I like it when I see a local Lake Tahoe business doing a good job with their social media marketing efforts. In addition to our Once a Month Who’s Doing it Best in Lake Tahoe in Social Media and Digital Marketing Series, I’m going to feature a local Lake Tahoe business in our Tahoe Thursday series. If you can think of any, let me know in the comments section or send me an email milena@outandaboutmarketing.com.

Today’s spotlight goes to Tahoe StandUp Paddleboards.

I’m not going to review their website today. I like what they have done with it. I’d like to concentrate on their social networks instead. Some of them are well linked from their website. (Good start) and some I had to look for. (Constructive criticism here – I had a hard time finding their youtube channel).

Let’s look at each one:

Facebook

Active and engaged feed with good interaction with other companies.

Great custom profile photo.

Excellent use of the custom tabs. I particularly liked the Team Tahoe SUP custom tab with my friend Whitney Wall featured at the top. Great way to bring personality into your brand.

Other tabs worth mentioning are the 2012 boards, telling us what to expect, the welcome tab and the Explore Project.

Overall, a visually beatiful Facebook page. Great job! Can they get even more engagement and likes and perhaps introduce Facebook commerce?  Do they have a well put social media strategy in place? If you want to check your Facebook EdgeRank score for free and establish a benchmark for the company, Facebook Edgerank Checker is a good free tool to use for that. For more detailed Facebook Analytics and intelligence, hit me up.

Twitter

Twitter is one of my favorite networks. The Twitter account for Tahoe SUP didn’t disappoint visually. Great custom background image carrying our the brand with urls to other social networks and website assets.

A quick check on Klout shows Tahoe SUP at 21 with topics of influence of construction, plastic and surfing. What is Klout? Klout has positioned themselves as the standard of influence on the web, a very interesting and controversial topic of conversation. They give you a score of 1 to 100 and the higher your score is the most influence you have on the web. They also analyze your conversations and tweets and assign topics to you they believe you are influential in.

With a fun sport like paddle boarding I would imagine that Tahoe SUP can do a lot better on Twitter. To see the entire Twittalyzer dashboard for Tahoe SUP, head over to the this link. Sure, Tahoe SUP can do better with their twitter activity but at least they are not cross posting Facebook to Twitter as many bigger brands wrongly do. (More on this in another post).

YouTube

The Tahoe SUP YouTube account is also customized with their brand. With 8 videos and 31 subscribers, I’d venture to say they can definitely improve their video presence. Although, they are fairly active with 8,635 views to their channel.

I loved their video on paddle boarding with dogs in Lake Tahoe with the dog whisperer as featured on National Geographic. Nicely done. Who doesn’t like going out on the lake with the dog and enjoying the outdoors.

and finally the Tahoe SUP Blog

Prominently featured right on the home page, Tahoe SUP has an active blog. One thing I couldn’t figure out was how to leave a comment on a blog post but maybe I just missed it. If I didn’t, adding comments to the blog will be a good improvement.

I particularly like the integration of photos, videos and the team within the blog. It makes it easy to look around and get a feel for the sport before you jump both feet into it. And as a passionate paddle boarder, I highly recommend it.

Overall, Tahoe SUP is doing a good job with social media. I’m sure they have limited resources to spend online and if their products are flying off the shelves already, then I’m sure they are analyzing what makes the most sense for the company. I see a lot of opportunities and potential to grow their business and connect with paddle boarders around the world.

I hope spring comes soon and we can all go out and enjoy the sport. I know I can’t wait to grab my Tahoe SUP and go out.

Jan 2012 – Tahoe Mountain Sports

I’ve been thinking about starting this series for a while as there are certain local Tahoe companies and businesses that are doing a really good job with their online and social media marketing efforts. There’s no better time to start this series than in the month of January. Once a month, I will feature a local Lake Tahoe business who’s doing an extremely good job with their website, digital, mobile or social media. If you have any suggestions, feel free to send them my way at milena@outandaboutmarketing.com.

Our first selection goes out to Tahoe Mountain Sports and below are some of the reasons for it. In the spirit of Full Disclosure I have to say that this blog post is in no way paid or sponsored by Tahoe Mountain Sports. They didn’t give me any discounts or goodies to write it.

1. Website

Tahoe Mountain Sports website is organized and build with user experience in mind. It is my understanding they are doing all the work in-house. I wish they were using an outside agency as I would hire them right away. Kudos to the entire team at TMS! It’s great to see local talent producing high quality work like this. The website has clear call to actions, it’s easy to navigate, it’s professional looking and has integrated social networks and features really well. I love the fact that you can shop online. So many local Tahoe businesses are completely missing out on the entire ecommerce opportunity. It’s 2012 people! Start selling your products and services online. The site is well organized with items for men, women and kids, plus you can shop by brand, activity and gear. In addition, MTS provides a very detailed information on Tahoe with anything you need for your complete Tahoe adventure from weather and web cams to general information about the area. I like their gift cards availability as well so you can gift someone with an email delivered right to their inbox. I love their Deal of the Day. It’s a great way to bring people back to your website daily. Kudos to TMS for keeping this active. I’m sure it pays well in sales for them.

I decided to test their Live Chat function which integrated with my Facebook account. I asked them a question and received an immediate response. A few pleasant exchanges later, I went on to continue writing this blog post. I can keep going about their website features, like free shipping, secure check out, Amazon payments, etc. In summary, this is an excellent website and I’m sure they are seeing the returns from their efforts in real dollar signs.

2. Blog 

TMS maintains a very active blog which shows they understand the power of search and social. The blog also shows their passion and enthusiasm for the outdoors, sports, Tahoe and their business. Their love for the outdoors is captivating. It’s an engaging blog with interesting articles, product reviews and tons of photos. One of my favorite posts was their recent Yosemite trip with the Tahoe bikini chicks. Now, this is a great way to sell some bikinis in winter and even get the guys interested. Right?

Photo courtesy of the TMS blog

3. Social Media

In addition to the blog, TMS is active on Facebook (2,267 likes), Twitter (324 followers), YouTube (70,959 views to their videos so far) and Google+ (68 people). They are active on their social networks and responding to people not just blasting out messages like some other companies (won’t mention any names) are continuing to do.

milena@outandaboutmarketing.com

I truly enjoyed the presentations I saw, starting with Troy Thompson from Travel2.0 setting the stage for the day, Mike Henderson from Arborglyph talking about destination marketing videos, Rob Gadtke from KPS3 n mapping media and technology to the buying process and Eric Bengston on Developing an Interactive Strategy.

Below you will find my presentation on how to engage with your fans on Facebook and create a culture and vibrant online community with lots of examples from local and national properties doing it right. I covered custom landing pages, affordable apps, best business practices and measurements. In addition to my presentation, feel free to use my handout on 10 Facebook tips to improve engagement. Some of these tips you can implement today in your Facebook marketing.

A good friend, Troy Thompson from Travel 2.0 is going to be the keynote speaker and I will present on Facebook for business. Let me know what you want to learn.

Out&About Marketing is giving away a free admission to the event. Here’s how to you can win the free ticket valued at $99 before Aug 31 and $125 after.

2 ways to WIN:

1. Tweet with #WinSMGTahoe hashtag in your tweet. You can tweet up to 3 times a day. You will get an entry every time you tweet.We’ll randomly draw the winner.
2. Leave a comment on this blog post and tell us why you want to go.

Contest rules:

1. Contest ends Oct 3rd and the winner will be announced on this blog.
2. The winner will be selected at random and the decision is final.
3. If you have already purchased a ticket, no problem. We’ll give you a full refund on your ticket or you can just give away the ticket to someone who really wants to go.
4. No purchase is necessary to win.
5. You are responsible for your own travel expenses.

Good luck to everyone! See you on Oct 12th!

1. The Cause -  Special Olympics. Special Olympics provides year-round sports training and competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

2. Special Olympics history – The concept for Special Olympics was born in the early 1960s when Eunice Kennedy Shriver started a day camp for people with developmental disabilities at her home in Rockville, Maryland. The first International Special Olympics Games were held in 1968 at Soldier Field, Chicago with 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities from 26 states and Canada.

Mrs. Shriver’s vision has grown into one of the largest and most successful sports and volunteer organizations in the world. There are Chapters in every state of America and in more than 140 countries worldwide serving more than one-million Special Olympics athletes.

3. Special Olympics Northern California is proud to serve more than 13,000 individuals with intellectual disabilities.

4. Diamond Peak and Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe have been the proud sponsor for Special Olympics two years in a row. This event receives support from the community and many IVGID and Hyatt employees.

5. My pledge - My goal is to raise at least $5,500 for this organization and I’m counting on your support.

6. It’s a party! – On March 6th, come to the Hyatt pier and watch me jump in the freezing waters of Lake Tahoe. Temperature is around 40F (4C). Brrrrrrrr!!!!!! Bring your cameras! I will need your support.Even better, sign up to jump in with me.

7. Please, donate. Every little bit will help me reach my goal. You can donate online here.

8. Spread the word. We can do it together. Let’s use social media, online and personal networks and let’s raise some money. These kids need it. We can all help.

Are you in?

As I write this, I am thinking about a million different things. Well, maybe not a million, but at least 74.

At this moment in my life I am a full-time photographer with a budding business, I associate- and second-shoot weddings for two different studios, and I nanny part-time.  I write three or four pieces for Tahoe Quarterly every issue, attend a networking group once a week and try to get out of the house with friends at least once a month to maintain some ghostly semblance of a social life. I actively participate in Relay For Life, Star Follies and Boy Scouts. I never say no when someone asks me to donate a photo session to a silent auction for a charitable cause. I’d like to lose 25 pounds. And I’m a 25-year old kid in a long-distance relationship. I barely have enough time to take care of myself, let alone sleep on a regular basis. And anytime I’m awake, unless I’ve paid for a vacation and forced myself to leave the laptop and camera behind, I’m working.

It’s funny that one of the first words we learn how to say becomes so difficult for us later in life. It’s easy to say yes to one thing or another – but it’s a slippery slope. Before you know it you feel like poor Atlas and slowly, but surely, your muscles begin to weaken…

Why do we over-commit? Because we honestly want to help, or we don’t want to be rude. Maybe we fear we’ll lose a good opportunity or hurt someone’s feelings. And saying yes to every offer makes it feel like you can take on the world, until you realize you can’t. Because I am clearly no expert on how not to over-commit, I’ve done a little research with some help from my friend, the Internet, and compiled it here for you in a handy list.

1.   Figure out your priorities. Don’t focus solely on professional goals if you want to spend time with your family. If you want to make your photography startup a success, as much as it pains me to say it, you can’t spend time running around with little kids or freelancing for magazines. Of course, easier said than done.

2.    Set goals that keep those priorities in mind. When you don’t have a concrete vision of what you want to accomplish with your family, career, health, social life, finances…you have no point of reference when your boss asks you to take on more travel or a project that requires an extra 10 hours a week. This’ll help you spot conflicts before they’re right on top of you.

3.    Sleep on it. When someone asks you for your time and you’re not sure, tell them you’ll get back to them. Which is not to say, be flaky. Just take a minute away from the situation to weigh the value of the offer and how much time you actually have. Does it help you with your goals?

4.    Finish what you started. Always honor your commitments, but once they’re done you’re free to go.

5.    That said – buy yourself some time in the short-term by making a list of your commitments and seeing what can be rescheduled, delegated or even cancelled. Combat calendar claustrophobia – once you have some room to breathe you can make your plan.

6.    Schedule time for yourself and stick to it. Call it trite but you know it’s true. The road to hell is paved with what? Make it a ritual – walk the dog every day at 5:00 or take lunch away from your desk – and it’ll keep you sane.

7.    Don’t waste your time trying to please everyone. You’ll be tearing your hair out and in the process you’ll be doing a disservice to all the people and priorities that matter most. Some people are always miserable; refuse to let them take you down too.

8.    If a good opportunity falls in your lap and you don’t have the time for it, refer it to a reliable colleague or friend. With any luck they’ll be gracious and return the favor when they’re over-committed.

9.    Keep, or regain, some perspective. When you’re feeling pressed, take a deep breath and back up a few feet. Pointillists paint myriad small dots to form an image, but unless you’re standing at a distance you won’t know what it is. Remember the big picture and don’t let those small dots get in your head. If that doesn’t help, look up how much space you take up on the geological timeline.

10. Do something fun. Seriously, maybe if you accidentally build in a little extra margin you can have some time for yourself. Remember fun?

Long story short? If something brings you joy or your business money, keep it. If it only stresses you out and there’s no room for improvement, it’s time to cut your losses. Two-year-olds the world over can say it, so it’s time for some verbal rehabilitation. Relish the small victory that is that teeny, tiny two-letter word.

Your turn? What keeps you up at night? How do you Say No? Would you like to see more guest posts?

I’ve been seeing him for over 15 years now despite of changes in dental insurances and 45 min drive to the office one way. He’s one of these older, nice gentleman who can make you feel very comfortable.Even in the dentist chair.

What I like most about this dentist is his attitude towards his clients and his high and I mean really high standard for customer service.

Dr. Donald Orme (in Truckee, CA) by far wins my award for customer service for a local Lake Tahoe business. He knows how to treat his customers and by that I don’t mean keep their teeth healthy but treat them with respect. He understands what it takes to make them feel good, how to make things right and how to keep his clients happy.

He “gets” how word-of-mouth and referrals work and he practices it every day. I wished more Lake Tahoe small and large businesses would learn from Dr. Orme and apply his unwritten policy: Do whatever it takes to make the customer happy.

I wrote a review about him on DentistDig. If you end up going to see him, feel free to write your opinion as well.

Have you run into a good or bad customer service experience lately? Leave a comment on this blog.

Photo credit: PeterSpain.com

This is one of two posts on how small businesses can use social media to their advantage. I got particularly interested in paddleboarding and decided to track the entire process of how social media is affecting the bottom line of a small business.

Adrift Tahoe is located in Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe, CA and they offer rentals, sales, fun special events and merchandise. It’s all about paddleboarding and surfing with very friendly staff.

My interest in paddleboarding started with a Facebook post by a friend – sharing her excitement about this addictive and fun sport. I decided to check it out for myself. It is a great sport, an excellent full body work out and a phenomenal way to spend summer time on the water in Tahoe.

I offered to create a short video about the shop and the sport and post it on YouTube. See it below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So far, I know that I have hooked a few friends and family members on the sport. They are interested in getting more involved, would like to purchase paddleboards and continue to spread their passion about paddleboarding in Lake Tahoe.

The second blog post will tell you how a Facebook update and a You Tube video delivered real dollars for this business. Interested? Stay tuned. Whether you are a small business or a big one, are you able to identify dollars from your social media efforts?

Have you tried paddleboarding yet?

The Good

This is a brilliant idea to get everyone associated with the travel & hospitality industries involved and engaged. It’s working. It’s a friendly competition and visitors bureaus, hotels, ski resorts and local businesses are showing their support and posting the contest on their own websites and Facebook pages.

At the writing of this post, the Travelocity Gnome fan page had 36,277 fans. Not bad at all. In addition to generating fans and buzz on social media, Travelocity is promoting their iPhone app on the page.

The Bad

1. You can vote as many times as you want. I can just imagine people sitting in their offices and clicking away on that button.

2. Travelocity is giving away a ski trip for two as an incentive for people to participate. Excellent idea! The bad – the contest is between Lake Tahoe and Utah and the ski trip is to Colorado??? I feel like they are sending me the message: Don’t go to either Utah nor Lake Tahoe. Head to Colorado – that’s where the best snow is. Very confusing to say the least.

3. My friends in Utah couldn’t access the Facebook page for a while – the application had some bugs that shut it down for some time. Technical difficulties or simply traffic overload.

4. My biggest problem with the contest – Lake Tahoe is only a small part of California and Nevada. Lake Tahoe VS Utah? It doesn’t seem fair to compare a ski destination against a state? Does it?

Overall, the contest is a very good idea for creating buzz on social media. It’s lacking however a little bit in the overall strategy and execution. I’m looking forward to see who’s going to come ahead. Currently, it’s 50% / 50%. Go vote today. I’m also looking forward to seeing the results of how successful the contest is for Travelocity.

Your turn. Did you vote? Do you like it? What do you think?

Cross country skiing Lake Tahoe

Winter is definitely here and it looks like it will be a nice White Christmas for everyone in Lake Tahoe.  Let’s see what Lake Tahoe ski resorts are reporting for snow accumulations on their websites:

On the North Shore:

1. Alpine Meadows reports 54″ of new snow.

2. Squaw Valley reports 42″ of snow storm total.

3. Sugar Bowl which usually tends to get the most snow as it gets hit first with fronts from the West is reporting 29″-44″ of snow storm total.

4. Northstar at Tahoe website reports 43″ of storm total as of the writing of this post.

5. Mt Rose is reporting a snow storm total of 32-42″.

6. Diamond Peak received 30″ – 40″ of snow. As we are not open yet, we haven’t started to report conditions on a daily basis. I  know I have been shoveling and blowing the driveway for the past few days and my arms are so sore that I can barely type on the computer. I received 32″+ at my house which is is at 7,800 feet.

On the South Shore of Lake Tahoe:

1.  Sierra at Tahoe seems to have picked up the most, a total of 71″ of snow so far.

2. Heavenly appears to have received a little bit less than Sierra at Tahoe, 35-60″ of snow storm total.

3. Kirkwood is reporting 36″-48″ of snow storm total.

Now, let’s take a look at how lake Tahoe ski resorts are getting the message out with using social media.

On the North Shore:

1. Squaw Valley’s latest update was from Thursday. They must be too busy skiing or shoveling.

2. Alpine Meadows, Sugar Bowl, Mt Rose and Diamond Peak are on top if it with recent updates.

3. Northstar at Tahoe is definitely behind. Last update from last Tuesday. Come on people, this is your chance to get the message out to your fans.

On the South Shore:

1. Heavenly has a nice video with the snow report on their fan page. Good job!

2. Kirkwood has recent updates but they are about the Tahoe film festival and not snow conditions.

3. Sierra at Tahoe is on top of it with recent updates and actual photos. Nice!

Now let’s take a look at

On the North Shore:

1. All ski resorts are updating their Twitter accounts. It would be nice to see more pics and videos attached with the updates and more emphasis on conditions and less emphasis on the greatest and latest marketing program they have going on.

On the South Shore:

1. Kirkwood, Heavenly and Sierra at Tahoe are updating their Twitter accounts. I’ d like to see the same change on social media messages: more updates with pics and videos and less talk about the latest marketing ploy.

5 quick lessons based on today’s research:

1. Social media is instantaneous and people expect constant updates.
2. Social media is transparent. If you are reporting 7 feet of snow and you only received 5, people will find out that you are being dishonest and will do the reporting for you with photos and videos. Don’t lose their trust.
3. Make updating of social networks a daily task.
4. Being honest and transparent is the best approach on social media.
5. Keep your social networks fresh with up to date pics and videos. People want to see for themselves the conditions. Especially important when Lake Tahoe is on the national news!

Deep snow means happy holiday season for the ski resorts. This storm couldn’t have come in a better time, right before the holidays. Enjoy the powder and have a great holiday season. Hopefully, the ski resorts will beat the recession and the economy concerns this holiday season with  help from Mother Nature.Keep it real, stay honest and bring people back this season by providing a great experience.

Your turn. Where do you go get updates about a ski resort?

Happy Holidays from Out&About Marketing, An Inside view on the Outside world!