Here is an intriguing idea from a US company to motivate travel agents around the world to start using social media channels and create their own blogs.
The project, by Go Performance Marketing, backers of ReviewResorts marketing service, has lofty ideals but is primarily aimed at getting agents to market their talents and knowledge through channels such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as producing their own content.
Central to the idea, known as the Travel Blog Project, is a 100-day initiative where agents signed up to the programme are given tips each day about what they can do to raise their profile and showcase what they can do.
The scheme is aimed at three types of agents – the supposed “web marketing newbies” that know the marketplace but are unsure how to use online channels; those that need ”structure” to use social media channels; or agents requiring “creativity” to communicate their message in a better way.
Here is an example, according to the project website, if how it might work:
- Mondays: We will “Tell” about the travel experience. We will post one or two paragraphs on our Blogs about travel stories, destination knowledge, insight and experiences, best places to eat, things to do and more. Posts will be written around the posting theme of the day.
- Tuesdays: We will set up a week’s worth of “timed” Tweets on Twitter that will automatically fire off two or three times a day promoting our blog. The Tweets will be our insight, opinion and experience about our travel niche.
- Wednesdays: Wednesdays we will “Sell” by posting special travel offers and packages on our Blogs. The packages may be a good deal, a group departure, a new ship or hotel. Whatever you want to sell. Creativity is good, but something within your niche.
- Thursdays: We will promote on our Facebook fan pages. We will post a small snippet and a picture. We will also become a Facebook fan of 5 other blog project participants by clicking on the “like” button on their Facebook fan pages.
- Fridays: Follow-Fridays! We will promote our blogs together by posting comments on one or two other Blog Project participants’ blog. We will find a post that we think is interesting or insightful and leave a comment. Then we will create three or four sentences on our own blogs discussing the other blogger’s post and include a link in our post that points to the other participant’s blog. This will create a large web of linked blog sites that will raise the profile and ranking of all involved. It will also provide a bit of an incentive to craft interesting and engaging articles so fellow bloggers might comment. The end result will be web of inter-linked online marketing that will us much stronger as a unit than individually.
Once up and running, with help given to create blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter profiles, participating agents will be sent a daily email with tips and guidelines on what they can do each day.
The free initiative is hoping to get at least 100 travel agents involved, with founder George Oberle claiming the idea is sorely needed as the travel agent sector faces a “turning point”.
“Suppliers are questioning the power of travel agents to adapt to new online marketing channels in the effort to generate sales. Yet, travel agents have an incredible opportunity to sell ‘better travel’ simply by telling their story consistently through posting on their blogs, social media sites and sending bi-monthly email campaigns.”
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About Kevin May
Ok not so sure about the detail – seems a bit too broadcasty to me (till Friday)- but have to applaud the initiative. However I still think the hardest thing for travel agents to do is to be open to a conversation in the first place. Mainly because a lot of people (not just travel agents) don’t understand Twitter’s rather prosiac rules….I left a few comments on Darrens’s Travelrants a couple of months ago about travel companies and twitter – could equally apply to this initiative though
http://www.travel-rants.com/2010/10/11/annoy-travel-companies-twitter/#comments
To be fair I think a lot of travel companies are curious about twitter but they have no idea how to make it work. A lot of heid honchos I’ve spoken to are also quite scared of it. However there are some basic rules that fit into how they should behave
1. Don’t stick the office junior on twitter. It’s no place for amateurs (that was courtesy of that lady from lastminute.com last #tbcamp09). She was right.
2. Can’t say anything nice – keep schtumn.
3. Link it into your PR plan
4. Link it into your customer care plan
5. Share links that interest you – chances are others will enjoy them – but be generous with your acknowledgements – give credit where it’s due.
6. I think you should only tweet company offers maybe 20-30% of the time. Or twice a day tops. Keep them interesting or exotic too
7. Answer people – how certain airlines and others didnt get back during the ash cloud was just daft and bad for business
8. Be original within your niche….
9. Don’t vanish – it’s bad for your reputation and business
10. Use a picture of a person for your profile photo – people who tweet like that. Photoshop helps if you are ugly/spotty etc
11. Share music – it humanises a brand. It’s also quite fun and you can ignore people whose taste is rubbish.
12. You’ll just need to trust me on this one but commission new content for your site. Apart from SEO it’s great for travel inspiratiion. There are some cracking writers on twitter. And a lot are are open to scratch my back offers!
13. It’s the best way to follow travel news and travel technology (Tnooz/Travolution)
14. Engage with people in an open and honest way. People like that.
Sorry for the essay
Cheers Stu
This is an absolutely fantastic initiative. In many ways it could be a tipping point – however being a blogger myself, I know just how much passion and commitment it takes to make something like a blog work.
Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger site is an awesome resource that everyone who’s doing this challenge should be urged to visit every day to pep up their passion for the art.
Support, mentoring, hand-holding and spoon-feeding are all going to be needed to make sure everyone completes this project.
I wish everyone well who’s involved. It’s going to test you – but the results are more than worthwhile.
Kudos to Stuart, too, who makes some amazingly relevant comments.
I think it’s interesting to come back to this after a little over a year. Clicking through the links on this list of participants,
http://www.travelblogproject.com/Travel-Agent-Project/index.aspx
…one sees that most of the project’s blogs died. Keeping a blog going (much less making it successful) is really hard and time-consuming, especially when one doesn’t reap immediate rewards from it. It can take, depending on your post frequency, a year to generate enough content to make some traction in the search engines. Even if these blogs were never going to blow up, web content does work for travel agents, giving them an online presence and strong SEO.
As someone who provides content marketing services to small business in the travel industry–setting up, maintaining, and generating content for travel agent blogs–I was really disappointed by the poor, unbranded, and generic Blogspot and WordPress.com designs most participants had. While I understand web design might be expensive (and maybe a little bit of a mystery) for many travel agents, they should be mindful of their brand and how they represent themselves online. A free blog is probably not the best way to go about that in this age of web savviness.