Cruise Geek

Shop For Cruises is a new site I've launched. Check it out at: www.ShopForCruises.com. This site is built on a LAMP stack using PHP 5.5. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Not only is Facebook launching their own social music services in an upcoming release, Facebook has now said they will be launching several new buttons shortly. These buttons will be formally announced at their F8 developers conference. New buttons include Read, Listened, Watched and Want. This is an interesting development, just think about what Facebook can do with this data - especially if they used this technology in developing their own search engine. Watchout Google.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/19/facebooks-new-buttons/

Here's an interesting new way to give your business a boost in Local Search. Google Boost allows you to set up affordable local search campaigns online.  Google Boost gives your listing premium position and more visibility.  To learn more click here.  

This is a really interesting presentation on internet trends and where marketing will be in 2011 and beyond. 

This week’s focus is on Twitter. Twitter is a pretty compelling way to deliver travel offers or cruise news stories. But the way to really get the word and grow your business via Twitter  is to get the word out beyond those who are already follow your posts by adding tags containing hash marked keywords. Using the hash mark symbol (called ad pound symbol by some), you can add tags to your post to have it found by others searching that keyword. There’s some real power in adding keywords – as an example I recently posted a news story to our CruiseOne corporate twitter account leading people to a news story on our CruiseOne corporate website – and just 1 minute following the post, I had 20 people visit the news article from my twitter post. So if you haven’t tried tweeting using #cruise or #travel, you haven’t really experienced the full power of Twitter.

This is a must read for anyone who's looking to build the number of people who are fans of their Fan Page.   Although Facebook has now changed the "Become A Fan" button to the "Like" button, I think the same strategy applies.  Check out this article :

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/21-creative-ways-to-increase-your-facebook-fanbase/

A Search Engine Watch article talks about some current social media research:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/100303-014140

The article states that a recent study by Neilson shows that the biggest users of social media on the go are Women age 35-54. Coincidentally this is the same age group that is the primary demographic target of those selling to first time cruisers. This means that social media is a great way to engage with cruise prospects and to keep in touch with them over time.

Are you marketing via social media? If not you should strongly consider it. Start by creating a Facebook Fan Page, and a Linked In profile and start searching for current clients to add as either Connections or Friends.

Keep in mind that soft sell works in social media, share news items and link to your site, share ship photos and link to your site, and occasionally share links to sale pages. Keeping the proper balance between entertaining content, informative content and sales content is the key to not being ignored in social media. Watch this balance and see your resulting sales increase.

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