buzz-worthy vacations that you can afford

My Value Luxury colleagues and I often discuss what would make an ideal blog trip. I think we agree that the best visits to a destination occupy the space somewhere between being blindfolded and dropped out of an airplane into the middle of a foreign country with a few days’ supply of bread and water, and an aggressively scheduled press junket.

With the Flanders is a Festival campaign, Visit Flanders working with Think! Social Media’s Amsterdam office, took a unique approach to working with bloggers. Travel and music bloggers were hosted for week long visits to Belgium throughout the summer to attend and cover 280 plus music festivals held throughout the region.

The vast size of the task in attempting to match each unique blogger with the right festival, based on demographics, geography and schedules, was undoubtedly not easy. I was invited to attend July’s Gent Jazz Festival, but as a travel blogger, my agenda was more “travel” focused, with me visiting four different cities during my week long stay.

In my mind, there are three distinct types of coverage that can be generated from any blogger campaign. Here I will discuss each, and how the approach of Flanders is a Festival, a campaign designed for a wide demographic of bloggers, got it right.

On the spot coverage via social media. (such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, FourSquare, etc.)

When I arrived at my hotel in Antwerp I was greeted not by a tourism representative (it was a Sunday), but with a bag that contained a mother lode of brochures. The real gem was at the bottom of the bag:

A mifi, a personal wifi device was provided to each blogger to use during their stay in Flanders.

A Michelin dining experience couldn’t have pleased me more. Why? Because a mifi device made it easy for me to do my job well. Also I didn’t have to worry about coming home to a cellphone bill that resembled a mortgage statement.

With my personal wifi close by, I gleefully tweeted from train platforms. I “Twit-picked” and “Instagrammed” pictures of my meals in Gent and my bed at the Plaza Hotel in Brussels (instead of jumping on it.) I did several FourSquare checkins each day  – all for the simple reason that I could.

When the internet at one of my hotels wasn’t working, it wasn’t a problem to get online and upload a few pictures and answer some emails. (Word of warning – I did have to get my device reloaded mid-week – uploading pictures takes a lot of broadband.) Given the investment of resources on everyone’s part, the last thing a destination or hotel wants is to be the named culprit in any blogger’s story or Tweet about “the time the hotel wifi didn’t work.”

Blog posts that are written and posted before, during or soon after a trip.

Hammered out on hotel beds and airplanes, or in the middle of the night while recovering from jet lag, these are the kind of posts people most associate with travel blogging. They may have a travel journal feel to them, or may be more of a traditional travel article. The exact content and style can (and should) vary from one writer to the next.

In order to get the best results from this second kind of coverage, it’s important for the host to be clear with the blogger about their expectations. Equally as crucial, the host needs to do what they can to ensure the blogger can maximize their time at a given location. Micromanaging the heck out of the blogger’s arrival and first impression will serve both parties well.

For a trip where the blogger will be expected to deliver somewhat independently, assistance would include the host providing the blogger with a pocket map and one relevant brochure. Even better, would be a list of five or so ideas of things to do specifically curated for an individual blogger and their niche. A fact sheet about things like traditional dining hours, transportation, not so safe neighborhoods, and days that museums are closed would be incredibly useful and appreciated. Less is more in this case (ahem – easy on the brochures), so important and relevant information can easily be found.

In the instance of more organized group trips, where blogging on the spot and beyond is part of host expectations, I would suggest that “maximizing a blogger’s time” means being sure to schedule plenty of free time. One thing I really appreciated about being able to schedule my own downtime during my Flanders is a Festival tour, was I spent it in places like this:

Travel blogger's idea of multitasking: Downtime, note taking, and fruity lambic beers in Burg Square in medieval town of Brugge. (and sharing it all on social media too, of course)

Blog posts, stories for other online and/or print outlets that come months to two years or so later.

I always come home with enough to write about, but rarely with so many formed ideas that were well suited for The Travel Belles’ niche. Pictures and mentions of the four cities I visited in Flanders (Antwerp, Brugge, Gent and Brussels) will likely make appearances on The Travel Belles’ site and Facebook page, where we share two or three pictures a day, for a while now.

The more independent and long-producing any visiting blogger is expected or hoped to be, the more crucial initial vetting on the part of PR to discover the right bloggers for a particular campaign becomes. As a blogger, the more I feel as if the host is trying to build a relationship and being respectful of my time and what I have to offer throughout the campaign, the more likely it is that the results will meet everyone’s goals and expectations.

Some results will be immediate with trackable ROI. Some results will be more long in coming, the seeds of which can be found not just in my notebook full of ideas and hundreds of photographs, but in conversations on Facebook, and even in things like me telling my American Express card wielding book club, multiple first hand gleaned reasons why they must plan a shopping trip to Brussels.

Standing room only at Gent Jazz Festival

The Flanders is a Festival campaign as a whole played perfectly into my writerly sensibility that each moment has a story to tell, and it was a true gift as a travel blogger to be given enough space to hear them. My memories are not of speeding from point to point to stay on a schedule; instead they are of things like following the smell of chocolate shops and waffles in the rain.

My travel blogging and influencer sensibility left Belgium satisfied as well: Flanders will long be on the tip of my tongue when it comes to recommending places to travel. And I, for one, would be fine with this mutually beneficial approach to hosted blogger trips becoming a trend.

Want some help brainstorming ideas for
your own writers-in-residence campaign?
Take a look at our media kit and then get in touch – we’d love to chat!

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Hawaii’s island of Lanai once again hosted its “Writers in Residence” program for the second year in a row, and this year the Value Luxury Travel Network had representation in the program.

Chris Gray Faust participated in the first year’s program (here’s a flashback to her coverage), and this year Andy Hayes (that’s me!) was a group representative – click here to see my coverage, which just finished.

How the Writers in Residence Program Works

There are multiple “writers in residence” programs out there, but here’s how the Visit Lanai program works:

• The destination choose a set of writers for the year’s program.  Each writer (and their optional guest, since the trip is for 1 week) is slotted into a month on the calendar, so that no two writers are traveling at the same time.
• Writers exchange details so that each can support and promote the others while in residence.
• Writers work with the destination to prepare an itinerary suiting their own interests and specialties.
• Each writer travels and the others share their content and continue in a dialogue until it is their turn.  In the Lanai case, other Hawaiian bloggers and locals also got involved.
• Writers do real-time  updates in the destination – from tweets and instagram posts,to uploading and processing photos, video, or shorter articles.
• Writers do a traditional trip followup on featured coverage as well as continued posts on social media.

For projects like these, fees are usually determined based on the amount of work requested from the writer and are generally paid as a per diem.

Results

This year’s program is still finishing up, but just a few examples of the results already achieved:

• A Flickr gallery (updated daily during the trip) with over 1,000 reviews
• A series of 5 featured articles, covering both service pieces and inspirational essays, as well as one of our longest photo essays with almost 150 likes on Facebook.  The series has received over 10,000 views, with an email newsletter promotion still forthcoming.
• Real-time Twitter engagement before, during, and after the trip via the hashtag, #VisitLanai, as well as Instagram and Facebook.
• Participation in a group Pinterest board, Visit Lanai.

And all that is just post-trip coverage; from remaining online promotions to continued traction on search engine traffic means we’ll continue to see our readers considering the island of Lanai for their travels.

Would a Writers in Residence Program Work for you?

Are you wondering if a “writers in residence” style program would work for you?  Here are just a few of the benefits of the program:

• Allows you to get multiple perspectives on your product or destination.  Writers can all travel at the same time to intensify the coverage, or trips can be spread out to smooth out coverage flow.
• Writers have more time to prepare additional marketing materials for you – that might be on site photography, content for your Facebook pages, news for your Twitter stream, photos for Pinterest boards, or blog posts for your blog.
• Targeted writers in the value luxury market can help extend your high season or attract travelers from unique niches.

Want some help brainstorming ideas for
your writers in residence campaign?
Take a look at our media kit and then get in touch – we’d love to chat!