Yesterday, I walked the small town of Okeene, Oklahoma, through a process to help them expand their tourism potential. We used the 8 Rural Culture Elements from Kansas Sampler Foundation. I wanted to share some of the discussion with you, in hopes it will encourage you to take a fresh look at your local tourism…
Photos help tell your tourism story and make your place come alive. But the catch is that you never seem to have enough photos, or the right photo you need for this story. You could go online to find photos, but what are the restrictions on using photos you find online? Every photo you see…
Facebook ads may be one of the most underutilized forms of local advertising. No matter how small your town, I’ll bet you have locals present on Facebook. My home town of Alva, Oklahoma, has hundreds of Facebook users. And when you start thinking about how many people in your target area are online, you’ll realize…
A group of local wineries cooperated to create a wine trail, drawing visitors from the nearby metro area. They created a brochure with a map to explain the trail. They hand the brochures out at each participating winery. They intended to post the brochure on all their websites. I love this idea. When two of the…
At BlogWorld Expo, I finally got to meet two of Sheila Scarborough‘s travel connections, Doug at Authentic Seacoast (@AuthenticCoast) and Shannon Lane (@Cajun_Mama). We had a great discussion about what makes tourism tweets interesting. Doug said a regional tourism group had an intern handling their Twitter account. He would tweet things like, “I’m going to…
[Jennifer Brooks writes a terrific blog about rural/urban fringe issues, and I invited her to do a guest post for us. And I am glad I did! -Becky] Drive, Shop and Be Merry: Tapping Into Rural Tourism & Retail Opportunities at Christmas By Jennifer Brooks Even as large retailers are slashing prices and expecting sluggish…
Three studies in a row hit me with the reality that social media is far from mainstream. Most small businesses are not using social media. Small businesses are using websites and email marketing more than social media, but most aren’t even using those tools. (Citibank survey) Most tourism pros are not using it either. Considering…
Tourism Tuesday: our series recognizing the importance of travel and tourism to small town business. The discussion in the comments section is always the best part. What do gears do? They mesh together to transmit force. By meshing gears of different sizes, you can multiply the results. You can also bring too many gears together,…
Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.
We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.
Meet our authors on the About page.
Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.
Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.
We partner with campaigns and organizations that we think best benefit rural small businesses.
Copyright © 2006–2026 Becky McCray • Site by Webdancers