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BEST PRACTICES IN TRAVEL BLOGGING - WHITE PAPER

The Best Practices in

Travel Blogging

M. Boecher

O. Gradwell

K. JenkinsJ. Waugh

&

Four bgb

in association with


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Meet The Authors 2-3An Introduction To Travel Blogging: 4-5 What Is A Travel Blogger 4 What Is A Blog Trip 5Planning A Blog Trip, An Agency Approach: 6-8 Defining The Objectives 6 Planning The Itinerary 7 Choosing The Bloggers 8 Managing Expectations 8 Think Outside The Box 8

CONTENTS

Table of ContentsThis white paper delivers the best practices in travel blogging.

A number of international experts deliver key messages and aselection of important case studies to help you gain acompetitive advantage when working with travel bloggers.

Beyond The Blog Trip 9-11 Travel Bloggers as Entrepreneurs 10 Customer Engagement Specialists 11 Travel Bloggers as Consultants 11Case Study - #LoveCapeTown 12-13 Introduction 12

The Results 13Case Study - BlogVille in Emilia Romagna 14-15

Case Study - Hosting A Travel BloggersUnite Conference 16-18

What Is A TBU Conference? 16Why Do People Attend? 17The TBU Conference Concept 17

How Do Hosts Benefit? 18-18Case Study - Hosting A Combined Blogger

and Traditional Media Trip 19-21

Calculating Online Media ROI 22-23

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THE AUTHORS

Meet The Authors

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THE AUTHORS

Meet The Authors

Melvin Boecherwww.traveldudes.org

[email protected]

Traveldudes love to travel, to discover the

world, to travel free & untroubled & still likes to

be informed like an insider! These were the

reasons why Melvin startedTraveldudes.org. Ahomepage where travellers can exchange their

passion and experiences. For Travellers, By Trav-ellers!Follow Traveldudes on Twitter@Traveldudes

Oliver Gradwellwww.travelbloggersunite.com

[email protected]

Oliver is the founder and director of TravelBloggers Unite (TBU), an online community of

1600+ travel bloggers which hold international

travel blogger conferences in a variety of

destinations. Oliver founded the company after

a career in the travel industry,
mailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepapermailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepaperhttp://www.travelbloggersunite.com/http://www.travelbloggersunite.com/mailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepapermailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepaperhttp://www.traveldudes.org/http://www.traveldudes.org/


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Ruth Haffenden www.fourbgb.com

Four bgb is a specialist travel PR, representation and social media

agency with over twenty years experinece delivering game-changing

campaigns for clients across the world. Part of Four Communications,

Four bgb works alongside inhouse creative, digital, design, web andpublishing teams as well as events, marketing, sponsorship and me-

dia buying services to deliver award winning integrated campaigns

Jailan [email protected]

Our thanks goes to Jailan for her advice and help in

compiling the whitepaper, including editing the

whole document for us.

Keith Jenkinswww.velvetescape.com

[email protected]

Keith Jenkins is the Founder and Publisher of

the Velvet Escape luxury travel blog. Based in

Amsterdam, Keith left his ten-year investment

banking career to carve out a new career as a

travel blogger and social media advocate. Keith

often speaks at travel and social media confer-

ences, and offers social media consultancy and

marketing services via his Velvet Connect and

iambassador.netbrands.

Janice Waughwww.solotravelerblog.com

[email protected]

Janice is author of The Solo Travelers Hand-

book, now in its 2nd edition, publisher of Solo

Traveler, the blog for those who travel alone,

and moderator of the Solo Travel Society on

Facebook with over 8000 members. She has

been a go-to person on solo travel for CNN, the

Oprah Blog, the Washington Post, Chicago Trib-

une, LA Times and USA Today.

[email protected]
http://solotravelerblog.com/http://solotravelerblog.com/mailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepapermailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepaperhttp://solotravelerblog.com/http://solotravelerblog.com/http://solotravelerblog.com/http://solotravelerblog.com/http://www.velvetescape.com/http://www.velvetescape.com/mailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepapermailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepaperhttp://www.solotravelerblog.com/http://www.solotravelerblog.com/http://www.iambassador.net/http://www.iambassador.net/mailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepapermailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepaperhttp://www.velvetescape.com/http://www.velvetescape.com/mailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepapermailto:[email protected]?subject=Travel%20Blogger%20Whitepaperhttp://www.savoirthere.com/http://www.savoirthere.com/http://www.fourbgb.com/http://www.fourbgb.com/


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AN INTRODUCTION TO TRAVEL BLOGGING

An Introduction To

Travel Bloggingby Oliver Gradwell

What Is A Travel Blogger?

Travel bloggers are writers first. But they are also editors andpublishers. Further, they are often marketing managers, salesrepresentatives, publicists, spokespeople, bookkeepers, web-site developers and chief executive officers.

Through the personal nature of their experiences and of socialmedia, travel bloggers create a sense of trust amongst theirreaders, in part due to the personal nature of their?

Travel bloggers are able to offer an extraordinary blend of pro-motional exposure when they travel. They can promote a tripprior to departure, through a series of teaser posts and con-tent items across their social media channels. This will sowthe seed of interest amongst their readership for the upcom-ing trip.

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During the trip travel bloggers can leverage their followingon social media by producing valuable and influential con-tent, based on their experiences, and importantly this is all inreal time.

Upon returning home, the communication of their experi-ences continues with follow-up posts on their own blogs and

those of others. Travel bloggers are enthusiastic photogra-phers and videographers, who often utilise these abilities tocreate engaging and meaningful content.

The content a blogger creates also has a long shelf life, remain-ing online until it is removed. The value this provides shouldnot be underestimated, as Google continues to move towardsa search experience that is more social than ever before.

What Is A Blog Trip?

Press trips are tools that have been used to promote destina-tions for many years now. A writer will head out to the desti-nation and then write about their experiences when they re-turn.

A blog trip differs for a variety of reasons, with the

triumvirate approach to promotion (as mentioned above),being the most notable and valuable difference.

Whilst most people could tweet, take a photo or video and up-load it using their smart phones, many travel bloggers arehighly social media savvy individuals and are able to takethis usage to the next level, to really make the real-timeengagement they can offer effective.

Bloggers need access to Wi-Fi, not just at hotels in the eveningor at attractions, but also when they are travelling around. Mo-

bile Wi-Fi, or MiFi devices are often employed for this pur-pose and they are a very valuable component to a blog trip.

It should also be worth noting that travel bloggers are un-likely to be travelling on a paid commission from an editor, so

their basic costs may be slightly higher as a result. It shouldalso be considered that travel bloggers are providing a greaterlevel of exposure that is really very valuable and has the po-tential to create a greater return on investment. Therefore theuse of travel bloggers should not just be within the remit ofPR staff in-house or at agencies, but also the marketing depart-ment of an organisation. To get the best out of travel bloggers,a form of financial recompense from the trip should be consid-ered.

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PLANNING ABLOG TRIP

Planning A Blog

Trip:An Agency Approachby Four bgb

As the increasingly travel blogger-centric agenda at this

years World Travel Market will attest, having the expertise torun a successful blog trip is now essential to deliver an effec-tive, integrated PR campaign.

Each trip will of course have individual objectives, and bringwith it unique challenges, however there are a number of keytenets which, if considered carefully, can provide a usefulmodel of best practice when planning blog trips. Here we ex-plore the pivotal points to be considered before detailing a re-cent blogger outreach campaign for Visit Sweden (standEM140b)as a case study example (See page 19).

Defining objectives

Being aware of your objectives from the outset will not onlyallow you to target the most appropriate travel bloggers butwill also mean you can effectively spell out what you wouldlike from them during and after the trip.

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Is it increased traffic to your website? More Facebook fans? In-creased brand awareness online? To work to change the per-ceptions of your brand/ destination?

Planning the itinerary:

Dont invite the guests and then plan the party. Ideally a full

itinerary should be confirmed before any approach is made topotential attendees. In the same way as traditional media,bloggers are likely to accept an invitation based on certainhooks and angles that make the story right for their reader-ship; if the itinerary changes dramatically before the tripleaves expect some drop- outs. Having an itinerary plannedin advance not only means you can guarantee to secure blog-gers you know will be right for the trip, but you are far lesslikely to have to fill last minute places when would-be at-

tendees are forced to turn down the new plan.

Be transparent. If something changes, let them know and planaround it. Ultimately, itinerary changes can be unavoidable,dont cross your fingers and hope they wont notice, this canlead to the lose-lose situation of a blogger being part of an ac-tivity they then cant write about. For example, an itinerarychange in a recent trip to Sweden meant that the group wasset to stay a night and dine at the beautiful Ystad Saltsjobadcoastal spa, a wonderful opportunity, though one that poseddifficulty for budget blogger Kash Bhattacharya to credibly en-gage his readers. After an open and honest discussion it wasdecided that Kash would work on promoting the special mid-week offers available at the spa to try luxury for less as wellas being provided with a number of alternative accommoda-tion and dining options to try out in the area to ensure read-ers had an option for every budget.

My new BFF. Keep up regular contact before you leave and beflexible: Many bloggers are location independent so may beplanning travel before and after your trip based on your tim-ings, so frequent reassurance that all is well and plans aremoving forward is likely to be conducive to a trusting relation-ship on both sides. As a number of bloggers attending the fea-tured Sweden trip were arriving in London on connectingflights, overnight accommodation was arranged to bridge thegap between trips and ensure they arrived in Sweden re-freshed and excited about the destination.

Plan to plan nothing.With all that hard work securing influen-tial bloggers able to engage their readers across the world, itsimportant to give them time to actually do this! A packedschedule may be necessary to show them the best of your des-tination but make sure theres time for the group to absorb the

atmosphere, talk to locals, take pictures, tweet, check-in, Insta-gram, write live blog posts. The more time they have to them-selves, the more digital collateral theyre likely to create; runthem ragged and theyll all be asleep before you can say#wastedopportunity.

Wi-Fi to do or die by. Without Wi-Fi access, your group isntcommunicating their actions with their readers live. A blogtrip without Wi-Fi is like a gig at the O2 without a mic you

can buy the album afterwards but its not really the same. Itis understandable that certain areas of far-flung countries willnot have Wi-Fi access, but plan the itinerary to include regularstops at Wi-Fi hot spots for tweets to be sent and photos to beuploaded. Alternatively a mi-fi can be worth its weight ingold. A mi-fi device is a portable Wi-Fi hotspot which blog-gers can tether their mobile devices to, which ensures theycan have Wi-Fi access on the go. This not only means thegroup can promote your itinerary every step of the way, but

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it also means they wont be hit with a large data roaming billon their return, likely to keep you popular and it will costyou less than 50 to purchase.

The power of planning. Dont think that social media amplifi-cation for your destination is confined to your trip; send outthe itinerary to the group before you travel and the likelihood

is theyll look to the travel community to discuss the itineraryand get hints and tips from other influencers, promoting yourcontent before theyve even left. Involve the group in deci-sions; give them options of activities, perhaps ask their read-ers to decide certain elements of the itinerary, discuss it onTwitter or Facebook. So much of the travel experience isdreaming and planning, online buzz is not confirmed to thehere and now reporting.

Choosing and approaching bloggers The horror of the

#prfail

Weve all seen it on Twitter, the hashtag #prfail seems to bebounced around all too often as travel companies and PRs getit oh- so-wrong. Avoid it with one word research. Research-ing the bloggers you wish to approach not only means youknow theyre talking to your market, but you also know their

likes and dislikes and can tailor an invitation accordingly.Two minutes reading a foodie travellers blog will tell youtheyre vegetarian and so your Offal exploration isnt goingto impress. Similarly inviting a couple on a romantic escapewhen their last post details the horrors of their recent heart-wrenching break up, is not going to score you any points. Doyour research, personalise your approach and its win-win you secure a great blogger that you know is perfect for your

brand and they are far more likely to come back to you withan answer as theyve cut down on their spam emails by atleast 50%.

Just one post? Blog off! negotiating outcomes

Traditionally it was easy, travel company invites journalist ontrip, journalist writes article, travel company happy. Bloggershave a lot more to offer, be it pre-promotion, tweets, Facebookposts, Instagram, Pinterest, videos, podcasts and more. This isnot to say they can/ should deliver something on every chan-nel, but it does mean its important to clarify exactly whatyou expect them to produce, and in turn, what they are com-fortable promoting. Before places on trips are confirmed, out-line what you expect in terms of coverage, make it an open

discussion to ensure campaign objectives are met but the blog-ger feels happy they can deliver good results. A written agree-ment ahead of time means both parties can avoid disappoint-ment in the long run.

Get outside that box.

Hosting a successful blog trip can be a great addition to any

integrated PR campaign or as a standalone social media pro-ject. Whats more, with new social media channels and digitalinnovations springing up almost daily, the opportunities to

bring your brand into the digital sphere are endless. There isno longer a template approach to working with bloggers; thepossibilities for collaboration are endless. So consider your ob-

jectives, do your research, and think outside of the box andof course, come and talk to us over at Four bgb @fourbgb

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BEYOND THE BLOG TRIP

Beyond The Blog

Tripby Janice Waugh

Professional travel bloggers are publishing entrepreneurs.

They take responsibility for all aspects of their business.In the publishing business, the first priority is to serve thereadership. Without readers, there is no business. With a blogand readership in place, it is necessary to build a businessmodel that supports the blogger so that they can continue tooperate at a professional level.

I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn't really interestedin being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entre-

preneur in order to keep my magazine going.

Sir Richard Branson

Every travel blogger who takes their venture seriouslyquickly learns that they must become entrepreneurs.

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Travel Bloggers as Entrepreneurs

As with all entrepreneurs, travel bloggers develop creative so-lutions to market challenges. Many innovative projects havecome to light thanks to their outside-the-box approaches tothe market.

4xfour

4xfour is a multimedia project that encompasses a six-parttelevision travel series and editorial and video content onLiveShareTravel.comand Traveldudes.org. It also brings intothe equation the power of their social media platforms and tra-ditional public relations. Produced by Sarah and Terry Lee ofLiveShareTravel and TV presenter Cheryl Gibbs, it will show-case destinations and brands to 12 million people as the team

travels to four continents in four months.

Luxury Hostels in Europe

Luxury Hostels in Europe is a real-time blogging project byKash Bhattacharya of BudgetTraveller.org. The project is de-signed to inspire people to discover a new generation of hos-tels that combine the comfort of a hotel with the passion andsocial element of a hostel. Hostels are pre-selectedand pay a

fee for a personal review, social media coverage and inclusionin an e-book that will be distributed free through the projectssponsors and other channels.

Career Break Travel Show

The Career Break Travel Show is produced by Jeff Jung ofCareerBreakSecrets.comand will be distributed globally byConvergTV. The show focuses on various career break experi-ences from around the world and is supported by the CareerBreak Secrets blog and social media platforms.

The Travelers Handbooks

The Travelers Handbooks (thetravelershandbooks.com) is anew series of travel books that focuses on how people chooseto experience the world. Launched in October of 2012 by six

bloggers, the first five books in the series are The Career BreakTravelers Handbook, The Food Travelers Handbook, TheLuxury Travelers Handbook, The SoloTravelers Handbook

2ndedition and The Volunteer Travelers Handbook. Morehandbooks on other travel styles are planned for 2013.

Meet Plan Go

Meet Plan Go (meetplango.com) is an annual event and on-line programme for those planning long-term travel.Launched in 2009, it is now in its third year. The event takesplace each October and in 2012 included ten cities - nine in theUnited States and one in Canada. The online Career Break Ba-sic Training programme inspires and guides people throughthe career break planning process.

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Travel Bloggers as Customer Engagement

Specialists

In addition to entrepreneurial projects, travel bloggers workwith travel organizations to increase customer engagement ina variety of innovative ways. Travel bloggers can:

Support clients with expert content for client newsletters

and blogs. Act as travel niche experts in online webinars, hangouts or

on Facebook pages.

Host Twitter chats sponsored by clients. Share posts from their clients Facebook fan pages on their

own Facebook fan pages.

Travel Bloggers as Consultants

Travel bloggers know their niche, their readers and travellers.They also understand the social media channels they use to

reach their audience. As entrepreneurs, they often approachtravel companies with innovative promotional projects buttravel companies should also be encouraged to approachtravel bloggers with a challenge they are facing. Identify thechallenge with the right travel blogger/entrepreneur and youwill be on your way to an innovative programme/solution.

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#LOVECAPETOWN

Case Study -

#LoveCapeTownby Keith Jenkins

Cape Town Tourismlaunched a new marketing campaign inNovember 2011 that aimed to promote an in-depth look at themany natural, historical and cultural facets of the city.iambassador.netproposed a campaign whereby four blog-gers, in collaboration with Cape Town Tourism, would mobi-lise Capetonians to talk about their city via social media. Themain objectives of the campaign were to uncover hidden di-mensions to the city by crowdsourcing tips from locals, andcreating global exposure for Cape Towns diverse attractions.

A week-long blog trip to Cape Town was planned, followed

by speaking engagements at the Getaway Travel BloggersConference. The social media campaign was launched a weekprior to the trip whereby the bloggers invited Capetonians tosuggest things to do and see. The bloggers also invited theirreaders to follow the bloggers around Cape Town via the Twit-ter hashtag #LoveCapeTown.

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Cape Town Tourism utilised their media channels to an-nounce the blog trip and the #LoveCapeTown campaign, en-couraging locals to participate and generating interestthroughout South Africa.

On the first day of the blog trip, a Meet The Bloggers Twitterchat was organised by Cape Town Tourism. Capetonians re-

acted with great enthusiasm, submitting hundreds of tips.During their week-long stay in Cape Town, the bloggers fol-lowed up on some of the tips and tweeted about their experi-ences, often including photos and short videos.

In addition, the bloggers attended various media events suchas a meeting with the local press. Radio/newspaper inter-views were also arranged. At the end of their week-long stayin Cape Town, the bloggers each spoke about their area of ex-

pertise at the Getaway Travel Bloggers Conference. Topics cov-ered included how to work with bloggers, travel writing andleveraging social media. The bloggers presence at the confer-ence drew a record-breaking number of attendees, with blog-gers and tourism industry representatives from around SouthAfrica.

The Results of #LoveCapeTown1. The campaign generated hundreds of excellent tips from lo-cals. These were collected by Cape Town Tourism and pub-lished as a guide. For a sample, see: http://ow.ly/ebjIB

2. A highlight of the campaign was the impressive level of in-teraction between the bloggers and locals. 33% of regular

tweets generated a response. 88% of the tweets were re-tweeted.

3. Hundreds of images were produced both by the locals andthe bloggers, and these were fed through to Twitter, Facebook,Instagram and Pinterest.

4. The social media campaign reached 1.2 million peoplearound the world via 37 million tweet impressions. Thou-sands of Likes and Shares were generated. Press coverageof the campaign extended beyond South Africa to Europe,USA and Asia.

5. The huge success of the #LoveCapeTown hashtag resultedin various spin-off campaigns such as a photography contest.

6. Cape Town Tourism billed #LoveCapeTown as their most

successful social media campaign to date.

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BLOGVILLE IN EMILIA ROMAGNA

Case Study -BlogVille in

Emilia Romagna

by Melvin Boecher

BlogVille was developed by co-founders Melvin Bcher(Traveldudes.org) and Kash Bhattacharya(Budgettraveller.org) together with the Tourist Board of theItalian Emilia Romagna Region.

The motto was:

BlogVille Emilia Romagna: eat, feel and live like a local in Italy

To support BlogVille an official Facebook page and Twitter ac-count were created in order to promote the project and inter-

act with the bloggers.In addition videos presenting the project have been pub-lished across various websites.

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A few hours after the first presentation of the project, theEmilia Romagna Tourist Board has received more then 90

bloggers requests from all over the world.

For the first time ever a DMO hosted 50 bloggers from allover the world for 3 months to enable them to discover thedestination and live like locals with total freedom. The partici-

pants werehosted in two apartments in Bologna and Rimini,provided free of charge bythe Emilia Romagna Tourist Board

between April 23rd and July 14th2012.

The average stay of a blogger was between 4 and 7 days andthe and the apartments came complete with informationabout the Emilia Romagna region, including a survival packwith typical products from the Emilia Romagna area. The

bloggers were able to discover both cities and live like na-

tives, with free access to events, museums, sightseeing, andother touris highlights. The Tourist Board helped each bloggerto build a personalised programme but in order to give morestructure to the project and ensure they covered the wholeregion, once a week an organized trip was held by the TouristBoard .

During the 83 day-long project the bloggers took part in liveblogging coverage -the Tourist Board helped them by provid-ing portable Wi-Fi devices - and presented the Emilia Ro-magna region to all of their online followers and readers. Theresults of BlogVille, including exposure through Media Part-ner Traveldudes.org, was over 250 published blog posts, innexcess of 75M (page?)impressions, over 8M people reachedon Twitter, and more than 2,500 photos and videos shared bythe bloggers taking part. For the live blogging,the productionof blog posts, photos and videos the bloggers used the#BlogVille and the #EmiliaRomagna hashtags.

The hashtags helped the Tourist Board to estimate the totalnumbers and stats of the project, and enabled the Media Part-ner Traveldudes.org to retweet and share all the content on-line and via social media.

The aim of BlogVille was to promote the Emilia Romagna re-gion using web 2.0 and to initiate a long-term blogger-DMO

partnership, as well as to make the bloggers followers andreaders (and future tourists) aware of what the Emilia Ro-magna region has to offer.

BlogVille succeeded in gaining great press and media cover-age, both in national and international newspapers and maga-zines and on TV, being fearured on Corriere della Sera, La Re-pubblica, ANSA, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Lead Digital, RAI,and Tele San Marino.

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A Travel Bloggers Unite (TBU) conference is an innovativeand unique way for a destination to leverage the influenceand reach of travel bloggers. We leverage the strength of our

brand amongst our 1600+ members and our connectionswithin the travel industry, and combine these with our knowl-edge of selling travel for the past 12 years.

What Is A TBU Conference?

A TBU conference is a four day event conference experiencethat combines unparalleled learning and networking opportu-nities, in an interesting destination. We bring together be-tween 120 and 150 travel bloggers, the majority of whom arethe worlds most influential bloggers within thismarket.Travel industry delegates are also present and theytypically come from various PR & digital agencies, travel

brands and tourist boards.

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Kirsten Alana

BLOGVILLE IN EMILIA ROMAGNA

Case Study- Hosting aTravel Bloggers Unite

Conference

by Oliver Gradwell


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Why Do People Attend?

Travel bloggers attend the conference for a variety of reasons.They love to travel and so we take our time choosing a desti-nation which will excite them. They love to catch up withtheir fellow digital nomads, who they often only see atevents like ours. Travel bloggers have an insatiable desire tolearn new skills and improve upon their existing skill set.They also value the opportunity to network with industrydelegates too.

It is only recently that travel bloggers have become an impor-tant and effective part of a firms marketing and communica-tion strategy. Therefore it is vital for PR firms, travel brandsand tourist boards to attend a TBU conference so that they canstay current and up-to-date with the travel blogging commu-

nity.

The TBU Conference Concept

We are proud to be the influencers in our industry and ourability to innovate is at the core of this influence. Over thepast two years we have introduced many new innovations to

travel blogger conferences and ?

We like to say that everybody knows your name at a TBUconference. We strive to keep numbers low, to ensure a morepersonal experience for all delegates. This allows for a morerelaxed conference environment, of which all delegates are apart of as soon as they arrive.

From the moment a delegate arrives until they leave a hostcity, we plan every aspect of our conference programme to en-sure we create as many valuable networking opportunities aspossible,from pre-conference meetups and official eveningevents to our popular Bespoke Networking concept.

We are also proud of our reputation for providing an unri-

valled learning experience. We spend a lot of time planningour popular series of How To Talks for bloggers, whichcover a wide variety of important topics, from beginner to ad-vanced level.

At TBU conferences, we also hold a full series of talks for ourtravel industry delegates, enabling them to make the best useof the contacts they develop at the conference. Previouslythese have covered such topics as How To Find The Right

Travel Blogger For Your Brand, How To Create AddedValue To Your Blog Trips and How To Measure Travel Blog-ger ROI.

How Do Conference Hosts Benefit?

The hosts of a TBU conference are typically tourist boardsfrom a local, regional and national level. The concept that we

have developed provides multiple opportunities throughwhich our host partners and their destinations can benefit.

Our second conference in Innsbruck generated an ROI factorof 37.5 to 1, based on an approximate hosting costs of just

25,00

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Pre-destination:

Our brand, Travel Bloggers Unite was chosen due to thepopularity of abbreviation names online. Therefore we aremore commonly known as TBU. A conference will becomeknown as TBU Innsbruck, TBU Umbria or TBU Porto forexample.

Conferences are branded accordingly with a hashtag eg#TBUIBK (Innsbruck), #TBUMBR (Umbria), #TBUPOR(Porto). This is tagged to all content related to theconference on twitter and a destination benefits directlythrough name association.

We build a conference website to communicate the details ofthe conference. This also provides us with an opportunity tostrategically promote a destination through blog posts,

photos and videos.

Conference hashtags can be tracked and aid in measuringthe ROI factor from the conference.

During The Conference:

Pre-conference city tours give delegates the opportunity todiscover a city, to take photos and to learn about its history.

Pre-conference photo & video workshops are taught byexperts from industry and allow bloggers to brush up ontheir photography & videography skills. These arefollowing by a walk around the city, where the bloggersput their new skills into practice and create content they aremore likely to share, given the learning curve involved.

Travel bloggers are very keen to share what they arediscovering. Be it a snippet of information from a seminar orthe history behind a city. So the use of the branded hashtagpersists throughout the conference

Post-conference:

Once the conference is over, travel bloggers will then beginto edit photos, videos and write their blog posts. Thiscontent is then shared online, over a period of time andpromoted via the conference hashtag.

The content is valuable to a host destination because all thetravel bloggers have a community of enthusiastic travellerswho follow them. These people are potential visitors andthe personal nature of the content a blogger shares is morelikely to appeal to a reader.

The content also remains searchable for as long as it isonline.

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In December 2011, Four bgb worked with the region of Sknein southern Sweden to host a three day trip alongsideVisit Swedenand the regional tourist office of Skne. Itspurpose was to bring this largely unknown region, which had

just been made more accessible by a new flightservice fromLondon Stansted to Malm, to the attention of the UK market.

With travellers no longer needing to fly to Copenhagen andtake the train across the Oresund Bridge to Malm, the regionwas now just 90 minutes away and keen to be promoted as analternative weekend city break. In addition to this, VisitSwe-

den had also just launched a five year campaign to promotethe countrys extensive culinary offerings and position theregion among the worlds leading culinary nations, whilst a

brand new supper club concept - A slice of Swedish hospitalitywas also launching in Malm in the coming spring.

Consequently a number of messages needed to be conveyedto a variety of audiences at differing times throughout thecampaign, and so the decision was made to capitalise on theadvantages of both traditional and social media channels inan integrated appraoch to meet all campaign objectives.

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BLOGGER AND MEDIA PRESS TRIPS

Case Study -Hosting

a Combined Blogger andTraditional Media Trip

by Four bgb
http://www.visitsweden.com/http://www.visitsweden.com/http://skane.com/en/frontpagehttp://skane.com/en/frontpage


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The new flight route launch was imminent an ideal hook forbloggers able to disseminate information immediately andengage with real time stories, be it blog posts, photos, videos,podcasts, Twitter, Facebook. Meanwhile the repositioning ofthe regions culinary attributes was a long term strategy, andso ideal for a traditional, longer-lead glossy magazine journal-ist. Looking at both long and short-term messages in this way

created a sustained dialogue with consumers over extendedperiods of time, ensuring Skne was front of mind for travelplans across the seasons.

Another key driver of the trip was to communicate the di-verse appeal of the region, from adventure, food luxury andshopping to design and architecture, city breaks, romance andfamily holidays - to mention but a few. Planning a varieditinerary for a diverse range of travel bloggers enabled the

destination to convey key messages to a number of markets injust one trip. Consequently travel bloggers were approachedwho spoke influentially to a range of markets.

Consequently a number of messages needed to be conveyedto a variety of audiences at differing times throughout thecampaign, and so the decision was made to capitalise on theadvantages of both traditional and social media channels inan integrated appraoch to meet all campaign objectives.

The new flight route launch was imminent an ideal hook forbloggers able to disseminate information immediately andengage with real time stories, be it blog posts, photos, videos,podcasts, twitter, Facebook. Meanwhile the repositioning ofthe regions culinary attributes was a long term strategy, andso ideal for a traditional, longer lead glossy magazine

journalist.

Looking at both long and short terms messages in this waymeant we were able to create a sustained dialogue withpeople over extended periods of time, ensuring Skne wasfront of mind for travel plans across the seasons.

Another key driver of the trip was to communicate the di-verse appeal of the region, from adventure to food and luxury

to shopping, design, architecture, city breaks, romance andfamily - to mention but a few. Planning a varied itinerary for adiverse range of travel bloggers meant we were able toconvey key messages to a number of markets in just one trip.Consequently travel bloggers were approached who we felt;spoke influentially to a range of markets:

Kash Bhattacharya(@budgettraveller) Europe Budget Guide Highlighting that weekends in Sweden can be achieved on a

budget.

Abigail King(@insidetravellab) InsideThe Travel Lab Inhope of a characteristically thoughtful insight into whatmakes Sweden unique, quirky and inspirational alongsidesome stunning photography

Chris Richardson(@theaussienomad) The Aussie NomadTo promote short breaks in Europe to the ex-pat market, witha fun, light-hearted approach

Monica Stott(@TheTravelHack) Commissioned by syndi-cated travel advice blog Travmonkey, - To raise awareness ofSweden within the travel blogging community with a youngdynamic writer, likely to be keen on promoting messages ofstyle and ease of travel.

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http://www.travmonkey.com/http://twitter.com/TheTravelHackhttp://twitter.com/insidetravellabhttp://twitter.com/insidetravellabhttp://twitter.com/insidetravellabhttp://www.insidethetravellab.com/http://www.insidethetravellab.com/http://www.travmonkey.com/http://www.travmonkey.com/http://twitter.com/TheTravelHackhttp://twitter.com/TheTravelHackhttp://www.theaussienomad.com/http://www.theaussienomad.com/http://twitter.com/theaussienomadhttp://twitter.com/theaussienomadhttp://www.insidethetravellab.com/http://www.insidethetravellab.com/http://twitter.com/insidetravellabhttp://twitter.com/insidetravellabhttp://www.europebudgetguide.typepad.co.uk/http://www.europebudgetguide.typepad.co.uk/http://twitter.com/budgettravellerhttp://twitter.com/budgettraveller


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To guarantee we were able to maximise live coverage to besteffect, a mi-fi device was purchased to accompany the group,ensuring that Wi-Fi was available every step of the way,whilst significant me-time was planned in for bloggers toexplore alone, reflect and produce additional collateral.

The trip was pre-promoted in Twitter and Facebook discus-

sions with the group whilst bloggers were also encouraged towrite pre-travel posts, building anticipation for the trip withtheir readers.

This progressive, integrated approach to campaign planningresulted in significant interest from the travel bloggingcommunity, with a full article write-up in key industry outletTravelllll.com, whilst the trip hashtag was seen by nearly400,000 consumers in the first seven days alone, with would-

be travellers discussing the destination across four continents.

The campaign did not stop when the bloggers touched downback in London, with each blogger producing a number ofposts on topics spanning food, spas and Christmas markets toshopping, design and architecture over the coming months asthey sought to draw new content from the varied itinerary.One year on, continued integration and a consistent relation-ship with involved bloggers teamed with a schedule oftraditional print publication features, means that the destina-

tion remains front of mind with both the blogging commu-nity, and the consumer.

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CALCULATING ONLINE MEDIA ROI

Calculating Online

Media ROIby Melvin Boecher &Keith Jenkins

Its a question weve heard countless times:

Should we choose to work with you, what ROI can you deliver?

We would reply by stating the number of blog posts wewould plan to write and the social media exposure we woulddeliver across multiple platforms.

Yes, but what is the value of that?

We had no answer for that. It was a frustrating process forboth parties so we decided to do something about it. We

talked to bloggers in other sectors and social media experts,but no one had quite figured out a way to calculate the ROI ofblogging and social media. There were various attempts tomeasure someones influence on social media but none wereconclusive. We then looked at how ROI is measured in tradi-tional media and studied the workings of AVE (AdvertisingValue Equivalent), a widely-used model.

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AVE basically looks at the size of an editorial and comparesthat with the price of an advertisement of a comparable sizein the same publication. We were skeptical in the first in-stance. There were no values in that model that actuallyshowed how many people had read an editorial in a newspa-per or magazine or how much time they spent on that page.The model was too vague for us to take into consideration.

We then looked at our blogs and our stats, and realised thatthe values missing in AVE calculations for traditional mediawere indeed present in online media. We could see how manypeople had read a specific blog post, how much time theyspent reading it and where they came from. The powerfulGoogle Analytics tool provides this information.

We can also see how many times a specific post has beentweeted (on Twitter), liked (Facebook), stumbled (Stumble-Upon), +1 (Google+) and pinned (Pinterest). This promptedus to take another, closer look at the AVE model. We appliedthe model to a variety of blogs and included traffic stats of in-dividual posts.

An important component of online media is the exposure thatcan be generated via social media. Again, there are as yet noconclusive models that calculate the ROI of social media, i.e.the value of a tweet or a Facebook post. We decided to apply

the same AVE principles to social media by researching theprices top social media influencers charge for a sponsoredtweet. We created a basket of top influencers (using four differ-ent influence measuring tools) and gathered their prices. Wethen compared our reach and influence scores with this bas-ket of top influencers and determined our prices on a pro rata

basis.

ROI = Ad value of online content + ad value of tweet and

facebook posts

By applying the AVE model, we found a way to calculate theperceived ROI of the two pillars of online media hosted con-tent and social media reach. It can be used in a pre-campaignpartner selection process as well as during the post-campaign

phase (when detailed campaign-specific stats are available) tocalculate the ROI of a campaign.

This method is by no means conclusive, and it will continueto grow, but it provides useful guidance to the perceivedvalue of online publishers/bloggers. To us, this methods big-gest merit is that it puts a number on the value of online me-dia. By doing so, it offers a degree of clarity in our efforts tounderstand the complex and rapidly evolving online world.

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Blogging Wp Ibooks

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