Dear MCCVB:
Is the Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau doing anything with Web 2.0?
Answer:
Yes! The Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau has a presence in many spheres of Web 2.0. We can be spotted on Facebook, on Twitter, on Flickr and on YouTube, and we even have our own blog!
Web 2.0 is any service or property that fosters two-way communication between people, or between an organization and its fans. This back-and-forth conversation, like an online cocktail party, has made Web 2.0 the fastest-growing area of the Internet.
Sites such as Facebook and MySpace are the best-known Web 2.0 properties, but they’re not the only ones. On Zagat.com you can read reviews; on Yelp.com or TripAdvisor.com you can weigh in with your own opinion on a restaurant, hotel or other facility, and read what others have to say about it. Networks like ABC put clips of their TV shows up for viewers to watch; video-sharing service YouTube allows the audience to comment with text, video ratings or even their own video clips. These properties also provide new, low-cost avenues for an organization to get its message out.
The MCCVB has started its Web 2.0 program with a handful of channels. Each Web 2.0 initiative feeds off existing efforts, and each feeds into at least one other Web 2.0 initiative.
MCCVB posts internally-created promotional videos on our YouTube channel, which increases the chances that these videos will be seen, as they were previously hosted only within SeeMonterey.com. These videos can be watched on an iPhone and many other cellphones. YouTube videos are also easily syndicated on blogs, Facebook and other forums, which means our videos can be dispersed into the wider Internet world.
BlogMonterey.com is the MCCVB’s blog. This blog is indexed by blog-specific search engines such as Google Blog Search and Technorati. By posting links to articles on the MCCVB website, as well as promoting local events and posting YouTube videos, we increase the likelihood that these items will be seen by the general public.
When a blog post is created, an alert (or “tweet”) is sent out on MCCVB’s Twitter stream. Twitter is a “microblogging” service, in which people can post messages up to 140 characters in length. Recently, the MCCVB tweeted a link to the “Insider’s Guide to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am” article. This link was picked up by the official PGA and AT&T Twitter streams, generating large amounts of traffic to the article.
Visitors to and residents of Monterey County post their photos to our Flickr group. These user-generated photos promote the beauty of the area and allow interaction with the brand without making users feel like they are caught in a slick advertising campaign. The Flickr group also creates a constant stream of images that can be recirculated on BlogMonterey.com.
This content is all recirculated through the SeeMonterey Facebook page. Any Facebook user will find the MCCVB Facebook page a one-stop shop for everything Monterey County. By becoming a fan of the page, they can keep constant tabs on what the MCCVB does to represent the destination in every Web 2.0 medium.
Monterey County Convention & Visitors Bureau P.O. Box 1770, Monterey, CA 93942 1-877-MONTEREY info@mccvb.org
In partnership with Monterey County and the cities of Carmel-by-the-Sea, Del Rey Oaks, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Salinas,
Sand City, Seaside, Soledad, Pebble Beach, Moss Landing, Carmel Valley, Big Sur, and Salinas Valley.
© Copyright 2009 Monterey County Convention & Visitors Bureau
