talk a lot about social media and its value for business, but in my trip to Baker County, I visited a couple of small towns with populations in the few hundreds, who rely on Tourism as a big part of how they keep their towns viable. Social media isn’t a magic bullet, but it is a valuable marketing, content, and relationship tool that can help businesses stay in touch with clients, with the local community and other businesses and communities in the area. business Social Media rural communities Small business tourism MORE >>

Ways Google’s Acquisition of Zagat Will Affect Search Marketing (greatfinds.icrossing.com). Blog Coach Marketing Social Media Google Places Google Plus Mobile Small business SoLoMo TourismBetween appointments I checked Google Plus on my iPhone and noticed something new (to me). At the top there was a menu and one of the choices was Nearby. clicked on it and saw several entries of  ”what I’m doing” or photos with a Google Places pin. What a great find! Ask yourself a few questions – How will this new tool benefit my target audience? Related articles. MORE >>

Business Development Adam Sommer farming Hampton Harvest Tour 2012 Iowa marketing tourismI was out of town this weekend, on a trip to Hampton Iowa for an annual event called the Blogger’s Tour. We were able to see and do, eat and learn, all about what is happening in “flyover country” Adam Sommer, a new online friend, shares Part I of his experience here: Visit Flyover Country: Franklin County, Iowa: Harvest Tour 2012 Part I. Harvest Tour 2012 – Sneak Peek is a post from: In Context MultiMedia. MORE >>

Cape Town Tourism launched a new Facebook travel app this week, designed to allow “virtual visits” to the city through a user’s Facebook profile. In what Cape Town Tourism titles a “world’s first,” the innovative app “is a creative user experience that utilizes the latest technology and Facebook’s immense global reach” to raise awareness of the city as a travel destination. Users According to Cape Town Tourism, the social networking giant sees more than 300 million photos uploaded every day, many of them travel photos. MORE >>

Cape Town Tourism’s most recent marketing initiative used a clever combination of travel blogging, crowdsourcing and social media to draw attention to the city, ranked 23rd among the top 25 travel destinations worldwide in TripAdvisor’s  2012 list of Traveler’s Choice Destinations. Cape Town Tourism worked hard to convert  “Soccer Fans into Cape Town Fans” : a year after the World Cup ended, the  I ? This year, as part of its larger “iAmbassador” campaign, Cape Town Tourism invited four international travel bloggers for a stay in Cape Town. Locals? MORE >>