Maui Social Media News — #MauiSMUG - Maui Social Media Users Group

Social Media and Tourism Oct 22 at MEDB

October 19, 2012 By Roxanne Darling Leave a Comment

Many of us social media pros daydream about the possibilities for using social media marketing in Hawaii tourism – all the way from the Hawaii Tourism Authority down to every Mom and Pop business. But words are useless without action! Hawaii is such a golden destination! We are no longer isolated due to the power of social networks, and making media has become so affordable and increasingly personable and effective.

So we’ve asked several local social media leaders to play with the question, “What if?”

Our panel members will step into the social media “imagineerium” and conjure up social media ideas that can directly benefit both tourism professionals and businesses in Hawaii. Our local social business experts will suggest a range of awesome outcomes that can result from adding new ideas, tactics, and strategies to our Hawaii marketing efforts. No matter how you’re connected to tourism (and who isn’t!), you’ll have take-aways and campaign ideas which you can use immediately.

The presentation will be fast-paced and you’ll have the chance to vote for and discuss your favorite ideas in the second part of the program. Bring your iPads, notebooks and be prepared to be inspired and have fun! Here are a few random ideas to get your juices flowing!

“What if Hawaiian Airlines in-flight napkins had their Twitter name imprinted and every week they gave away a random interisland trip to an instagram taken while flying Hawaiian?”

“What if Maui had a social media team that rotated monitoring FourSquare checkins at OGG and shared a local tip/coupon from member businesses?

“What if the large hotels gave away a free eBook at check-in produced by Maui bloggers on the best photo locations on Maui?”

“Imagine if OGG had a live screen of the Twitterati on Maui near baggage claim?”

“Wouldn’t it be cool to have a QR code wall in addition to the tourist magazines to point visitors to green and social tourism activities?”

Adding to the excitement: We are hosting this event on Maui – voted the second most popular destination in the US! We will have @EatGogi food truck so come early, so come early and dine with us! Our Oahu community is still meeting at Amuse Wine Bar to watch the live stream, inbound this time.

Our presenters will include: Pomai Weigert, Liza Pierce, Tara Coomans, Aimee Singer, Laura Kinoshita, and Shane Robinson. Roxanne Darling will moderate.

This event is live ON MAUI and will be livestreamed to the world, with a satellite event on Oahu. This event is not sponsored by MEDB. We are renting the space from them, hence the small registration fee. Let’s support MEDB who has done so much for us in sharing the awesome Malcolm Center!

Event Registration Online for Opportunities in Hawaii Social Media Tourism powered by Eventbrite

Filed Under: Event, Maui Social Media News Tagged With: brainstorming, marketing, smchi, tourism, travel

Blogging Basics and Growing Your Blog

May 26, 2011 By Liza Pierce Leave a Comment

Most entrepreneurs on Maui have by now heard the importance of blogging for business. Some have just started and working their way into developing their blogs, while others have tried and stopped. The most popular reason for quitting blogging is “lack of time” but there are also others like “no one reads my blog” and “I am just not good at writing“. My experience and observation tells me that many quit too early. To help aspiring bloggers get a good start and persevere, I created an outline on the basics of blogging and how to make them grow. May many find this helpful:

I. Basics:

A. Know your goal in blogging

Personal Satisfaction – Expression of Creativity; Sharing Your Hobby or Passion; want to meet new friends, etc.
To Promote My Business – should still be passion related
Be A Professional Blogger – gain income through blogging
For 2 and 3 – your blogging standard would be higher: own URL; correct grammar and spelling; disclosures; site references, need a good web design.

B. Establish a benchmark and set a growth goal - where is your blog at in the beginning (or at this time)

Where are you at:. Find out from: http://www.websitegrader.com/ / http://www.blograder.com/ / http://www.woorank.com/
Establish a short term goal. ex. increase daily visits by 3
Establish a long term goal. ex. 10,000 page views a month

C. Install an analytic tool in the blog to help monitor growth

SiteMeter – easier to use but limited
Stat Counter -
Google Analytics (most used by professionals)
Blog Rankings – Page Rank; TopBlogsites, etc.

II. Promotion and Growth

1. Know basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Why? because Google will bring visitors to your blog.

The blog name you choose is important
The title of your post is important
Pictures / photos has to be labeled and or tagged.
Tag your posts
Use key words – don’t get carried away but don’t neglect either
… and many more

2. Content is the king

Write interesting content (interesting to you and your reader). Be human. Sure key words are important but don’t overdo it. Write with passion. Write with humor if you can (and it’d appropriate). Be technical only if it’s a technical blog.
Write Well – for blogs, it does not have to be too formal – it can be talk strory kind but following basic rules of punctuation, grammar and spelling is important.
A 250 word post is good. If less, maybe add photos; if more decide into several posts. If not too long but long enough, chunck it.
Words are good but adding photos, videos or slideshows greatly enhance the content. Don’t overdo.

Social Media on Maui: Some Backstory

January 7, 2011 By Jeff Bennett 4 Comments

Though Maui SMUG is just getting started, the social media scene on Maui has been active for some time. Until recently though, most social media practitioners were isolated bloggers and tweeters. I myself had been blogging about windsurfing on Maui since 2004 and I’ve been aware of several other prolific Maui bloggers who predate that.

From my perspective, the social media scene on Maui really came into the public spotlight early in 2010, when Kim Haueisen, program manager of High Tech Maui, introduced me to Internet consultant Peter Liu.

I had been developing a course material for a WordPress workshop that I was planning to pitch to the ViTech program at UH Maui. On mentioning this to Kim, she suggested that I give a WordPress workshop at High Tech Maui since she was starting up a series of social media workshops with Peter Liu.

Peter kicked off the High Tech Maui social media workshop series in January 2010 with his workshop, “How to Use Social Media to Improve Your Business,” and followed up with several more social media for business workshops, covering such social media staples as blogging, Facebook, and Twitter.

I got into the mix in May and June with introductory WordPress workshops. It was obvious from teaching and attending these workshops that there was a demand to learn about using social media. Most workshops sold out and we often had to scramble to put together follow-up workshops to satisfy the demand. Witnessing this demand sparked the idea about creating a social media user group where people could gather and trade success stories, tips and techniques about using social media.

Kim, Peter, my wife and I met at Whole Foods in Kahului on a beautiful sunny June day last year to kick around ideas about a social media users group. Where would we hold it? What would the format be?

There were a lot of great ideas and excitement about the project, but as often happens, other demands and priorities pushed the project to the back burner. Every month one of us would raise the question about kicking off the user group but some obstacle always seemed to get in the way. Finally, in December, Peter raised the issue again and somehow we all pulled together a loose plan for the first event.

In preparation for next week’s Bytemarks Cafe, I asked Peter for his perspective on the social media scene here on Maui.

JB:
What is the social media climate on Maui like?

Peter:
It started small, but the island is waking up to it thanks to the influence of a few hardcore active users. Businesses are still figuring out how to blend it into their existing workflows, and in many cases it means adopting and learning new technology. The biggest challenge is the engagement piece—the “social” part of social media. Actively engaging people online is an unnatural concept to many people. As more and more people “get” that, the adoption rate will rise. My perception is we’re at the stage now where people “get” that it’s valuable and are trying to figure it out, but we need more time before real success stories or case studies can emerge.

JB:
How big is the social media community on Maui?

Peter:
There are a few hardcore bloggers, and a good number of people who communicate with each other using Twitter. By far, the preferred platform on Maui appears to be Facebook, as it’s a natural thing for most people who want to share images and other content with their families and friends. It’s a growing number, but no real effort has been made to quantify it scientifically to my knowledge.

JB:
From my perspective, you’re the guy that really brought social media into the public eye here on Maui, through the HTM workshops. Any other thoughts or perspectives on that?

Peter:
There was Liza with her blogs – http://www.lizas-eyeview.com/ and http://amauiblog.com, and Sarah Burns with http://theohanamama.com/, and a small Twitter community that started doing tweetups shortly before I came on the scene. To say I brought it to the public eye may be overstating it a little, but there wasn’t a lot going on in terms of formal workshops before we started doing them at HTM.

There were (and still are) occasional “how-to-use-socal-media” sorts of things done by others on the island, but by and large they appear to be more like “How-to-sell-xyz-using-Facebook” or some such, and not the comprehensive “how-it-all-fits-together” sort of thing we do. We’re the only real effort I know of that is teaching it from a practitioner’s point of view. One of the predictions among social media pros in 2011 is so-called “gurus” will start to disappear, and actual practitioners will rule.

Now, I’ll open up the the question to the general Maui population. Are you a social media user on Maui? What’s your take on the social media scene here on Maui?

If you’d like to get involved in the social media scene here on Maui or learn about social media, keep an eye on this website as well as the High Tech Maui workshops page for a schedule of upcoming social media workshops.

Filed Under: Maui Social Media News, Social Media Workshops