What is your first thought when you see a headline ‘Best practice in travel blogging’?
If you are like me you will have this idea that bloggers are autonomous individuals bringing the world to their readers in the same spirit as investigative reporters in the conventional news channels. With this in mind I assumed the ‘white paper’ with the headline ‘Best practice in travel blogging’ (that you can read here) would provide information and advice to travel bloggers on how best to serve their readership. I was wrong.
‘Best practice in travel blogging’ is targeted at businesses and tourist organisations and explains how they can attract and effectively ’employ’ popular travel bloggers to their own advantage. Reading the article it would appear there is an entire industry of professional bloggers working not to serve their audiences as good reporters should but, given the right incentives, including money, working to serve their audiences OVER to businesses looking for positive online exposure.
In ‘Best practice in travel blogging’ there is plenty of evidence indicating an unhealthy relationship between tourist businesses/organisations and travel bloggers who profess their first loyalty to their readers.
Starting in the white papers Contents Pages you will find advice aimed squarely at tourist businesses under headings like
Planning A Blog Trip
Shouldn’t that be the bloggers responsibility?
Defining The Objectives
Again. Is that not for the blogger to decide?
Planning The Itinerary
Need I repeat myself?
Choosing The Bloggers
This is a doosy. Choosing the bloggers! Are they being invited, or vetted and embedded?
You might begin to wonder why tourist businesses should go to such lengths in vetting bloggers to invite and carefully planning trips for them that, in the words of Johnny Mercer, ‘Accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative’. The white paper gives plenty of reasons
During the trip travel bloggers can leverage their following on social media by producing valuable and influential content,…that…’has the potential to create a greater return on investment.
In other words the readership of a travel blogger is for sale to you, the tourist business, if you play the right cards, and if that isn’t clear enough
To get the best out of travelbloggers, a form of financial recompense from the trip should be considered.
Though where money is concerned
Being aware of your objectives from the outset will not only allow you to target the most appropriate travel bloggers but will also mean you can effectively spell out what you would like from them during and after the trip.
If this wasn’t already damning enough a section of the white paper includes several case studies of business playing puppet master to social media professionals who are playing on the dewy eyed idea so many of us have of ‘bloggers’ being reporters.
The final insult to the idea of separation between travel blogger and tourist business is information on how a business might host, and presumably finance, a TBU (Travel Blogger Unite) conference where both parties
‘between 120 and 150 travel bloggers, the majority of whom are the world’s most influential bloggers within this market’…and…’Travel industry delegates … from various PR & digital agencies, travel brands and tourist boards.’
can conspire in comfort to influence the travel choices of unsuspecting blog readers.
To what extent can these ‘travel bloggers’ can be trusted if their activity relies so heavily on the generosity and attentiveness of their hosts? Pretending to be reporters aren’t they little more than marketing and PR professionals in flip-flops churning out advertorial copy (and film and audio)?*
‘travelling ‘social media marketing/copywriters’’
Naturally many travel bloggers will protest that reader trust is paramount and that it is upon that trust that their entire business rests, and they would never dare jeopardise it. I don’t doubt that this is true for many but this makes it all the more important that a clear distinction be drawn between travel bloggers and the travelling ‘social media marketing/copywriters’ that tourist businesses are encouraged to wine and dine in the white paper. (Are tourist businesses the victims of a genteel protection racket presided over by phony bloggers? That’s a thought for another blog post!)
If travel blogging is not to be utterly discredited the blogger embedded by a client should be declare his or her interest in every publication pertaining to that clients business – be it a tweet, blog post or any other form of social media. Is this enforceable? Probably not. Can phoney travel bloggers that don’t declare their interests be exposed? I think they can and should be at every opportunity.
Final note
Business/tourist organisations beware: Travel bloggers are only as valuable as the size of their audience and the respect and trust their audience has in them. When they lose that trust any exposure they will have given you will be discredited.
Examples of truly valuable exposure in social media are unsolicited positive blogs, tweets etc by genuine bloggers. How do you get these examples of unsolicited exposure if you aren’t lucky enough to satisfy a professional travel blogger travelling incognito?
Here’s the answer – Ensure your guests are happy, alert them to your company Facebook, blog and twitter account etc where reviews and pictures can be shared, and the social media engaged among them will do the rest!
For more on getting the right sort of social media exposure for your business watch out for my next blog to be published soon – ‘Facilitating social media exposure’ Subscribe to my blog and don’t miss it![subscribe2]
If you have any comments I’d love to hear them.
If you want any advice or training on social media for your business call me or drop an e-mail.
