In this delightful conversation with @SEKeener, director of Boots N All Travel Network, @Elliottng VP of Marketing for Uptake.com and @KimMance editor-in-chief of gogalavanting.com and founder of TravelBlogExchange.com discuss the importance of travel blog communities and how tourism businesses can connect with travel bloggers.

If you are a tourism business looking to connect with new media don’t miss this insight-filled conversation about bloggers and their communities.

Download the mp3 (22.2 M)

Background:

• Boots N’ All Travel Network – 6-7 year old blogging community connecting people.
• Uptake – 1.5 year old travel information site / search engine just launched a travel blog network that helps promote the search engine and promote richly tagged search.
• TravelBlogExchange – over 400 bloggers have joined in less than three weeks forming small groups discussing all kinds of issues relevant to travel blogging

The value of networking – connecting bloggers has many benefits:

• bloggers get exposure that may lead to exposure in many different locations including high profile publications
• community participation leads to comments and feedback on content that a blogger can’t get without connecting via networks.
• cause-related issues – Passports with a Purpose and blogging networks can move issues.
• bloggers can help one another by focusing on their strengths and helping one another grow their skills and abilities.
• travel blogging networks provide more visibility for individual bloggers
• coming together like the mom-bloggers gives the community more power and influence
• The social side of blog networks can be difficult to monetize or at least measure, but the power of stories to influence travelers decisions is huge.

How does a tourism business get their story told by a blogger?

• experiment with all kinds of media, don’t try to follow others
• connecting with folks in social media – connect with the people who care the most about your destination
• search the Travel Blog Exchange to find bloggers to tell a story
• It’s all about relationships: Why should a blogger care about your business?
• foster relationships with bloggers to get exposure for your business
• connect with bloggers in their medium, using the social networking tools they use
• be personal and transparent- don’t hide behind your business brand
• be interesting

Kim’s 3 Tips to connect with bloggers:

1. Email the blogger by name and reference something relevant that you have seen on their blog
2. Provide and link to great photos.
3. Develop a database of customized discount codes for the blogger to use to promote their story.

Twits you might want to know more about that were mentioned in this podcast:

• Debbie Dubrow – @DeliciousBaby
• Pam Mandel – @nerdseyeview
• Kevin May @travolution,
• Jens Traenhart
• PhilCaines @philcaines,
• Guido vandenElshout @happyhotelier
• @Soultravelers3

Other Websites of interest noted in this podcast:

• Tips from the T-list
• Passports with a Purpose: Travel Bloggers raise over $7000 for Heifer Int’l.
• Blogher
• CNReviews.com – Elliott Ng’s blog on China
  

Social Media tools including Twitter have made it easier than ever to create a community of shared interest. I was delighted to learn about http://www.travelblogexchange.com in recent tweets from Travel Bloggers I follow, including a gentle reminder from @soultravelers3.

Ning, the make your own social networking tool that makes it super easy to create a social network is the platform of choice for quickly creating a network like this.

It only took a few minutes to join and I added a couple of groups to http://www.travelblogexchange.com – the Tourism Industry Bloggers and Community Blogs Groups.

The site debuted as an opportunity to connect those attending the Travel Blog Exchange as part of the Blogher summit in Chicago, July 26, 2009.

I believe, this community blogger site will have great impact.

This is the first time I’ve seen an opportunity to invite people like the readers of this blog who have blogs to meet and share ideas with other travel industry bloggers and communities that have embraced Web 2.0 opportunities.

Please join the travel bloggers social and get some attention for your blog!

It’s time to go beyond our tribe to establish a presence within other tribes. We need each other. I started thinking about this after reading a post about building a small powerful network by Chris Brogan. It reminded my repeated efforts to build bridges between content creators and the tourism / travel industry. Not only does the tourism industry need content, but the content providers in social media need opportunities to create content.

The Platform: A shared community Blog

The single most significant opportunity for regional tourism development lies with community blogging. The most important step your community can take to boosting your online presence is to create a place to share the travel experiences of your region.

There are many reasons why I believe that your community must create a shared blog:

• Blogging is inexpensive.
• With blogging it is easy to create good content when you share the work load.
• It’s the stories that matter. Your Web site is just your business card, blogged stories reveal the true essence of your brand.
• Enhances your regional share of voice in the travel market.
• Web 2.0 content makes it easy to distribute your content far beyond your Web site.

Challenges to getting a shared blog up and running in your community:

• a leader - someone with the skills and capacity to set up, design and administer the site.
• one or more editors who can help develop the voice of your community and inspire story catchers to participate
• a shared community vision of the kind of content you would like to share with your ideal guests.
• Recruting local story catchers, people who love to write, take photos, record and edit audio and / or video.

Where to find these people:

• They are bloggers, podcasters, photographers. Find them online by searching across the Web and engaging in social media conversations on Twittter, Facebook, Flickr and Youtube with people who understand Web 2.0 in your community.
• They are Twits, young people who live in your community and live in the social Web.

We need each other:

• bloggers and podcasters, photographers, writers are looking for opportunities to earn money by sharing their talents. They are passionate, intelligent and caring people who know how to tell stories.
• most community tourism web sites are poorly done and don’t reflect a sense of life and vitality that come with rich media stories that could be shared on a community blog. Community tourism sites need these stories!
• Communities and tourism businesses that are significantly overpaying for Web site design, hosting and web site updates. Design matters, but content matters more!
• Instead of paying for design and distribution ( a traditional way of marketing), your community needs to start paying for content development – Stories.

Next steps:

• If you are reading this, you are on one side of the divide. Start engaging in conversations with those on the other side. Talk about how you can build bridges to help one another achieve your goals, share what you are passionate about with the rest of the world.

Communities that Win in travel and tourism, will be those that go beyond the industry to recruit the people who can make a real difference in your Web presence by helping your community tell inspiring travel stories.

Footnote: Working together works – I applaud Darren Cronian at Travel Rants for his invitation to bloggers to work together to establish a travel blog carnival. It’s a great start working within a community of content creators to share the best travel stories. We need to build bridges within our tribes as well.