Huntsville in the running for social media conference

HCVB President/CEO Judy Ryals (left) and Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle. (RECORD PHOTO/ROSEANNA COX

By Aldo Amato

Staff Reporter

HUNTSVILLE – On Wednesday, The Huntsville/Madison County Convention & Visitors Bureau (HCVB) announced that it has been chosen to compete for a chance to host a social media conference.

According to a release handed out by the HCVB, Huntsville has been selected among 13 other U.S. cities to compete to host The Social Media Tourism Symposium.

“It’s estimated that the Social Media Tourism Symposium would bring close to $180,000 in direct spending to Madison County,” HCVB President/CEO Judy Ryals said. “We are happy to be in competition with the 13 other cities for the conference.”

The online and social media campaign began over two weeks ago with hashtags on Twitter reading “#MeetMeAtTheRocket” to kick off the campaign. Twitter is just one of the social media forums residents of Huntsville and Madison County can use to bring the conference to Huntsville.

Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle sent out a live tweet from the event at The Davidson Center at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Wednesday demonstrating how to get involved in the campaign.

“We’re proud that Huntsville is in competition for this,” Battle said. “This is one of those things that is fun to do and social media is so important and this is something that falls right in the sweet spot of what Huntsville does.”

Battle added that Huntsville is a social media friendly town because it has a “cyber background.”

Round one of the voting began on Wednesday ends on March 15 at 11:00. If Huntsville were to move to move on to round two, the voting would extend past Saturday.

The city will need to receive more votes than six of its competitors. To vote for Huntsville, the HCVB urges residents to visit www.woobox.com/pp8thu or www.facebook.com/SoMeTourism. The hashtag “#SoMeT13US” is also a way to connect to the competition via Twitter.