Themes and takeaways from SoMeT15au chatting with Ben Alcock
Ben Alcock is PR and Communications Director at Tourism Oman (Australia and New Zealand) and is also a blogger at Disarm Doors and Crosscheck, he recently attended Social Media Tourism Symposium 2015 Australia and in this podcast episode we chat about takeaways, key themes and discoveries from the conference.

The show notes are a little different this week as it was more discussion style however I have dot pointed the key points.

Key Points

Lots of tweets on the hashtag #SoMeT15au
Storytelling a key theme - yes we have heard it before however a good reminder (for details listen from the 5 minute mark).
"Get out of the way." Its time for destinations to step aside and move heavily into curation. Letting other peoples stories bubble to the surface. This idea of getting out of the way - destinations need to step aside and focus more heavily into curation
I refer to some similar points from an earlier podcast with Tourism Oregon.
Keep things simple  - see more about this in my blog post on Platforming.
Content efficiencies.
From the 10 minute mark we talk about destinations working with bloggers. Time to stop looking at the numbers and worth with bloggers who have the hearts and minds of your audience and who can tell your story right.

'Are we chasing eyeballs? Or hearts and minds?' Great session with Christine Retschlag. #TheGlobalGodess #SoMeT15AU
— Disarm Doors And... (@DisarmDoors) July 23, 2015

12.30 minute mark we talk about the 'to pay or not to pay bloggers' debate. Worth a listen.

16 minute mark we talk about email marketing and how this is still important in the marketing mix.

Creating sharable moments within the destination

From the 20 minute mark we talk about Free WiFi within destinations

From the 21 minute mark we talk about Tourism New Zealand. Finding the obstacles to bookings and creating content around those issues/topics/themes. Ben mentions 'The Kombie Diaries'  and also mentions the story of the Tourism New Zealand brand mark.

Almost 90% of Tourism New Zealand's budget is spent on digital.

8,000 photos a day of the iamsterdam sign. 50% shared to social. #SoMeT15AU
— Chris Chambers (@ckjchambers) July 23, 2015

The post Themes and takeaways from SoMeT15au: Ep #33 appeared first on Holly G.