Pink Banana Media & LGBTBrandVoice.com

#ILoveGay Partner Highlights At VA PrideFest, our newest partner and client, Virginia Tourism, launched their LGBTQ tourism initiative, @VisitGayVA .  A companion to the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Virginia.org/LGBT website, both provide Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender visitors 24/7 access to statewide lodging, dining, events, travel deals, itineraries and more. All VA experiences self-designated as LGBT friendly, and welcoming to all visitors. The Virginia Governor, Terry McAuliffe, stopped by the booth to put in his 2-cents! For more information, view our blog post here: http://ilovegay.net/2017/09/29/virginia-gov-terry-mcauliffe-attends-and-speaks-at-virginia-pridefest-2017/ #ILoveGay Ambassadors & New Media We'

This year we have an incredible line-up of evening events during LGBT Week NYC May 15-19, 2017, including an opening reception on Monday, and events Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening, as follows. www.LGBTWeek.NYC Monday, May 15 -  LGBT Week NYC Welcome Reception Hosted by Out Professionals , be sure to join us for the kick-off welcome reception to be held at The DL Rooftop Lounge! Enjoy amazing views of the skyline and the Williamsburg Bridge, stimulating conversation, stiff drinks, and the opportunity to network with others who are doing big things. Grab a handful of business cards and come rub shoulders with some of the country's most interesting LGBT professionals. Location: The DL, 95 Delancey St. (corner of Ludlow) New York, NY Eventbrite Registration Here Tuesday, May 16 -  STUNG by Hornet Immediately after the Google reception, the folks at Hornet are hosting STUNG, NYC's premier monthly LGBTQ professionals networking event, just for LGBT Week NYC.

Beginning next week, it seems the theme is all about LGBT Tourism!  Starting on May 3rd, the global LGBT tourism industry will be descending upon St. Petersburg, FL for the IGLTA Convention , an incredible event bringing LGBT tourism professionals together from all around the world.  We'll be there, and we look forward to connecting with many of you then... remember the hashtag is #IGLTA2017, and if you're really feeling into it, you can help make May 3-7, 2017 become an IGLTA #GayTravel hashtag takeover!!! http://www.pbwemail.com/pbm_iglta_2017.cfm Then, on May 16th, as part of LGBT Week NYC , Community Marketing & Insights , in partnership with IGLTA , is bringing us the 3rd Annual Symposium on LGBT Tourism & Hospitality .  Sponsored by the Argentina Tourism Office , Greater Fort Lauderdale CVB  and  Israel's Ministry of Tourism and held at Google's Autumn Tech Room in Chelsea, this symposium features morning and afternoon sessions, lunch and a reception

LGBT Week NYC is only one month away, and the programming is coming on strong for this year's event! Produced in partnership with  Community Marketing & Insights , and sponsored by  Rivendell Media  and  Argentina , it looks like this will be the biggest year yet! www.LGBTWeek.NYC Additional sponsors for this year include Israel Ministry of Tourism , Hornet and Q.Digital . Just published online is the agenda for Wednesday's 10th Annual LGBT Advertising & Marketing Symposium .  Presentations include The Power of Sound for LGBTQs and Allies , presented by Joel Shoemaker of iHeartMedia . Paul Zetti of T.Rowe Price will be reviewing some of their research and activation experiences with LGBT pride in 2016, and Scott Seitz will be reviewing the work done by MillerCoors in Winning Hearts and Minds , putting forward the business case for the LGBT sales team. New to Wednesday's programming will be a panel on Current Events from an LGBT Perspective , with the e

In preparation for the upcoming IGLTA Convention in St. Petersburg, Florida coming up May 4-6, we wanted to do an up-to-date analysis of the top hashtag used for LGBT travel, which is still #GayTravel.  Secondary hashtags used are #LesbianTravel, #Gaycation, #GayVacation, #GayHoliday and #GayTraveler, but to date, #GayTravel is still in the lead. Why is this important?  Because if you're Tweeting or posting your photos on Instagram while at the convention, you want to make sure your posts and photos are seen.  If you're uploading a video to Instagram or YouTube , ensuring the video is promoted on Twitter and hashtagged is more important now than ever before, as proper hashtagging allows you to tap into social media "conversations" already happening online.  You're simply carving out a little "share of voice" for your business! Let's take a look at what's actually happening in the world of #GayTravel.  Using TagBoard.com , we're able

As part of our overall blog posting series on the LGBT TwitterSphere , we're here to introduce the #ILoveGay network and how it fits into the LGBT Twitter ecosystem . What is #ILoveGay and what does it do?  Simply put, #ILoveGay is a network of LGBT Twitter profiles, each focused on a particular niche in the LGBT online community.  Some are unique to a specific region of the world, such as  @ILoveGayPS and @ILoveGayNYC , while others focus on niche communities within the LGBT online community, such as  @ILoveLGBTBiz and @ILoveGayHistory .  The entire set of #ILoveGay profiles can be viewed online here: www.ilovegay.lgbt . The content shared on the #ILoveGay network ranges from articles and blog posts from LGBT media, as well as LGBT articles found on more mainstream media such as the NY Times and CNN .  In addition, content is shared from other Twitter users that are part of that niche LGBT online community, as well as businesses.  It is this mix of user- and business-g

One of the most common hurdles individuals and businesses have is the time they feel is involved in doing social media marketing, and simply adding another media such as Twitter into the mix might just sound overwhelming.  Our goal is to show you how to make your current online marketing efforts more efficient time-wise, as well as how to take active yet simple steps in increasing their exposure.  We'll also be showing you how to get your content noticed by our online editors and included in our #ILoveGay initiatives and outreach. Here's our first tip... many of you are creating beautiful HTML e-mail newsletter s. In order to truly get your message out there on Twitter , you should take these well-crafted e-mail newsletters and turn them into a blog post, whether on a separate blog such as Medium , BlogSpot or Tumblr , or as part of a series of articles on your website that is set up more like a blog (common with WordPress sites). Include at least one good image, if not mo

As the second part of the LGBT TwitterSphere series of articles, this blog post focuses on the HOW of Twitter ... how do you do it and how do you make it work for you?  This is key, as a large number of individuals and businesses are posting from Facebook to Twitter automatically, which just doesn't cut it.  Others are focused solely on driving traffic to their websites, and if they are an LGBT media company, their website might be the only place an advertiser is able to be promoted, not on Twitter directly (Twitter directly, by the way, is where the new world of LGBT influencers are promoting their clients and advertisers) . The key components of a successful Tweet are: Include a strong and compelling image Link to the appropriate and immediate "call to action" of what the Tweet is about Include the right #hashtags Include the @profile of who it is you are Tweeting about An example of what a perfect Tweet looks like can be seen here: There is no one, sin

We're going to go out on a limb here, stick our necks out, and make a strong statement - we believe the " TwitterSphere " is at a unique place in history, sitting on the edge of its tipping point.  We believe it's sitting at that very same inflection point the Internet was back in the late 90's, when most people were accessing it via AOL, Netscape was the dominant browser, and a comment we heard time and time again was "the Internet is simply the CB radio of our time... it too shall pass". Fast forward to today, and with everything that's taken place since then, including the dot com bust and the subsequent growth of strong Internet-based businesses from all facets of life and industry, it's easy to see that doubting the direction and growth of the Internet was misguided at best.  With social media where it's at today, over a billion people have access to and can post to their heart's content on Facebook .  And everyone is, making th