New GeoTour Memberships
by Jackson Everett - 8/22/09 5:30 PM
We recently did a review of our membership packages and made some changes based on consumer demand and the increasing popularity of our GeoTour Creator. We found that GeoTour is used in two different ways; Sharing and Promotion.
We discovered that some members just built a tour or two to share with friends and family or to try the product out. These members also downloaded tours to their GPS device for their own enjoyment. So we classified this group of people as enthusiasts, users who love the cool concept of GPS tour creation.
We also found that we have some members who use GeoTour to promote a destination by selling a GPS tour or offering it as a free value to an existing product or offer. We called these people experts since they are more focused on a business model for marketing their tours.
So we were faced with accommodating two different groups with a functional product that would suit specific purposes. We did not want to create two separate products so we decided to categorize features of the product based on a tiered membership.
The new memberships allow an inexpensive point of entry for enthusiasts with the Lite and Plus memberships. And the Pro and Premier memberships provide a bridge into a more profitable business model to be used by entrepreneurs and destination marketing experts.
Here is a quick breakdown of the new memberships along with links to more details
Lite: This is our Friends and Family Fun Edition that is a free membership level open to all GPS enthusiasts who want to create a few tours to use and share. Tours can be shared with anyone across the world through GeoTours Xchange.
Compare GeoTour Lite features with all GeoTour Memberships
Plus: GeoTour Plus is our Social Edition that offers you an inexpensive solution for developing your own GPS tours to share or sell to friends, family and fans. Tours can be shared or sold to anyone across the world through GeoTours Xchange or through our Facebook Application.
View more information on GeoTours Plus
Pro: GeoTour Pro is our Professional Edition and is designed for any travel agency, micro-business, pro-blogger or independent professional wishing to market their destination using the newest technology available in tourism! Tours can be shared or sold to anyone across the world through GeoTours Xchange, on your web site, blog, or through our Facebook Application.
View more information on GeoTours Pro
Premier: GeoTour Premier is our full-featured Enterprise Edition designed for any organization wishing to market their destination using the newest technology available in tourism. With GeoTour Premier, you can create personalized Micro-Sites, add tours to your own web page using Tour Widgets, and view detailed statistics and graphs about your tours. Plus, GeoTour Premier is ad-free and you get UNLIMITED media storage space!
View more information on GeoTours Premier
Labels: Memberships
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Tweet me! 10 steps to promote your GeoTour on Twitter
by Jackson Everett - 8/10/09 6:48 PM
All the rage online is Twitter. The big question is if it is a fad or a new communication tool that will last the test of time?
Time will tell, but for now, the debate is if the medium is about communication or promotion. Any good marketer will tell you that promotion is communication and communication is promotion. However, Twitter and social media in general is best when the focus is on communication that educates and informs others about the value of something you have to offer or promote. Think of it as a conversation with friends rather than a commercial for your business.
If you don't know by now, Twitter is a micro-blog. An ultra simplistic social website that allows you to set up a brief profile, link to or "follow" other's profiles and have them link to or "follow" yours. Then you are able to post or "tweet" a message no longer than 140 characters for all of your followers to see. Simple as that.
Twitter can be a place for an individual to tell all of their "followers" what they are doing at any point in the day (eg. "Just got home from work and heading to see the new Transformers movie" or "looks like we are having pizza tonight with the kids").
Twitter can also be used to inform your followers about important news (eg. "traffic is bad heading home on I-95, better take the backroads" or "Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died today, I'm in shock!!"
Now you are asking, what does this have to do with Geovative and my GeoTours? It's simple. Use Twitter to let people know about your tours, your travel, your insights on destinations, etc. Especially Tweet on GeoTours you have just completed or updated.
Here are the 10 steps you need to put in place to promote your tours on Twitter:
1. Set up a Twitter profile for your GeoTours and link to your blog or GeoTours Microsite
2. Do a Twitter search to find related "Tweets" on your GeoTour destinations
3. Check out the Twitter profiles of the people who Tweeted and "follow" them
4. Then follow all of their followers
5. Try to follow about 20 new people a day or 100 a week
6. They will be notified and many will follow you in return
7. Now invite everyone on your email contact list to follow you on your new Twitter link
8. Put a Twitter link or feed on your blog so people can easy follow you
9. Over time, stop following some people. Ideal to have more people following you. 2/3 ratio.
10. Now Tweet. At least once a day.
Tip: Go to BudURL to learn how to create short links to your GeoTour pages or specific blog posts. The BudURL not only allows you to shrink the number of characters but also allows you to track the number of people that use that link. Great for promotional tracking results.
Here are some example Tweets to model:
"Just created a GPS Tour on Yellowstone National Park. 50 points of interest that I hand selected. You can find it at http://budurl.com/YSNP"
"I just updated the New York City GeoTour with restaurants on the top 100 list this year. Tweet back the ones you tried. http://budurl.com/NYC"
"Read article today on San Fran and recent tourism boom. Article link http://budURL.com/SFA and San Fran GeoTour link http://budURL.com/SF"
Be sure to follow us on Twitter and we will be happy to follow you as you promote your GeoTours on Geovative.com. Our Twitter link is twitter.com/geovative
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Marketing with the GeoTour Facebook App
by Jackson Everett - 8/3/09 7:21 AM
Facebook currently has over 250 million active users with 120 million accessing their account everyday. If you want to promote your GeoTours, this is the place to do it and we just completed developing our Facebook App to make it easy for you to get your tours in front of those users and allow you to directly share your tours with your own Facebook network.
We also set up a Geovative Solutions business page on Facebook and really want you to become a fan to help in promoting our GeoTour creator and all of the tours available through GeoTour Xchange. You dont have to be Geovative member to be a fan of Geovative on Favebook so invite your Facebook network to our pages.
So how can you use Facebook to attract visitors and encourage downloads of your GeoTours? There are 3 ways you can promote your tours on Facebook and it is so easy you will wonder why you have not done it already.
1. Status Update: Your Facebook status update allows you to insert a URL link. Simply write a few words about the GeoTour you want to share with your Facebook network and include the full URL in the text. You can find the URL for your tour on your GeoTour page at the bottom of the header description of your tour. If you are a Pro or Premier member with Geovative, then you can also share the link to your Micro-Site which can be found on your Micro-Site Setup page in Geovative.
2. GeoTour Facebook App: Add our new Facebook App and share with your friends. By activating the application, your tours will be visible from inside Facebook. You can even select which tours you want to share through the app. We also made it possible for all tours that are shared through GeoTours Xchange to show on the Browse Tours section of the app which means your tours could be shared and downloaded by other Facebook users that are not in your network. This gives you more exposure and opportunity to promote your GeoTours.
3. Facebook Avertise: Pay per click advertising on Facebook allows you to target people that will have the most interest in your GeoTour. You can select people who live in a particular area or have certain demographics. Your ad will use a photo you select along with brief text and a link to your GeoTour or Micro-Site. You can see how other Facebook ads appear by looking to the right column of your own Facebook page. The best thing about Facebook Ads is it allows you to set a budget for clickthroughs which means you will never spend more than you can afford.
Give the new Facebook features a try and let us know how it works for you or if you have any questions or suggestions. Here are the links to our Facebook Page and App. Enjoy!!
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Become a Fan of our Facebook Page and invite your friends to share in the fun
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Geovative-Solutions/11322243316
Activate the GeoTour Facebook App and share your tour creations with all your friends on Facebook.
http://apps.facebook.com/geotours/
Labels: Facebook, marketing, new features
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