In the past five years, travel blogging and the use of social media as a destination and travel marketing tool have grown exponentially.
A new breed of professional travel blogger has emerged, creating new ways to tell a story, grow their blogs and social media channels, and earn a sustainable income. They have demonstrated a prowess in content generation, marketing and entrepreneurship.
The best have carved out a space for themselves in the tourism industry, helping destinations and brands reach millions of people around the world.
Iambassador is a network of travel bloggers I have developed, and since its inception in December 2011 it has created several marketing concepts and executed highly successful campaigns in collaboration with tourism boards and travel companies.
Proving value
However, one particular challenge bloggers are often faced with in the tourism industry is proving the value of online media.
Sometimes it might appear simple; you compare reach, and prices, to print. However, I would argue it goes much further than measuring reach, click-through rates and conversions during a certain timeframe.
When we speak to clients, we have learned to stress the value of influence and interaction, and the long shelf-life and searchability of the content. Online content can yield results for many years. Hence, the value of a campaign will only grow as time passes.
Our campaigns have created many memorable moments, from sky diving in Mauritius to cooking with locals in a Stellenbosch township, and trekking through lava tubes on Reunion Island to touring Emilia Romagna’s Motor Valley in a limousine. These experiences have made for engaging and inspiring content.
Our event at WTM next week aims to highlight these blogger initiatives, and prove how the concepts have been successful.
Case studies will include #MeetSouthAfrica, #BlogVille (Italy), #WeAreInPuglia and #MaltaIsMore. (Upcoming iambassador campaigns include collaborations with the tourism boards of Jordan, Spain, Sabah in Malaysia, South Africa and Great Britain, and companies such as Booking.com and Royal Brunei Airlines.)
These campaigns were successful for a variety of reasons, such as reach, the quality and breadth of the content, level of interaction and the uniqueness of the concept.
As an example, #BlogVille is into its third year now and has generated hundreds of millions of online impressions as well as a wealth of multimedia content encompassing more than 1,000 blog posts. This year, the concept was expanded to include the Lombardy region and a spin-off campaign in partnership with the Ferrari Driver Academy.
At WTM, we will also share best practice tips for working with bloggers, and look at the issue of ethics. Meanwhile, we will present the conclusions of the roundtable debates held at the Social Travel Summit in Leipzig in April, the first iambassador conference.
It brought together 50 bloggers, online influencers and industry representatives, and after the WTM event the Social Travel Summit White Paper will be available for download.
”Turning Experiences Into Successful Experiments” takes place at WTM on Thursday November 6, from 12.30-2pm in the Travel Tech Theatre (TT390)
