Tourism Internet Marketing U

Various Forms Of Consumer Generated Media

Consumer generated media can take one of several forms. Which form you use for your travel and tourism site depends a great deal on what your business goals are, what your customers expect from your website, and various other factors, even your budget. But you can add any number of the following features to your website to incorporate consumer generated media:

• Forum
• Blog
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Wiki
• Membership profiles

Users can leave content on your website through a forum by simply posting messages for others to read and respond to. Forums have become somewhat of a staple in online life and many people interested in tourism or travel-related subjects may be interested in joining your forum. To manage a forum effectively takes time, but it is a good way to develop consumer generated media.

Your customers can help you add content to your website with a blog as well. By leaving comments on your blog posts, consumers help you build relevant content based on your niche’s most important keywords.

Video uploads are another way to encourage consumer generated media. You’ll need a lot of cyberspace to pull this off effectively, but you could allow visitors of your site to upload movies of their vacation in your area or their travel videos. Consumers eat that kind of thing up.

Podcasts are audio files and just as you can allow video uploads, you might encourage audio uploads.

Wiki is a certain type of technology that allows anyone to edit a web page. Wikipedia is the most popular brand of wiki, but it can be used for anything. Users sign up to become an editor and gain the privilege to add content or edit someone else’s content.

Membership sites are very popular. Dating sites have made a big success of this technology. There is no reason why you can’t use the same technology centered around travel and tourism.

Podcasts are one of the newest technologies, and not one I get a chance to speak about very often. If you’re curious about this new form of spreading information, why not take a look at my Podcast and Videocast webinar?

-Written by Susan Sweeney