photo, save it to Dropbox
• When I star an item in Google Reader, send it to my Readability account
• When I favorite a video on YouTube, send it to Buffer
• Send any tweets I favorite to Evernote

Unlike robust social media management tools like HootSuite and TweetDeck (both excellent tools), Buffer does one thing and it does it exceptionally well. Buffer is a status update scheduling tool, but unlike a more full-fledged social media management tool, Buffer doesn’t ask you when to post your updates. Buffer automatically chooses four times throught the day when you’re likely to get the best response from your posts. Each time you add a new post to Buffer, it simply throws it into the buffer queue behind your other scheduled posts. In the screenshot below, you can see that there are several posts scheduled to go out over the next 24 hours. This is how Buffer works.

Now, I can spend 20 or 30 minutes over lunch or in the evening reading news updates from my Google Reader account or (some of my new favorites) Flipboard (iOS app link), Zite (iOS app link) or even the Bloomburg BusinessWeek (iPad app link) apps on my iPad. Then, when I read interesting articles, I can add them to my Buffer knowing they’ll post later and not inundate my followers as I read each article.

Buffer also makes it VERY easy to add content, whether you’re sharing links of articles you’re reading or whether you just want to schedule a post without a link. Buffer has created more than a dozen different ways to add content to your account. In addition to being able to update from the website, you can also update with an Android app, iPhone app, Firefox and Chrome extensions and (one of my favorites) a way to add to your Buffer via email, it’s easy to keep your Buffer full wherever you are. Below is a screenshot that shows how to add an update to Buffer via email. You’ll receive your own exclusive @to.bufferapp.com email address and everything you send to that address will automatically get added to your Buffer. Just add the email address to your contacts and you can add to your Buffer from anywhere.

Buffer is a free service, but there is also a couple paid versions available. For free, you can have up to 10 updates in your queue, and you can have one account each of LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. For $10/month you get up to 50 updates at a time, six social networks and up to two team members per account. There’s also a $99/month plan that gives you lots more.

I’ve been using Buffer for about six months now and it has become an indispensable part of my day and my social media routine. If you’re interested in checking out Buffer, click here (referral). If you sign up through my referral link, we’ll both get one extra space added to our Buffer queue.

For more information about how you can get involved check out this PDF or email Jeremy Williams at the Indiana Office of Tourism Development.

Joy Cropper – Williams Randall Marketing

Jenny Messmer – The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis

Rocky Walls – 12 Stars Media

Gowalla is a location-based app that, until last week, shared a lot of similarities with Foursquare – the leading location-based app today. First launched about two and a half years ago, Gowalla has steadily grown to an active user-base of two million (about one fifth the number of users that Foursquare has). I’ve always liked Gowalla and I think they have a better interface and user experience than Foursquare, but there have always been so few people in Indiana who use Gowalla.

Just last week, Gowalla released a brand new version of their website and mobile app (iOS version here and Android version here) that really rebrands Gowalla. Rather than focusing on being a location-based check-in network (and, honestly, they were losing that fight to Foursquare. Even Facebook recently gave up on Places - their equivalent check-in service), Gowalla now seems to be more of a curated location guide app. If that sounds kind of weird, keep reading.

In the image above, you can see the new curated guide for the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN. By working with staff at Notre Dame, Gowalla put together a great guide showcasing what visitors to the university needed to check out while they are in town. There are more than 60 curated guides available for cities throughout the world and Gowalla is working to add dozens more soon. While Gowalla has worked with select cities and destinations to create these branded and curated guides, you can still create guides on your own, both as an individual and as a DMO.

When looking at the tourism industry as a whole, there are benefits to using both Foursquare and Gowalla. If you own or work at a hotel, attraction or a restaurant, Foursquare makes more sense as they allow users to manage venues they own and offer check-in specials. But, if you work for a city, county, regional or state DMO Gowalla probably actually makes more sense to use. As a DMO, you have the built-in authority about your area and you can create great guides for anything you want – wine trails, food trails, museum guides, historic sites and more. When you create guides for your visitors, you’ve putting your stamp of authority on the guide and letting them know which things they absolutely must do before leaving your location.

Have you ever used Gowalla or Foursquare? Do you think Gowalla’s new curated guides functionality would be helpful as a visitor to a new place?

At its core, Pinterest is a social bookmarking site similar to Delicious or SpringPad, but where Pinterest differs (and where they really shine) is how their bookmarks are organized. Rather than saving a list of text links, Pinterest is 100% image-based. The visual nature of Pinterest creates a clean and easily browsable interface that can be extremely addicting.

So, how does Pinterest describe itself?

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

- Pinterest.com

Pinterest Wall - Places I'd Like to Visit

You’re likely to find boards and pins full of decorating ideas and recipes as well as just about anything else you could think of, but Pinterest has a really unique opportunity to be a great place for Tourism entities to set up shop. In fact, I set up an account for Visit Indiana a couple months ago and have received a pretty good response so far. I’ve created boards for Favorite Indiana Destinations, Indiana Artisan Products, Indiana Beer and Wine, Indiana Arts and Crafts and Indiana Experiences. Each time I come across a great picture of somewhere in Indiana or something Indiana-related on Etsy, I pin it and share it with everyone who follows Visit Indiana.

You can browse Pinterest in several different ways. You can view just pins from your friends or you can search for and browns pins in countless topics (travel, decorating, recipes, etc.). One of the coolest features on pinterest is the ability to “repin” other people’s pins. Just like sharing on Facebook or retweeting on Twitter repinning posts the pin on your board so your friends can see it. It’s a great way to catalog pictures or links you want to keep handy.

Regardless of what kind of tourism organization you work for (State, County or City DMO or individual attraction or lodging facility) Pinterest offers you the ability to share great photos of places in your area, locally-made products or hidden destinations for visitors and residents alike.

Note that Pinterest is only available on iPhone/iPod Touch right now.

Are you already using Pinterest? If not, do you think its a good fit for your organization?

Apps like Yelp and Foursquare let you take pictures and leave reviews at restaurants, but unlike those and other apps, Foodspotting is completely devoted to food and pictures of food. Like many other apps, you can hook Foodspotting up with your Facebook and Twitter accounts and start following friends through there, but where Foodspotting really differs (and really shines) is in the ability for you to follow not just friends, but places (specific restaurants) or foods you love (pizza, burgers, etc.). Think about that for a minute – you can follow specific foods through Foodspotting. If your favorite food in the world is a breaded tenderloin pork sandwich (if that’s true, then you really need to come to Indiana) you can follow tenderloin sandwiches and find the places near you that have the best ones.

Also, similar to the way Gowalla allows users to create Guides, Foodspotting also lets users to create Guides like Taste the Vintage in Bucks County - created by the Bucks County Conference and Visitors Bureau. This particular guide looks great on both the mobile app and on the website and it details some great wineries throughout the county. As a bonus, you earn a badge once you visit all the wineries within the Guide.

As a tourism office, you’re in the unique position to be the curator for great food in your area. Like Bucks County did, you could created Guides for great wine, great burgers, great ethnic food or anything else food-related for visitors and residents to complete and add to. The more people that jump on the platform and add their favorite foods, the more useful and robust the app will become.

Check out the screenshots below for examples of the Footspotting mobile app (Foodspotting is now available for iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile and Android devices right now – a Blackberry app is coming soon). Have you used Foodspotting before?