Travel Bloggers – Be Seen & Be Heardworking with tourist boards and travel PRs@travelmedia_ie

Michael Collins

@travelmedia_ie

slideshare.net/travelmediaiemichael@travelmedia.ie youtube/travelmediaiefb/travelmedia.ie@travelmedia_ie

TBEX Dublin

• small amount of repetition• some key messages• important new information• a lot has changed in the last 12 months

Assumptions

• get paid more• more trip invitations

Michael Collins

What do WE want to achieve today?

– to have more knowledge than your competitors– to understand from the inside where we all fit in the greater scheme of

things– to be able to communicate better with tourist boards and PRs, speak their

language – stats, SEO, evergreen etc.– to know what they want, to see the relationship from the other side of the

fence– to get more trips, more invitations, more money

the BASICS

what always works

We Need You You Need Us

Thank you

It’s who you know - stupid

Be Nice

we do business with people we like

Content, Content, Content

“If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written You a Shorter Letter”

- Pascal

Follow, Like, Share, Tag

– Follow, Like, Share, Tag our content and we’ll do the same.– Obvious, but not everyone is doing it.– Helps us get to know you in advance. – You are now on our radar.– Use our hashtags. We monitor our hashtags.– #puglia– Incorrect use of hashtags not acceptable

Then and Now – Travel PR

- press releases- photocalls- press trips- media monitoring and

clippings- boring

• public relations• trade representation• social media• online advertising• media buying• content marketing, blogger

relations, content creation• SEO• events, road shows and awards

Road Shows

Awards

Networking Events

Diversification• work more diversified• more skill sets required• work with third parties more• contractors, writers, specialists• to the client – it is still just media• you will need to do the same

• public relations• trade representation• social media• online advertising• media buying• content marketing, blogger

relations, content creation• SEO• events, road shows and

awards

Why Diversify• The client is always right• Media agency – Everything is MEDIA

media buying, blogging, content marketing, press trips, press releases, radio/TV competitions, Facebook management, filming promo

videos, SEO, website design/maintenance

• You never say NO to the client• Why?• Once piece of work leads into the next• At the end of the day it’s the relationship that matters most

Why Diversify, continued………• If you only have one string to your bow you only have one

narrative. That can make for a short conversation.• The end justifies the means. Take a different tact.• “How can I help?” You’d be amazed at the answers.• Think of this business as like a sweetshop. The customer will buy,

it’s just a question of which sweet – unless you only sell one kind of chocolate bar.

• Product – PR, road shows, awards, SEO, content, social media, newsletters, online advertising, media buying, networking events, videos…………………………..next year will be different again………………………..

Meet Niamh and Michelle

from the horses mouth

airlines, PRs, tourist boards, operators

• key metric, engagement, not no. of followers/fans

• sales/media kit – even though they don’t have a budget for bloggers

• ABC – always be closing/selling• we have to evaluate you, and then

sell you on – hotel – attraction • evaluate every request

#visitstockholm#outinstockholm (LGBT)@visitstockholmEmilia Geijer emilia.geijer@stockholm.se

• government owned, means limited budgets

• definition - not a journalist, majority of work is blogging

• tourist boards have priority markets – China, India, BRIC

• “bloggers” – now a priority market

#visitstockholm#outinstockholm (LGBT)@visitstockholmEmilia Geijer emilia.geijer@stockholm.se

• readership, not just stats• media packs• break it down – Twitter, where are

they from (see next slide), not just how many

• be specific about what you want• UK office of Atout France manages

the budget for the UK market (France v Stockholm)

@atoutfranceUKpr@atoutFranceIEpr

London, UK office

• PR departments haven’t traditionally had budgets – so why ask for money/to get paid

• advertising/sponsorship departments do have budgets

• think about why and whom you are approaching

• trip = content = PR• trip = payment = commercial

@atoutfranceUKpr@atoutFranceIEpr

London, UK office

top 8 countries, top 5 locations, gender, interests, also follows

• #icanflysas campaign – summer 14• worked with paid bloggers• paid bloggers didn’t have stats• agency had stats• bloggers - not up to date with the

tools that allow them to track their own traffic/reach

• stats not forthcoming

@SASLondon, UK office

• Czech Tourist Authority – Czech Tourism• use the same parameters for journalists

as bloggers.• except that they will also look at

fans/followers and engagement.• interest in Czech Tourism.• places of interest in the Czech Republic.• very few blogger requests.

London, UK office

SEO – didn’t mention anything except SEOSo I’ve taken a look and the organic visibility isn’t that great. Our tool gave it a visibility score of 0 and couldn’t find any major terms it ranks for. Given the format of the posts it’s not really surprising as they are not really text heavy, meaning that they don’t have the depth that Google is looking for to rank a page highly. Scrolling through the posts there’s very little with regards to travel and it seems that it focuses more on lifestyle feature – fashion, clothing and makeup . So, I’m slightly sceptical at whether a post may translate.

UK office

SEO continued…………..

Looking at the social media accounts both the Facebook and Twitter accounts have a solid number of followers but there’s little to no interaction on individual posts, which is worrying because that’s where the majority of traffic should come from.

UK office

• quality of previous blogs/writing• stats• social media following• active, both blog and socially• relevance to the theme/destination

@wearedubai_ukfb/wearedubai.uk

London, UK office

• country of origin according to market strategy

• profile in home market, famous, well known, also appearance

• follower numbers• quality of content• themes in blog and destinations• other travel/tourism works

@visitportugalfb/vsitportugalLondon, UK office

Two examples of what we are looking for. A lot of affinity between the blogger and the way they write and manage their blogs, and our destinations/products and communication strategy.

http://www.marialeonstyle.com/viajes/ http://www.lamaletadecarla.com/

@visitportugalfb/vsitportugalLondon, UK office

horse takeaways

From the Horse’s Mouth – Take Aways• SEO• Engagement, not numbers of followers/fans• Stats, Stats, Stats• Not just stats, breakdown the stats (Twitter)• PR versus Commercial departments• Everyone’s got a different approach, e.g. @AtoutFranceUKpr• One office versus multiple office, France v Stockholm• Relevancy• Previous blogs – good writing.

SEO• Google Analytics - where is your traffic coming from.• Google Webmaster Tools - provides you with detailed

reports about your pages' visibility on Google. Essential for SEO. Key search terms, links etc.

• Google Keyword Planner, via Adwords, but you don’t need to spend. Lets you reseach keywords based on a URL or landing page. Crystal Ski.

• Twitter, via their advertising platform. You don’t need to spend. Atout France.

• Moz SEO.

SEO plugins• First. Everything points to WordPress as the no 1 content

platform for SEO. The www.travelmedia.ie is built entirely on WordPress.

• Yoast is our preferred SEO Plugin for WordPress. Make sure you are using it, or another. Free version is perfectly good. On everypage of www.travelmedia.ie we use Yoast.

• Rinse and repeat. Play with the keywords you are using. • Meta-tags, meta-descriptions, titles, lists, heading, H1, H2

tags.

Yoast

•

SEONot all professional PRs (internal or external) are using these tools, only the more advanced or those with enough resources.

This is an opportunity for you to stand out from the crowd and impress.

It’s not that difficult.

If it were easy everyone would be at good it.

All Stats are Relative• Explain your stats.• Take Visit Stockholm as an example.• All blogger relationships managed from Stockholm, unlike a

national tourist board.• A bloggers with 100,000 followers on Twitter.• What does that mean?• Everything and nothing.• Ireland, France, USA, Germany etc.• 80,000 ABC circulation. Irish Times in Ireland (paper of record)

Blog Length• Short v Long, e.g. 300 words v 1500.• There is no golden rule.• Less than 300 words isn’t good for Google.• Over 1500 is good for Google.• But 1500 broken down to three different article is three

different URLs and three different sets of meta-descriptions, H1 and H2 tags, titles etc etc.

• If it should be broken up, break it up.

What is your DISTRIBUTION strategy• Sure you have one. But are you telling everyone. Media Pack.• The obvious is Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram etc.• You don’t need to be social.• But you do need to be distributing.• The not so obvious, but the best distribution is SEO. • But, you need to tell us. “I distribute via SEO. Here is my

strategy. Here are examples. Here are my keywords. This is how I do my SEO.”

• We can see you socially but we can’t see all your SEO stats.

ChecklistWe’ve created a blogger checklist

A list of what tourist boards and other travel industry PRs look for when evaluating a blogger request.

Subscribe for updates to the checklist.

http://www.travelmedia.ie/blogger_checklist

http://www.travelmedia.ie/blogger_checklist

http://www.travelmedia.ie/blogger_checklist

The World is Global• You are global, so are we. • It’s no longer about London, Paris, New York, Milan. • The travel industry is a village. We meet a few times

a year.• We all know each other.• WTM UK, ITB Berlin, ATM Dubai, INDABA Durban,

IPW USA.

The World is Global• CaminoWays.com. Dublin based, 30 staff, 1 Irish person.

@caminoways• Largest operator on the Camino globally.• We are looking for travel bloggers right now for

CaminoWays

The World is Global• Don’t bluff. We all know each other. PRs, tourist boards etc.• I spent 6 years as a travel editor, publisher, writer.• Work with global travel PR networks. • Partner offices UK, France, USA, South Africa, Australia, Italy,

Spain, Germany, India, China, Belgium, Netherlands, etc.

The World is GlobalThe business of travel is done by people who know and like each other, from a relatively

small community, from all over the world, who meet 4-5 times a year.

QUESTIONS?

@travelmedia_ie

THANK YOU

slideshare.net/travelmediaie youtube/travelmediaie fb/travelmedia.ie @travelmedia_ie