I work in the tourism industry, updating and maintaining Minneapolis’ tourism bureau’s site. How social media factors into our general marketing strategy interests me. In the discussion, titled “Social Media Reality Check” I learned we have our work cut out for us.

Within a discussion of early-adopters, with Phil Wilson’s small survey of Lakeville-like participants as statistical guide, I learned that most my target market will miss messaging by way of SMS or social profiles. The awareness is high for sites like Facebook or Myspace but participation is still low. People older than 35 just aren’t using social media consistently.

I caved to Facebook early, have two blogs and a Twitter account (as well as other smaller dips into social pools). But I’m younger than the tourism market’s target and more tech-friendly than even those among my age group. How do I turn a message through a medium that’s almost completely ignored by the market I’m aiming for?

Phil and the rest of us discussed some ideas and I took away from the discussion some ideas. Whether we have a strategy or do anything with social media or not, we need to stake a claim. Until the credibility grows in medium like Twitter or Facebook, there will be little participation but we should be there when people come to us, rather than meet them there later.

Tourism, as a market whole, will be the hardest hit by a downward financial trend but Twitter, Facebook, etc. are generally free. We have nothing to lose. We need to put our brand out there and let people accept us as the media becomes more universally adopted.

Some other ideas from the discussion:
* Marketing around all angles, video, SMS and profile sites to have more information out there.
* Promotions specific to social media adopters, focusing on the smaller pool of possible winners (who doesn’t want to increase their odds?).
* Follow the brand as it’s talked about and mentioned among social media to keep an eye on impressions or opinions toward it.
* Remain current in different media to have a presence there as it’s used more frequently.
* Use comments, tweets, wall posts and other user/customer suggestions (gripes) to direct marketing strategies.
* Use social media as a PART of a greater strategy, a tactic to generating interest rather than an entire campaign.

It was a great discussion of how social media will change the marketing strategies of different companies. Anything from keeping everyone up to date on your son’s little league team through Twitter to using online registration to events via Facebook.

The tourism industry can benefit from giving a more complete impression of the city, tweeting events, photos on Facebook or posting events to an upcoming events feed. As the 35+ crowd starts to sacrifice some security to enter the social media landscape, more customers will start to listen.

As a tool for community and information diffusion, social media will be strong and will only grow stronger as the 90-some percent of people aware of Facebook create a profile to keep up with their children or jump onto Twitter because they hear their boss’ tweets are hilarious.