The post Eating your own dog food appeared first on Tourism Currents®.
We’re your Tourism Currents team: (l to r) Sheila Scarborough, Becky McCray and Leslie McLellan
You cannot effectively market your destination, attraction, or hotel without knowing, in some detail, who you are and what makes you unique. Once you nail that down, there may still be dog-food-eating moments.
“Eat your own dog food” …. meaning be so confident in what you offer that you’ll go to great lengths to prove its worth.
We are always telling destination marketing folks that they need to be able to describe in one punchy sentence who they are and what makes them special.
We’ve noticed recently, however, that when we go to speak at conferences or attend events, our fans and supporters who are introducing us to others don’t always lay out clearly who we are and what we do.
They say things like we’re “awesome at social media” plus other other blush-inducing compliments, but they rarely state exactly what we do so that it is crystal-clear to those who are meeting us for the first time.
Now, this is not their fault, it is ours. What we do shouldn’t be a mystery.
Clearly, we have not been clear.
Maybe we did not want to sound canned or hokey with a too-slick tagline or “elevator speech.” Maybe we simply assumed that people magically knew what we’re all about. Maybe we assumed too many assumptions!
What DO we do at Tourism Currents?
Online and in-person training in social media for tourism and hospitality.
Or as Sheila likes to say, “We teach you to fish, and then get the heck out of your way.”
If someone asks you what your town, attraction, business, or hotel are all about, can you answer them in an understandable and interesting way, not a bunch of rambling sentences?
Even more importantly, can your visitors, guests, and customers answer that question quickly and clearly themselves, or are they a bit confused about who you are and what makes you unique?
Bringing clarity to your mission is an ongoing process. It’s OK if you have to repeat yourself.
Sometimes, a short video can help to explain things.
Here is ours:
Direct link to the 1:27 minute video on YouTube.
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Here are the details about our online training course in social media for tourism.
If you’d rather hire us to speak at your event, that’s great, too!
We do personal consulting and coaching if you need that.
Go ahead; practice your own tagline or elevator speech on us down in the Comments. (Who are you, again?)
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Have you connected with us in your favorite places? If you arrived here directly from a link, here’s the email signup for this newsletter. Say hi to Leslie, Sheila and Becky at Tourism Currents on….
- Our LinkedIn Company Page – follow us, and let’s talk business.
- Our Twitter stream – all day awesome.
- Our Facebook Page – we love your Likes, comments and Shares.
- Our Google+ Company Page – new but growing.
- Our Flickr Group Pool – we wanna see your tourism pics. Cheese!
- Our YouTube channel – video about and from the tourism industry.
Don’t miss these goodies, either:
- Our free Idea Book download.
- The testimonials – nice things that people have said about us and our work.
- ….And the online course in social media for tourism and hospitality that no one else can beat for quality and affordability.
The post Eating your own dog food appeared first on Tourism Currents®.
