The “fam tour” or “familiarization tour” is standard practice by which tourism boards and Convention and Visitor’s Bureaus (CVBs) introduce their destinations to media people.

In the past, such tours have been filled with only print and broadcast media representatives. Not any more.

One example in progress right now is the “So Much More Hawaii” fam tour just for bloggers; it’s sponsored by the Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA.)

I’m on the tour covering mostly family travel, and other blogging specialists include:

• Rick Calvert, founder, Blog World and New Media Expo – a huge annual blogging conference.  He’ll cover the islands as a business and convention destination.
• Leah Lamb, covering eco-tourism and green travel for Current TV. I know she must be intrigued by Hawaii’s recent efforts to invest in clean and renewable energy resources.
• Jim Turner, OneByOne Media and host of the Social Mediasphere show on Blog Talk Radio.
• Shira Lazar, blogging on solo travel for Jaunted.com, the pop culture travel guide.
• Aric S. Queen, producer, writer, podcaster and value travel blogger for the UpTake travel site.
• Mark Tafoya, our tour foodie blogger. He’s a professional chef and co-founder of the Culinary Media Network.
• L.P. “Neenz” Faleafine, a native Hawaiian, Chief Evangelist for Alltop.com and founder of Hawaii-basedPono Media.

As we all know, the economy is down around the world. The Hawaii tourism industry is in crisis right now andthe outlook is grim.

By some standards, this social media outreach could be considered a risky move by the HTA, but I think it’s simply smart.

I applaud this major tourism organization for seeking new, more effective ways to use social media to showcase the islands for potential visitors.

Welcome to the May 21, 2009 edition of the Social Media Blog Carnival. Thanks very much to the carnival “owner,” New Media Labs, for asking us to host.

Next week’s host is Social Media Wiz, so send ‘em in.

For this carnival, the host reviews all the submissions and then picks the post that he/she thinks is the best combination of original, useful social media-related information AND presentation.

This week’s winner is….Tim’s post The SEO and Social Media Mix at Search Engine Optimisation.

Runner-up is Steven Leung’s post Defining Integrated Marketing at Integrated Marketing Experts, saying, “At the intersection between Web 2.0, social media and traditional marketing is integrated marketing. Business owners need to know how this impacts the way they publicize their business online.”

Some carnivals don’t show you the other submissions (we all have a different style) but I thought you’d like to see what else came in, so it’s listed below.

Angel presents Fallen Sword Web Based RPG Guide posted at Burn a Brain.

Patricia Turner presents 100 Online Brainstorming Tools to Help You Think Outside the Box posted at Forensic Science Technician.

Anthony McCune presents Tweets From Capitol Hill – Members of the United States Congress On Twitter posted at The Lives and Times… of Anthony McCune.

ivan presents How To Increase Your Feeds Subscribers posted at PC Hacks, saying, “If you ask any blogger what metric they would like to increase on their blog, it’s likely that their first answer will be feed subscribers.”

Jeremy Smith presents Best in Social Media – May 11, 2009 posted at Social Marketing by Michelle MacPhearson.

That concludes this edition, and thanks for participating.

Please submit your (one, non-spammy) blog post to the next edition of the social media blog carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

(This is an Open Letter guest post from travel expert Tim Leffel, who wants to help public relations (PR) and marketing folks who are stumbling around in the dark regarding Web-based tourism development.  Anyone who still deals with a recalcitrant boss about these issues, even if you aren’t in travel and tourism, will find something helpful in his suggestions.)

Dear person who handles the marketing budget for your travel destination:

In case you have not been reading the news, the media landscape rug has been pulled out from under you. What have you done to adjust?

I’m a travel writer who writes a lot and travels a lot. In the past year, I’ve had two dozen PR and marketing people working in travel tell me that their boss or executive board is at least a decade behind the times in their marketing focus. While my contact person telling me this may be clued in to what matters, the people controlling the marketing purse strings are still fully stuck in the old world they understand, namely print and TV press and advertising.

A couple of times a month, I’ll get a call or e-mail from some PR person about an article I wrote for Perceptive Travel, the Practical Travel Gear blog, or Luxury Latin America—all sites I run myself. The caller needs to put together some kind of ad value report to show their boss or board because, well, that’s the way it’s always been done and that’s the report that has to be written. If the article can’t be measured in monetary terms, it doesn’t matter in their eyes, regardless of how many visitors it brought to their door.

The problem is, while that may have sorta worked in the print world, it doesn’t on the Web.

It was never a very accurate gauge anyway, as this article will attest:   Why most magazine industry metrics are bogus (and that’s from a publishing industry trade!) Anyone on the inside can tell you the circulation numbers are bogus, the published advertising rates are bogus and the demographic breakdowns are bogus.

But at least the suits are used to those particular stretches of credulity. On a website, however, this is an exercise in futility; an invitation to just make up a bunch of numbers to please the boss.

There’s no such thing as a “full page ad” to value to start with. Just banners. There’s no real circulation—just unique monthly visitors and page views. And how do you place an ad value on an article that people will keep reading for years, month after month? How do you value a link to your site? For someone who knows about search engine optimization, that link is very valuable. To a visitors’ bureau board member who still doesn’t know what a blog is, it’s worth far less than a one-paragraph newspaper mention.

Everybody’s heard of the Detroit Free Press, right? So it must be more valuable than being on something called BoingBoing, right? (Um, hate to break it to you, but no. It’s not even close. Besides, the Free Press is the one that had to cut back home delivery to three days a week because it’s a financial wreck.)

I promise you that your potential visitors, including the ones who increasingly can’t remember the last time they read a newspaper, are getting their information from all over the Web and from social media. They are relying less and less on what the traditional gatekeeper people you always pitched (newspapers and magazines) have to say. Unfortunately, this means you have to work much harder now.

Your universe of 20 magazines and 50 newspapers is now a few less of those, but 100 or even 500 blogs. And some of those writers contribute to multiple outlets. You’re no longer pitching an outlet, you are pitching a person: an influencer. The good news is, you get to the right influencers, you’ve got champions who will send you visitors by the planeload, year after year.

This requires a radically different approach and a vastly more fragmented way of spending your resources. Buying one of those silly “special advertising sections” in a general travel magazine is going to pale in effectiveness compared to spending that same amount on Google Adsense and 20 specialized travel websites. Inviting a dozen freelance print writers on a press trip will get you spotty results over time, but inviting a dozen prolific writers who blog on subjects specific to your destination’s appeal will pay off for years and send measurable traffic to your official site.

Here are six things you can do right now to drastically improve your destination’s marketing effectiveness and pull in more visitors:

1) Figure out who is already writing about your destination and engage them the way they want to be engaged. This may be e-mail, Twitter, phone, Facebook or LinkedIn. It is almost surely not by spraying them with press releases.

2) Figure out which blogs and sites are already sending visitors to your website. (You do monitor your stats weekly, right? You do have Google alerts set up, right?) Those are obvious ad targets for the marketing people and those are editors/bloggers your publicists need to be talking with. First go thank them, then build a relationship.

3) Spend some time researching which websites and blogs are a great match for your visitor demographics. As a cheap destinations expert, I hear regularly from and/or have been on press trips with Honduras, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Malaysia, parts of Mexico and Panama. I haven’t heard a peep from most of the other destinations profiled in The World’s Cheapest Destinations book or on my blog, even though I am quoted in the major media every month and my blog is one of the top 100,000 sites on the web. I’m the best-known travel writer in Nashville, Tennessee, but in a decade of living here I’ve never heard from the city’s visitors’ bureau. That’s just silly. If you run a family travel destination or attraction and don’t have Sheila Scarborough or the Traveling Mamas on your radar, you’re missing a huge opportunity. It’s even easier to target sites focused on specific geography. For some destinations there are fewer than 10 people who generate 80 percent of the search engine hits. For a place like Nicaragua it’s two or three. Do you even know who they are? Those people should be on your cell phone’s speed dial.

4) Add every relevant site to your RSS feed and visit them often. (You do have an RSS reader set up don’t you?) You can’t pitch to blogs if you don’t know their style, tone and subject matter (or at least follow them on Twitter if that’s your thing.) Blind pitching doesn’t work anymore. Mass market advertising doesn’t work anymore. You need to focus and converse, not broadcast.

5) Stop worrying about bragging rights. Sure, it’s great to say “As featured in Travel + Leisure” when they write a few sentences about your destination on page 148, right behind the fold-out ad for Lexus, but in terms of influencing travelers to visit, did it matter? Was that one-page magazine ad that ran for one month really more effective than advertising on 20 very well-matched websites or blogs for an entire YEAR? Focus on the actual objective, not on what sounds impressive on a report.

6) Listen to your people at the bottom. The most junior people in your organization probably already know what needs to be done. They don’t have your built-in preconceptions and prejudices and will always be two steps ahead of you. Give them a budget, stop worrying about whether they are “wasting time on Facebook,” and turn them loose.

If you still have questions after reading this, let’s get together at Travel Media Showcase or Visit Europe Media Exchange (VEMEX) or have a drink in your destination’s best pub. (“Will work for beer.”)

But if you really want to jump on the social media train with both feet and don’t know where to start, keep reading this blog…or just hire Sheila and Connie!

Tim Leffel is the author of three travel books, editor of the award-winning webzine Perceptive Travel, and editor of several blogs.

He still likes to write for magazines too.

You can see his portfolio and contact information at TimLeffel.com.

I discussed writing good content and posting consistently for a decent amount of time in the first Every Dot Connects Blogging Basics post – How to start a blog, and whether you’ll ever make money from it.

The next obvious question is, “How do I get anyone to read my blog?”

It may surprise you to learn that marketing and publicizing a blog’s content (thereby increasing traffic if the content is good) doesn’t happen on the blog.

Sure, outbound links to other sites from your blog posts are seen by those sites as inbound links/backlinks, and their authors may click back through to see what you’re saying and what you’re all about. That’s why it is important to pay attention to who links to you, and respond.

In that sense, you are publicizing your writing directly from your own blog, but that is only part of the battle.

Blog publicity happens via a whole ecosystem of online and face-to-face interaction.

• It happens via Facebook, because a blog post link that you put on your Wall or in your status is seen on the Home pages of everyone in your network.
• It happens via LinkedIn the same way, through your network’s Home pages.
• It happens via your comments on other people’s blogs or in an online forum, because usually your name on a comment is a hyperlink back to your blog (so think before you comment. Ever wonder why more readers don’t comment?)
• It happens via Twitter, both because your blog URL should be listed in your bio, and from the occasional post URL of your own that you tweet. You don’t just auto-post everything onto your Twitter stream, do you?  Good; didn’t think so.
• It happens via StumbleUpon, which is especially nice when someone Stumbles one of your posts. Give back;  Stumble other people’s good content.
• It happens when you bookmark on Delicious.
• It happens when you do any of the above and it shows up in your FriendFeed.
• It happens via Flickr photo – I try to remember to put applicable links in the description of photos that I put online. Here’s one of my Chicago photos with links, as an example.
• It happens via YouTube videos; put links in the description of those, too.
• It happens via email – when people see your blog’s hyperlinked URL in your email signature line.
• It happens when people see your blog’s URL on your business card.
• And finally, it happens when you go “Old School” and meet people in person at conferences and networking events, and you mention your blog if it is appropriate.

Be everywhere, representing your writing.

Be ubiquitous, along with your content.

Marketing happens OFF of the blog.

Thinking of starting a blog? Already started one and wondering when you’ll rake in the Big Bucks?

I’m going to lay it out for you….

Here’s some advice I gave to a journalist who wanted to start a parenting blog, but since people ask me the same questions all the time, I thought I’d back up from relative esoterica  –  like how business communicators should respond to negative blog reviews –  and give you my standard answer to two common questions:

1. How do I decide what to write about, and then get started?
2. Can you actually make money blogging?

My basic advice for beginning bloggers is this  –  go to Aussie Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger site, and read everything. That’s not meant to be a cop-out, but seriously, you can’t do any better than Darren for great starter advice. At the bottom of the front page of his site is a box, Best of Problogger, so click the tab For Beginners and just start reading. That’s exactly what I did when I started.

After that, read Liz Strauss’ Successful Blog and Chris Brogan’s blog for how to nurture your blog’s community and grow visibility and readership.

In between reading the three sites above….

• Write good content
• Post reasonably frequently (2-4 times a week)
• Keep at it for at least 4-6 months, which is about how much time a blog usually needs to gain traffic and attention traction.

That’s it, really. But do you see the problem? Anyone toting a keyboard can start a blog – it’s keeping one going month after month, year after year that’s the hard part.

Key for my journalist questioner: there are thousands of parenting blogs out there, and that’s probably underestimating. What’s her special angle?

What’s your special angle? What will make yours particularly unique? What is your blog’s “elevator speech?” Hone in on that and work the bejeebus out of it to bring value to your readers.  I assure you, there’s no simpler answer.

Now, on to the money round….

I know very few people who make much money directly from blogging (myself included.) Most people’s blogs are simply part of their writing portfolio, or a storefront to/demonstration of their expertise. You have to have a really specific, lucrative niche (or a big presence) to have enough traffic to live off of blog-generated ad revenue.

Two examples of success -

1. Heather Armstrong’s dooce (longevity, quality and HUGE traffic) and
2. Darren Rowse’s other site, his Digital Photography School (longevity, quality and camera equipment-related affiliate sales plus ads.)

Right now, I do get paid a combined US$100-$200 a month for my work on the BootsnAll Family Travel Logue and for the Perceptive Travel Blog. They are largely ad-supported.

I used to be paid for my Fast Machines drag racing posts, but the editor can’t afford it anymore, so I’m wrestling with whether I can continue that, although I certainly want to. As a benchmark, I’ve been paid US $20-$50 per post when I’m paid by the post on that site and others.

I’m not paid directly for my Every Dot Connects posts, but Connie Reece, Jennifer Navarrete and I make money doing consulting, corporate training and workshops about social media, so the EDC blog is simply another entry into that work for our prospective customers.

If I didn’t have a military pension and wasn’t married to someone with a steady income (my husband is a high school math teacher) I’d never make it, frankly. I still do print work that pays much better (Texas Highways is one of my favorite clients, and so is National Geographic Traveler) but I haven’t pitched article ideas to them lately because I’m busy with online work. I’d kill to blog for them at per-word print rates, but their business models won’t support that yet.

Bottom line  –  the vast majority of us won’t make much money any time soon from blogging. Where we CAN make money is having the critical skill set of being able to create good online content and understand how the online ecosystem works (including eventually mobile content, which will be huge, in my opinion.)

WHEN will that make you money? As soon as more value shifts from dying print work to burgeoning online/mobile work.

And when will that be? Well, if I knew that, I’d be rich myself by now!

We simply don’t know yet, but sitting around waiting for magic answers is not a good idea.  Content is shifting to the Web and to mobile; just because a good pay structure isn’t there yet doesn’t mean you can ignore it.

You’ll have competition – there are a ton of writers and journalists finally figuring out that they’d better know this stuff.  I thought I was late to the game when I started my family travel blog in Feb 2006, on the advice of this smart journalist. Now, I have a three-year head start, and don’t you think I’m not very grateful for that.

For writers and journalists, in the end, the winners will be the ones who can deliver quality content anywhere, including online.

Congratulations to those of you who are starting a blog, and it’s OK if your purpose is simply to teach yourself how the social Web works, not necessarily to make income.

It’s still a smart move.

Related Posts:

• Blogging Basics: Getting traffic, readers and attention for your blog

I see it over and over again.

In between the squawking about how blogs are already passe and how Twitter is going mainstream, there is a fundamental Old School operating concept of the Web and social media that is routinely ignored by many organizations, mostly through what I suspect is simple lack of knowledge and fear of a netiquette misstep.

Here it is  –  they fail to acknowledge the link.

If a blog links to your business/organization/nonprofit/product/service, the simplest way to acknowledge is to leave a comment on the blog post that linked to you.

If someone links to you in their Twitter stream, then acknowledge with a return tweet.

If someone writes on your business Facebook page Wall or uploads a great fan photo, write something back.

When someone links to you, particularly in a two-way conversation tool like a blog, that is the blog author’s way of saying “I acknowledge you and find you link-worthy.” Someone is talking about you with that link. It may be good. It may be bad. The important thing is that they’re digitally waving at you.

If I were a real, live person standing in front of you waving, would you ignore me, or would you engage and talk about your business/organization/nonprofit/product/service?

Of course, you’d engage….unless you don’t care, in which case, you’re on the wrong blog and there’s nothing for you here at Every Dot Connects.  (Go watch old Van Halen videos, maybe?)

You should acknowledge because people behind keyboards are real, too, and links are important.

Links are the coin of the realm online.  They are a “vote of trust.” They drive Google authority. They are a powerful “communication path.” They provide helpful background information.

Most wonderfully, they can shed light on hidden gems that might otherwise be lost in the Webby flood. Through a well-placed link, an influential blogger or wired journalist can bring millions of people’s attention to worthy Susan Boyle-like businesses or services that would otherwise labor in obscurity.

Sure, if you’re a big business with lots of Web traffic (or a small organization with a tiny staff, or a one-person organization like me who writes for more than one blog) it’s tough to keep up with all the inbound links. I discussed this issue on Twitter with the ebullient Dell online community guy Richard Binhammer, who said that while he and his company certainly keep track of who is linking to Dell and its blogs, they only go back and provide “commentary when warranted.”

Well, sure. Some conversations in real life are ignored when appropriate, some just get a cursory nod or “hey, thanks” and others elicit a more active exchange. It’s the same online.

This assumes that there is a mechanism in your business or organization that TELLS you when there’s an inbound link, and from whom.

I think that half the battle with lack of response to links is that the right people….

1. Don’t even see data about links or Web traffic or Facebook business page commentary, and
2. Don’t know what to do with the data if they get it.

The answer is to:

1. Get an internal communications system set up so that you see, immediately, when people link to you (to start, here’s how to see when someone links to your site and where to set up a Google Alert for your URL.)  Then….
2. Recognize the value and acknowledge the link.

As a travel writer and tourism consultant, I link to travel-related and state/county/city tourism organizations all the time.  Usually, I am trying to highlight a place in a positive way because I love and support travel.

The only way I can ever get a comment response to those links in my blog post is to send an email to the linkee, saying, “Hey, I linked to you. Come say hello!”

Um, I’ll wait here while y’all think about the absurdity of that.

Don’t be “that guy” online  –  acknowledge the link.

I’m getting ready to leave on a press/media trip to Hutchinson, Kansas;  several of the city’s public relations and marketing folks decided that bloggers and wired writers offer a different way to get the word out about their destination.

My travel-related posts will be over on my Family Travel blog and the Perceptive Travel blog, but there’s an online angle here that’s intriguing. Some in Hutchinson have already impressed me with their Web connections – over 1,100 in the WhatsUpHutch.com Facebook group. Go, small town social media!

I don’t know that everyone I’ll encounter will be quite as plugged in, however.  Something that I noticed on the China 2.0 Tour was bouncing around in my head this morning, and as I was getting ready to send an email to one of the trip organizers about dealing with wired writers, it occurred to me that I should write a blog post instead.

That’s because someone like me thinks a bit differently than a mostly-print writer. We’d rather write a blog post to reach many than an email to reach only one, and we’d rather do it NOW.

Public. Rapid. Sharing.

That’s why we’re different, and for people who are used to dealing with print writers and journalists, there are a few other things you should know:

• We may be talking about your organization or destination before we even get there. We talk about it on Twitter and on Facebook. Our TripIt widget on our LinkedIn profile says we’re coming your way, and we’re bookmarking Web sites using StumbleUpon or Delicious for some advance research. Can you hear us?  Do you have rudimentary Google Alerts set up? Do you know how to search Twitter?
• We’re immediate, or at least pretty darn quick. You’re used to seeing print articles a few weeks to a few months after a journalist visit, but bloggers are different. Many of us are blogging while we’re still hearing briefings or touring attractions. We’re posting videos on YouTube. We’re uploading photos of your destination on Flickr.  We might be talking about lunch and dinner on Yelp. We’re uploading photos and comments to our Facebook page.  Constantly.
• Where are you on the Web? Does your organization have a blog? A Flickr pool? A video channel? Are you on Twitter? Where’s your Facebook page or group? Not to be dismissive of people’s efforts, but you’re not knocking anyone’s socks off these days simply by having a Web site.  A Web site is a given, like a phone number. Please tell us where you are – if we like your stuff, we’ll be linking to it and talking about it.  Do you see our links coming in? Come on over and comment on whatever we’ve posted.
• Everything is on the record and recorded unless you say otherwise, right up front.  Our style with speakers is a little different   –  for presenters or PR folks who aren’t used to geeks, it’s like a digital Normandy invasion. We all arrive in some conference/briefing room and swing into action. We’re crawling under tables looking for electrical outlets to plug in our stuff, we’re opening laptops, we’re aligning our Web cams to live-stream your presentation to the Web as it happens, we’re firing up to live-tweet on Twitter using our iPhone, we’re holding up our Flip video cameras to start shooting, we’re snapping photos and uploading them right then.  You’re ON, not only to the bloggers, but to everyone outside the walls who is in the blogger’s many networks (and questions will come in via Twitter and video chat boxes from those who are watching and listening outside the conference room.)  Don’t be alarmed. You want reach, you got reach!

For organizations who are used to a lot of “control” and one-way broadcast of their message, it’s a bit disconcerting to look at people who all seem to have data streams coming out of their bodies, going who knows where.

In my experience, wired writers and bloggers are generally a pretty sharing, friendly group although our communications techniques may be different than what you’re used to.  We’re big on authenticity and transparency, and we talk about things that we like.

Be the one we talk about. Be ready to engage.

As a member of UpTake‘s Marketing Board, I wrote an UpTake Travel Industry blog post on the advantages of getting information about your product or service (not necessarily just tourism-related ones, either) into the hands of travelers who use social media tools….

Smart marketing with giveaways 2.0

In it, I describe and link to some of the online reactions (particularly on Twitter) of people who got a travel-related gift/giveaway swag bag during my South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) travel blogging panel with fellow writer Pam Mandel.

Every link in the post is one more effort to land a roundhouse punch against “there’s not enough ROI (Return on Investment) in social media marketing.”

For example:

• “Many liked the sample pralines from local Austin company Lammes Candies – traveler CouchSurfingOri talked about the Lammes habanero praline, and so did hedge fund talent recruiter Kim Haynes and Download Squad tech writer CJClark.
• Krista Parry (Park City, Utah resorts PR and marketing) cheered the stickers provided by the Alltop.com Travel topic channel.
• Canadian travel internet marketing guru Todd Lucier was ready to cash in his bag’s Blue Bell Ice Cream free pint certificate, and he told his friends about it.”

I’d love to hear your comments on the post; thanks!

“Birds of a feather….”

Connie and I do realize that when you spend a lot of time around the feathered tribe of tech-savvy folks (thereby miraculously becoming two of Austin’s Social Media Mavens) it can be easy to forget that not everyone’s world revolves around LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and blogging, aka “the tech-o chamber.”

As my teen would say, “Duh.”

We know that lots of people find social media to be one big confusing alphabet soup of applications, jargon and insider jokes.

That’s why we run classes and workshops; to demystify the gobbledygook, and that’s why we love speaking engagements with great organizations like Austin’s venerable Metropolitan Breakfast Club.

From the MBC Web site:

“The Metropolitan Breakfast Club is a 20-year Austin tradition that’s anything but traditional.  Every Wednesday morning our members are informed and entertained by a variety of local and internationally recognized experts in business, politics and education. Our speakers share stories of Austin’s past, our current challenges, and future opportunities in and around Central Texas.”

Since 1984, the Club has been renowned for its extraordinarily eclectic speakers – everyone from the city Police Chief to historians to company CEOs to astronauts to the person who organizes the local rodeo.

Connie and I are thrilled to be included in the distinguished lineup on this coming Wednesday morning, March 11 – you can RSVP here if you happen to be in Austin.

We will do our best to rock the house with a combination of two of our favorite presentations:

• Email is for old people – Connie gets laughs and lots of attention with this one because, just like me, she IS one of those “old people.” More mature and particularly more skeptical audiences tend to listen to someone who does not appear to be 22 or live in her Mom’s basement, especially when she cheerfully blows up preconceived notions about social media for businesses and nonprofits. 




• Follow the bouncing blog post – I use a series of tabbed Web pages to show audiences how the information in a single blog post moves through the Web on other blogs, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, StumbleUpon and even (how retro!) email. Newcomers to social media say that it gives them a clear visual demonstration of the power of Web communications.

We’ll then open the floor for lots of questions and answers.

If you’re in town, we hope to see you bright and early Wednesday morning!

It’s that time of year again, when the tech universe is abuzz with the digital creative delights of the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) conference in Austin, Texas.

Since I live in the Austin metro area and this is my third “South by,” I thought I’d update last year’s post on why SXSWi is like Disney World and revisit the lure of conferences.

Just yesterday at Jelly Coworking, I discussed the five geeky days of craziness with City of Round Rock communications guy Brooks Bennett.

This will be his first SXSWi and he’s really psyched about it, but also a bit overwhelmed by the barrage of offerings.

Here’s the advice I gave him….

• Forget about seeing everything. Heck, forget about seeing half of it! There are the big keynote speakers, a crazy-huge number of panels, the smaller Core Conversations (I’m speaking at one with writer Pam Mandel, about travel blogging) plus book readings on the Adobe Day Stage (where I heard then-unknown Tim Ferriss of The 4-Hour Workweek speak in 2007,) early evening salon discussions and my personal “secret” favorite that often has big names in a small setting, the Studio SX discussions in the northeast corner of the Exhibition Hall.  There are hang-out lounges and parties galore, both official and “unofficial.” This goes on for five days – you’ll be fried.
• Pick everything that sounds good, and weed it all out later. Here’s what I do – I go through the online schedule and say, “Yes, Yes, Yes” to everything that sounds good and every speaker that I know and/or like.  I don’t worry that I’m double-, triple- and quadruple-booked for events. I print the whole thing out (yes, print – paper always boots up & never needs a power outlet or WiFi) and stuff Beast Schedule in my purse. Each morning of the conference, I do ruthless triage to pick the happenings that it would KILL me to miss, saying a fond farewell to the rest. It really sorts itself pretty clearly as the conference wears on;  some people hardly make any panels, but their whole day is a schmoozefest in the hallways and lounges. Whatever works for you!
• Loud, packed parties are overrated. Networking and socializing are not. Look, I’m not a big party girl if it means jammed, loud rooms full of people that I don’t know.   I assure you, however, that I get plenty of fun time at South by – I’m socializing in smaller gaggles, with lots of folks I don’t know but a few that I do, hanging out in places where we can actually find a seat.  Many people do the same thing – go to the “big” parties, discover they’re not all that insanely fun, go back out on the sidewalk and regroup, run into someone from the day’s panels and all go off together to have a civilized beer and proper geek bonding. (OK, you want a nice bar? The Driskill Hotel, since 1886. Take that, Sixth Street lemmings.)
• The basics – bring business cards, check that your cell phone has unlimited texting, pack a couple of energy bars, bring a water bottle, comfy shoes, power cords. It is truly an endurance event, but I mean that in the most positive way.  While we’re talking basics, there’s good BBQ right around the corner from the Convention Center: Iron Works BBQ at 100 Red River.

I hope to run into any and all of you during South by Southwest – I’m @SheilaS on Twitter, Connie Reece is @conniereece and Jennifer Navarrete is @epodcaster (don’t forget @sxswi – unofficial tweets – and @sxsw – official tweets.) See you there!

More good advice:

• Attend Friday’s How to Rawk SXSW: The Basics
• A guide to SXSW Interactive networking, from the Austin American-Statesman (and the Statesman‘s latest Austin Dining Guide.)
• The SXSW09 PBWiki.
• SXSW Interactive survival tips, from The Adventures of CindyLi.com
• SXSW Baby! especially the forums.
• The SXSW09 Insider’s Guide Ning group.
• Kent Brewster’s Things to Remember About SXSW

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