Blogger engagement should from a central part of any travel company’s integrated marketing and PR strategy. But before doing anything, it is necessary to find the right match between brand and blogger. Only then can you build an ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship. EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta finds out how to do this.

Blogging about travel and other interests isn’t new – people have been using different platforms to write about their experiences, post photos and share videos with others for many years now. But the very nature of travel means it is perfect for blogging and sits well within an integrated marketing and PR strategy.

To begin with any successful blogger engagement initiative should start with a truly fantastic offering that is worthwhile to both blogger and the brand. If, for example, a blogger is able to access exclusive content that helps to enhance their blog by adding value to their readership, that’s a great place to start. Adding value can come in lots of different forms, and genuinely doesn’t have to mean the offer of freebies.

Sustained effort

Travel suppliers and intermediaries seek bloggers’ participation on a regular basis. However, it is worth noting that managing a travel brand’s reputation across blogs and working with bloggers requires a dedicated, sustained effort. 

“We don’t approach blogger cooperation as campaigns but rather as a long-term, continuous relationship that we cultivate with online influencers,” says Anna-Kaisa Varamäki, social media manager for Finnair. She says working together with bloggers is a great way to build trust and credibility for any brand.

“Bloggers’ opinions are authentic and will help customers in their decision-making, they are like your trusted friends, whose opinions are important to you. And of course from the brand’s perspective, bloggers help to increase our digital footprint, hopefully in a positive way as well,” says Varamäki.  

Varamäki says one thing that you should not forget is that you must take “super good care” of your bloggers to ensure they have the best possible experience. “You must be able to provide them with interesting and compelling content, be it a once-in-a-lifetime experience (like the retro flight to Milan) or just fun stories that they will want to share with their own networks (Fashion Show in the Air which the airline invited fashion bloggers to join).”

The big questions: how to approach bloggers?

1.    Tailored Offering: It is important that campaigns are tailored to each blogger so that they are provided with unique and engaging content which involves them in the brand, says Alison Couper, senior director global communications, Hotels.com, Expedia.com. Don’t just expect them to write a story from a press release – invite them out to trial your product or service first-hand.

2.    Profile of Bloggers: You should select bloggers who already have an established readership (check the blog’s comments, shares etc; established bloggers usually share these figures openly) and who are active in many social networks (Facebook, Twitter, besides their own blog), recommends Varamäki. Select bloggers who are willing to cooperate and understand your business objectives, and who produce good quality content (bloggers who write well, take nice photos and put effort into what they are doing). Try to build partnerships that benefit both parties. 

3.    Meet face-to-face: It’s important to look for opportunities to meet with bloggers face-to-face so you can get to know them and find out what they are writing about, and what interests them, says Couper. She adds that websites such as Meetup.com, Lanyrd.com and Eventbrite.com are a great resource for finding relevant blogger events that are taking place near you, helping you to test the water before holding your own event.

4.    Be precise and ask questions: “We’ve found that to attract the very best, provide them only with opportunities that we know are highly relevant and targeted to them. This is the best way to go as it means that we’re not bothering them with irrelevant campaigns and ensures that we know what they’re looking for,” says Heather Healy, creative communications director at digital marketing entity Stickyeyes. In terms of attendance at events, it works in the same way - provide bloggers with what they want and need. “The best way to find out what bloggers want? Ask them! We survey bloggers an awful lot, we ask for their honest feedback on campaigns and take lessons from there,” says Healy.

5.    Compelling content: The travel industry is fortunate in that there is generally a continually available opportunity to produce interesting content and partner with influential people to get that content discovered. Great content can be anything from an eye-catching video, the world’s best how-to guide, an interactive website or the next best thing I haven’t thought of yet. “As long as the idea behind the great idea and its execution is truly sharable and interesting, then it’s a worthwhile tactic to generate interest from consumers,” says Healy.

6.    Understand bloggers: Bloggers are a unique species, they’re similar to journalists in that they hold credibility and influence but are dissimilar in that they are, in most cases, likely to have employment elsewhere, says Healy. This means that contacting them can be challenging. It means that special consideration needs to be taken in how to best work with them but it also means that their blog is truly personal to them. They’re not the custodian of an aspect of a website or news publication; their blog is wholly owned by them and is often their pride and joy, having built it from nothing.

7.    Support bloggers: Varamäki recommends that one needs to think about how to can make work easier for bloggers. Provide them with background and support materials, photos and videos, and arrange opportunities where they can easily come up with good content (photo taking opportunities, meetings with people and so on).

Talking of an initiative featuring bloggers, online accommodation booking website Hotels.com came up with its Style Your Destination campaign, launched a couple of months ago in commemoration of International Women’s Day in Singapore. The objective was to “celebrate women” in general. Along with this the plan was to showcase ways in which travellers can make their vacation wardrobes stylish and trendy, yet comfortable. Fashion and lifestyle bloggers were given an opportunity to win prizes. They were required to showcase three separate outfits for a trip in Bali. Bloggers submitted images of their suggested outfits, which were uploaded on the Hotels.com Singapore Facebook page, where fans and readers voted for their favourite look.

Sharing how the team focused on targeting top bloggers, Rajiv Malhotra, head of marketing, Southeast Asia and India, at Hotels.com mentioned that in order to attract top online influencers to participate in this campaign, there had to be a specific and targeted approach in place.

Obviously, not every single top tier blogger was a good fit for this campaign – it very much depends on their topics of interest as well as their personality profiles, said Malhotra.

“As such, a great deal of research had to be done in terms of identifying and developing a list of target influencers we could potentially reach out to. Essentially, once we managed to create a meaningful link between the campaign and the bloggers’ interest, it made things a lot smoother and easier when it came down to securing their participation,” he added. “Nevertheless, besides their interest areas, it was also important for us to take into consideration their follower count so that we are able to maximise the potential reach of each blogger.”

Couper says however you engage bloggers, always remember that it must be a two-way process. If you want blogger campaigns to be a success, you need to involve them in the experience and find ways of actively engaging them in the conversation.

Bloggers are a crucial part of the travel ecosystem and it is important that brands approach and engage with them properly.