Corporate blogging for tourism organisations

1. Corporate blogging for tourism organisations
ITB eTravel World 2011, 10.03.2011
Click to edit Master Media Specialist, STA Travel
Karen Liller, Social subtitle style

2. Agenda
1. Social Media at STA Travel
2. Why should more tourism organisations blog?
3. Are you ready for take off?
• First strategic steps
• First technical steps
• Bringing a corporate blog to life
• Multimedia
4. A long journey: blog marketing

3. 1. Social Media at STA Travel

4. 1. Social Media at STA Travel
Social Media –why are we doing this?

5. 1. Social Media at STA Travel
Research conducted
by Hubspot (2010)

6. 2. Why should more tourism businesses blog?
Great tool for internal
Great tool for internal A blog helps you
A blog helps you
communication
communication building a
building a Readers get more
Readers get more
relationship with
relationship with involved –
involved –
your customers
your customers feedback,
feedback,
Your colleagues Blogging
Blogging
Your colleagues -> loyalty
-> loyalty comments,
comments,
can share their is fun!
is fun!
can share their suggestions!
suggestions!
travel experiences
travel experiences
A blog
A blog Blogging is
Blogging is
provides your
provides your networking
networking
company with
company with
a human face
a human face
A blog is a great
A blog is a great
A blog adds
A blog adds publishing platform
publishing platform
valuable and
valuable and for small corporate
Blogging is for small corporate
emotional content
emotional content Blogging is
stories – no
stories – no
to your website
to your website storytelling
storytelling
gatekeepers
gatekeepers
A blog demonstrates
A blog demonstrates Google likes
Google likes Exposure as
Exposure as
corporate openness
corporate openness blogs
blogs thought leaders
thought leaders
in the travel
in the travel
industry
industry

7. 3. Are you ready for take off?
Please don‘t make any rash decisions!

8. 3. Are you ready for take off?
Before you start setting up a corporate blog for
your tourism business ask yourself:
• Why would our company like to blog?
• Is blogging the right thing for our company?
• Are we ready to start the public dialogue?
• Do we have topics to write about?
• Do we have someone who could manage the blog?
• Are there people interested in our products & stories?

9. 3. Are you ready for take off?
Welcome to the corporate blogging community!
cc alborzshawn

10. 3. Are you ready for take off?
In case you are new to blogging…
• Start reading blogs
• Start commenting on blogs
• Start blogging yourself
• Don’t accept blog advice from people that are not bloggers
• Do accept advice from social media agencies or smart books

11. 3. Are you ready for take off?
First strategic steps:
1. Set clear but flexible business objectives you want to achieve with
your blog
2. You’ll need well defined metrics for tracking process
3. Define your audience
4. What kind of relationship do you want to build with your audience?
5. What kind of blog you want to have? (e.g. CEO blog, internal vs.
external blog)
6. Develop a content strategy – niche topics might work for you?
7. Take a look at your staff: Who will write the content? Who will
manage the comments, who will approve the blog posts? Who can
coach the employees? Do you need to increase resources?
8. Which language will you write in?

12. 3. Are you ready for take off?
First technical steps:
• don‘t use free blog systems (e.g. tumblr, blogger.com)
• discuss with your seo specialist: domain, subdomain or directory?
• we decided to reside our blog under http://blog.statravel.de (technical
reasons) - cross-linking between the blog and the main site is important
• think about a name for your blog (optional)
Example for a corporate blog set up on a free blog publishing tool:
Example No. 1: Tripadvisor Blog
• http://tripadvisorblog.wordpress.com/
• won’t be helpful improving search enginge ranking for tripadvisor.de
• not flexible enough, no rss feed, no author profiles etc.

13. 3. Are you ready to take off
Screenshot: 27.2.2011

14. 3. Are you ready for take off?
First technical steps:
• Your corporate blog shout reflect your CI – don’t invent a new one for
the blog
• ask an agency to design a custom made template
• or purchase a wordpress theme / adapt the design yourself
Example No. 2: Holidaycheck Blog
• http://blog.holidaycheck.de
• nicely adapted to website design
• cross-linking between blog and website

15. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

16. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

17. 3. Are you ready for take off?
First technical steps:
• share and comment functionalities
• RSS feed
• author profiles
• categories and tags
• legal notices
• social media guidelines and blogging guidelines for your employees
• commenting guidelines
• you’ll find plenty of resources online - ask your lawyer for advice

18. 3. Are you ready for take off?
But this is just the groundwork…
• …you need to bring your blog to life!
• Your corporate blog should reflect your brand character
• Try colloquial, descriptive, emotional and experiential text – no
marketing or sales talk
Two corporate blogs that are technically fine, but something is missing…
Example No. 3: Delta Blog
• http://blog.delta.com/
Example No. 4: TUI Austria Blog
• http://blog.tui.at/

19. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

20. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

21. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

22. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

23. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

24. 3. Are you ready for take off?
Get personal!
• Show your readers the people behind the blog
• In our case: the more the merrier! More STA Travel bloggers bring a
nice variety to our blog. Plus: more bloggers spread out the work load
• Each colleague has his or her own travel expertise, different views on
things which is interesting for the readers
Example No. 5: STA Travel Blog
• http://blog.statravel.de
Example No. 6: Nuts about Southwest
• http://www.blogsouthwest.com

25. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

26. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

27. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

28. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

29. 3. Are you ready for take off?
Bring multimedia to your blog!
• The use of photos and videos is essential in the tourism industry,
experience is everything
• feed the senses of your customers
• prefer self-made pictures over stock photos!
• add audio to your blog – maybe podcasts?
• video is perfect for telling a story, generate emotions
• relax: videos and pictures on your corporate blog don’t have to look
too professional
Example No. 6: Florida Blog
http://www.visitfloridablog.org/

30. Screenshot: 27.2.2011

31. 4. A long journey: blog marketing
How to be successful in Blog Marketing
• be patient
• be interesting
• be unique
• have fun, show passion
• put your blog everywhere you can: on your website, in your e-mail
footer, on business cards, on flyers, brochures etc.
• cross-marketing (e.g. blog and newsletter)
• network with other bloggers (on- and offline)
• use Twitter and Facebook to share your blog content
• demonstrate the success (internally and externally)

32. Thank you!