Michael Collins, TravelMedia.ie, TBEX Athens 2014 Presentation. "Travel Bloggers - Be Seen and Be Heard - Working with Tourist Boards & Travel PR's - Advice from the other side of the fence". #TBEX #TBEXAthens #TBEXEurope #ThisisAthens #VisitGreece

1. Travel Bloggers –
Be Seen & Be Heard
working with tourist boards
and travel PRs
@travelmedia_ie

2. Michael Collins
@travelmedia_ie

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

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

5. Assumptions
• get paid more
• more trip invitations

6. Michael Collins

9. 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

10. the BASICS
what always works

11. We Need You
You Need Us

12. Thank you

13. It’s who you know -
stupid

14. Be Nice
we do business with people we like

15. Content, Content, Content

17. “If I Had More Time,
I Would Have Written
You a Shorter Letter”
- Pascal

18. 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

19. 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

20. Road Shows

21. Awards

22. Networking Events

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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………………………..

26. Meet Niamh and Michelle

27. from the horses mouth
airlines, PRs, tourist boards, operators

28. • 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)
@visitstockholm
Emilia Geijer
emilia.geijer@stockholm.se

29. • 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)
@visitstockholm
Emilia Geijer
emilia.geijer@stockholm.se

30. • 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

31. • 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

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

33. • #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
@SAS
London, UK office

34. • 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

35. SEO – didn’t mention anything except SEO
So 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

36. 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

37. • quality of previous blogs/writing
• stats
• social media following
• active, both blog and socially
• relevance to the theme/destination
@wearedubai_uk
fb/wearedubai.uk
London, UK office

38. • 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
@visitportugal
fb/vsitportugal
London, UK office

39. 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/
@visitportugal
fb/vsitportugal
London, UK office

40. horse
takeaways

41. 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.

42. 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.

43. 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.

44. Yoast
•

45. SEO
Not 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.

46. 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)

47. 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.

48. 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.

49. Checklist
We’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

50. http://www.travelmedia.ie/blogger_checklist

51. http://www.travelmedia.ie/blogger_checklist

52. 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.

53. 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

54. 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.

55. The World is Global
The 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.

56. QUESTIONS?
@travelmedia_ie

57. THANK YOU
slideshare.net/travelmediaie
youtube/travelmediaie
fb/travelmedia.ie
@travelmedia_ie