Maastricht Convention Bureau first conventionbureau to actively use Twitter!

As from last month Maastricht Convention Bureau (MCB) has started using LinkedIn and Twitter after completing a completely new website earlier this year. Worldwide this is the first site of a convention bureau effectively making use of web 2.0 and social media marketing techniques. Crossmint has designed and built the site and will educate and support the MCB in applying social media marketing concepts. Crossmint specialises in web 2.0- and mobile sites and social marketing services for tourism, hospitality, retail, recreation and events.

The new site will be completely managed online by MCB staff. MCB’s partners - over 40 local companies - hotels, conference centres, event organisers etc. - will also have online access to content about their own location and services on the site. They will be able to manage and edit texts, photo’s and video’s for MCB to publish on the site. In this way the content on the site can be instantly updated when needed. Visitors looking for a nice location can use the intuitive 'venue & service finder' to find information about locations and services for meetings, incentives, conferences or events. The venue & service finder also allows users to create Requests for Proposals which are then sent to MCB and her partners. All pages, texts, photo's, video’s are being optimalised for search engines and social media marketing purposes. This has already resulted in better page listings in Google. The website can be easily extended at relatively low cost with new functionality like blogs, surveys/polls, photo galleries, mobile applications, etc.

The Web has become the most effective promotion- and sales channel in many industries. Having a strong presence in the Web and being able too interact directly with potential customers is becoming more important. Therefor Crossmint helps MCB to make use of “social media networks” - like for instance LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Tripadvisor -  to reach a new and much bigger target group. You can find MCB under the name “micemaastricht” on Twitter and as a group (MICE Maastricht) in LinkedIn.

Marcel Knols, managing director of Maastricht Convention Bureau: “Crossmint has challenged and inspired us to set up the online presentation of the most attractive business destination in the Netherlands, Maastricht, in an innovative and effective way. Adequate and real-time adjustments to the presentations on the website of the partners participating in MCB are always and any time possible. Communicating about the services we offer, the latest news making use of web 2.0 and blog techniques is standard. For a small hands-on organisation with a strong result-oriented focus this is an important contribution for successfully reaching the goals!”

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Maastricht Convention Bureau (MCB) is a foundation of organisations located in and around Maastricht that provide services to organisers of meetings, incentives, conferences and events, incentives (MICE). MCB provides independent and objective information and advise and mediates between parties in all matters, locations and services related organising business events: conference centres, hotels, locations for parties or dinners, transport, organisational support, catering, social and partner programmes. In the bi-annual survey of NBTC-NIPO Research this year (2009) Maastricht came out as most the attractive destination in The Netherlands for business and other events. Crossmint has developed a comprehensive and powerful web- and mobile platform and social media marketing services for organisations working in tourism, recreation, retail, culture and the meeting industry.

Crossmint, based in Maastricht since 2008, has built web 2.0 sites and provided social media marketing services for Maastricht Convention Bureau (www.maastrichtconventionbureau.com), a regional development company, a tourism/recreation community and a hospitality concept developer. Crossmint is also the creator - with support of the Province Limburg - of MyLimburg (www.mylimburg.com). Crossmint maintains a blog on its own website (www.crossmint.com) On LinkedIn Crossmint manages the international MICE 2.0 discussion group. Crossmint Twitters under its own name “crossmint”.

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For more information you can contact Nicolaas Pereboom, director Crossmint, phonenumber +31 (0) 6 48172202, e-mail: nicolaas.pereboom@crossmint.com. Website: www.crossmint.com.