Travelblather

So, the Times and Sunday Times websites have now retreated behind their paywalls. I've had a busy few weeks what with one thing and another so I didn't get to look around behind them much during the free trial period which is a disappointment. As I've said in previous blog posts about paywalls and this experiment, I'm fascinated to see if it will work. In many ways I hope it does because I see it as offering a far more stable financial model - which I hope will translate into better pay rates for the writers who contribute. (Am I just kidding myself here?)

But I was really struck by a problem with this approach today. @timestravel the Times travel desk's twitter stream tweeted:

Got any questions for our panel of travel writers? They're online until 1pm: http://bit.ly/awAypw

But of course this discussion was behind the paywall. Click the link and you just got a 'subscribe for access' message.

Maybe there's a new phrase I can coin here - is this the first example of 'Anti-social media'?

Unsurprisingly the tweets that followed were just a tad sarcastic:

From @alastairmck (BGTW member and travel editor):
RT @timestravel: Got any questions for our panel of travel writers? >> behind a link that goes nowhere (unless u pay)

From @DanielPearce (editor of travel industry magazine TTG:
@timestravel Well if only we didn't have to pay to join in then!!! Hope it goes well

From @maketravelfair:
Discussing how to get into travel writing... http://bit.ly/awAypw (via @timestravel) - great! but I have to pay to participate?

As Twitter and Facebook in particular have shown, Social Media is just a fantastic way to engage with new customers, to get people who don't know about you to come on board and participate. No chance of that for the Times Travel team now. They're stuck with their own walled-in population of subscribers. This to me just seems to run totally contrarily to the way Social Media is 'supposed' to work. (If you subscribe to the points of view of people like Clay Shirky et al.)

My first instinct would be to say - keep the great content like travel features and professional opinion and advice behind the paywall and use social media to point people to landing pages that are free for all to access. Reel people in with some engaging debate and hope this will encourage people to become subscribers.

But I can see the dilemma. For the very reason that social media gets people really engaged and interested in what you're up to because it's unique and compelling, it's the kind of stuff that the bean counters and marketers at the Times will want to charge people to access. In fact some might argue that it ought to be the very lifeblood of the website. Absolutely NOT something to give away for free.

So, you can follow @timestravel on twitter, but as is the case for most newspaper and magazine twitter streams their tweets are most of the time about features they themselves have published and debates and discussion on their website. So if you aren't subscribed to The Times you just click a link that dumps you in front of the 'subscribe now' screen. I wonder if as a result they will see a drop off in twitter followers? And will their tweets become nothing more than promotional messages encouraging people to 'sign up for great debate' or whatever?

Interestingly a further tweet exchange between Kevin May editor of Tnooz suggested a degree of frustration at the situation might be creeping in.

His Tweet was asking the Times Travel desk to comment on a post on Tnooz:
What say you @timestravel to this Tnooz post from @imckee http://bit.ly/bmM5Nx

The response?
"Timestravel will have a view but you will have to pay to see what it is"

Looks like absolutely nothing is free at the Times nowadays - even a quick comment on another blog post! I wonder if this is as a result of a directive on high or just a joke? A rueful acceptance that they are kind of caught between a rock and a hard place?

Personally I think for The Times to make this paywall thing work they will need to mix it up a bit and chuck some free stuff into the mix. How they do this without meaning all the best stuff leaks out from behind the paywall I don't know.

It will be so interesting to see.

What would you do if you were in their shoes?

Regular readers will know I work quite a bit for web marketing and social media company iCrossing. One of our clients Cheapflights has just launched a new flight comparison website in the UK called zugu.

With their permission, I wanted to post some thoughts about the way they are trying to get people talking about it and using it. I'd be really interested to know what people think about their strategy. Is it smart? Will it work? What would work better? Interestingly the stated aim was to drive search volume for the term 'zugu' - not to gain sign ups or comments.

Here's what the Cheapflights crew have come up with:

• They've used a name that was memorable, unusual and that actually meant something. (Important!)
• They've created a short (just 2 weeks) competiton. People have to try and guess what zugu actually means. The winnner will get two free flights to anywhere in the world. The competition is still running now - feel free to enter! (closing date is: 5th March)
• They've come up with a series of clues to help people guess.
• They made sure people can enter several ways - twitter by using a hashtag #zugu and on a new Facebook page (see next bullet).
• The new Facebook page forms an easy to access place for people to discuss with each other about the name and learn more - there are video clips of people's entries too.
• They are also using a new twitter ID to encourage people if they are getting close to the correct answer and engage with people who are trying to guess.
• They are approaching travel bloggers and offering them an exclusive clue that they can host on their blog and share with their followers. In return they're offering to link to the blog post that the blogger writes from their Cheapflights website(s), twitter accounts, and facebook page. There's no obligation to link to zugu or cheapflights - they're just asking the bloggers to tell people to 'Search for Zugu'.
• Clues are also posted in PPC ads as well as on the zugu site itself and they change daily.
• It's not just the marketing team working to promote and create buzz - Hugo Burge Cheapflights' Chairman is tweeting as well - lots.

At first I thought it was a tad gimmicky... but I'm impressed by the thinking that's gone into the idea.


These days there's something new every second on-line and you could spend a truck load trying to promote your new venture. But strategies like this that seek to use social media are absolutely the way to go in my opinion.

Here are a few key things that I think mean the idea will gain serious traction:

• Offering a prize worth winning - you absolutely HAVE to offer people something of worth otherwise they just won't engage. Ideally something tangible and aspirational and of decent value.
• Using multiple platforms that everyone uses - whether people are on twitter or they use Facebook they can enter and engage.
• Finding a smart way to keep the competition alive - the clues are a nice idea. Particularly because they only last a short period of time. I wonder whether some enterprising bloggers will start to sniff around and find as many clues as they can and post them in one place?
• Not attaching strings - they could have gone to bloggers with a much more formal/commercial offer... maybe even offering to pay for posts. But I think offering a link with the potential for lots of traffic and NOT insisting on a link back is ethical and thoughtful. To be honest, if I were choosing  to have a clue on my blog I'd link to the zugu Facebook page anyway - seems like the obvious thing to do.
• Thinking about search as well as social (increasingly we refer to them as the ying and yang of the internet). If bloggers who host clues don't link back to zugu, then their readers will have to search for zugu to find it and enter the competition. More queries to google/bing/yahoo for the term zugu will probably help from an SEO perspective. (I am no SEO guru, but it feels to me like it ought to.)
• Getting everyone to pitch in - it says a lot that the Chairman is tweeting away and commenting on blog posts too.

So... will it work? Would you post a clue on your blog for them? And are there other good (and bad) examples of travel cos seeking to create buzz for their products online?

So... here I am sat in the pub (I am drinking coffee OK?!) I'm on the verge of relaunching Travelblather in a shiny new Wordpress skin and very excited about it. But before I do, I am rethinking the categories that I use for organising the posts on here. And I'm struggling to decide... Clearly once I make a decision I really need to stick with what I go with.

And then it occurred to me (duh!)  Why not ask the people who read Travelblather what they think? Typepad (the platform I use right now) offers some very broad categories and I've just been using them. Not much use really - you will see if you check out the 'Category cloud' down the left side of the blog that Travel gets a lot of use (no surprise) followed by Web/Tech, Journalism and Marketing. All rather meaningless.

I need to restrict myself to say 4 or 5 categories that are as distinct from each other as possible and as interesting as possible. Here are a few ideas:

• Travelwriting
• Social Media
• Marketing (or Strategy?)
• Innovation (or Ideas?)
• Monetization
• Guidebooks (Guidebook writing?)
• Opinion (or are all my posts opinionated?)
• Sponsors (do I add a category for sponsored posts? ie posts that are paid for/facilitated?) I still don't know if I want to go down this route at all... but if I do, by separating them like this it would at least make the distinction really clear. Just like a print ad in a magazine really(?)

What categories would be useful for you? What do you come to Travelblather for? What kind of stuff makes you want to read and comment? If you fancied a trawl back through the 160 or so posts on here, what categories would be handy?

I know the answer will differ for different people. I would be SO interested to know. And, by commenting you absolutely will shape the future direction too.

I have also been trying to come up with a strapline that summarises what this blog is all about too - so that new arrivals get the idea straight away (along with a page devoted to my most popular/most heartfelt posts)

• Travelblather - travel content that's connected
• Travelblather - travelwriting 2.0? (Whatever that means)
• Travelblather - working out the future of travelwriting
• Travelblather - banter between travelwriters, prs and travel cos
• Travelblather - the future of travelwriting is online
• Travelblather - apparently... it's Travel 2.0
• Travelblather - YOUR SUGGESTION HERE

(OK. I am no longer drinking coffee... I am now drinking beer.) Maybe if people do come up with some (doubtless) better ideas than mine I can select the top three and let people vote on it?

2010 will I think be a pretty interesting year for travel writers. Printed travel media continues to decline but, slowly,the web is taking up some of the slack. A trend that has really struck me here in the UK is that major travel brands are finally getting serious about social media. (US readers we're most definitely behind you guys - some of this may seem a bit *obvious* - does it?)

I can't name names, but I've seen a really definite shift - from travel companies just talking about social media to actively looking to spend serious money doing it. And I mean big players - not small niche operators. These travel companies see an opportunity in social media to participate in
the holiday-purchasing process far earlier than in the past and as a result to sell more holidays. Some of them have a far better handle on what they need to do than others - but that's a discussion I'll leave for another time.

What I wanted to highlight is that I think this is offering up opportunities for travel writers to carve themselves niches and maybe earn proper cash online(at last).

The problems for brands

1) Social media spaces are not big-brand friendly
Major travel brands might be looking to start really engaging with customers on a more personal level online, but customers for the most part won't relate to them in this way. People relate best to people (no real surprise there). What some brands are doing - with definite positive results - is allowing the people that work for them to step out from behind their corporate brand-speak and be real. To talk in their own voices. This has seen serious success for say Jetblue in the USA and easyJet in the UK who both use Twitter really effectively to help customers in far more personal and useful ways than of old.

2) Customers are looking for credible, trustworthy, unbaissed information
But worse still for brands, people want to deal with other people that they feel they
can trust. In a direct customer services environment - like the twitter examples above - then direct contact with someone clearly working for the company works just fine. But for finding holiday ideas, getting inspiration for trips, any message that has a brand associated with it will tend to
come across as a hardcore sales message. People will smell an ulterior motive and will lose
interest.

3) Brands are now publishers - but they don't know how to do it
Back in the old off-line era, travel companies might have published the odd customer magazine or whatever, but this kind of stuff was all very promotional. Generally people working in marketing departments don't really 'get' unbiassed content. Their job is to sell more product - so the messages they create usually feel very sales-like. Nowadays on the web - particularly the social web - people are looking for unbiassed, credible information to help them choose their holidays. And believe me they sure aren't finding much that's of any real use. Some commentators have gone so far to suggest that 'search is broken'.

A solution

It's obvious really. Why not use credible, experienced writers to write content for you for anything related to the inspiration phase of holiday booking? In particular content that sits in a more social media style environment? Using an expert travel writer offers the following advantages:

1) Credibility
If I'm reading stuff on a blog hosted by a travel company about say, great ideas for family holidays in Spain I'm highly unlikely to take much notice of recommendations that seem to come directly from the company itself - these messages will feel like someone is trying to sell me something. If however there's a family travel expert offering ideas and advice - with a profile that I can read and links to other stuff they have written about family travel elsewhere - then the content immediately feels more genuine. And by association the company wins too. They've taken the trouble to pay for someone who really knows their stuff to write about it to help me choose the right holiday for me.

2) Personality
People relate to people - I'm far more likely to engage with content (and potentially go on and make a purchase at some point) if I can get a feel for a real person writing it. Someone a bit like me; someone who clearly understands my needs and concerns

3) Great ideas
It's a bit of a scary uncharted place for marketers this online publishing world. But for journalists, it's home. A great travel writer can work with a marketer to come up with great ideas that will really work for their users. Great ideas that are developed primarily with the user in mind rather than a sales target.

Want to see an example of this in practice? Have a look at the way VisitFlorida uses expert writers. I love it! http://www.visitflorida.com/all_experts

How do travel writers make the best of these new opportunities? (I have a few ideas of my own which I will share in a follow-up post.)

I've been doing quite a lot of research around social media in the last few weeks - in particular because I was presenting at WTM. If you're interested, my presentation Social Media for Travel Marketers: Unpicking the 2.0 hype is available to view on Slideshare with detailed notes too.

One of the issues that I find particularly interesting is the way that whilst brands are desparate to engage with social media - social media is making brands increasingly redundant.

Marketers see social media as the next great opportunity to grow their businesses. And it's not hard to see why when you consider that Facebook now has 350 million accounts worldwide and Twitter is growing exponentially too. Some 40% of online sales are influenced by social media already (McKinsey stats -  more of this kind of stuff in the presentation).

But these very tools that travel marketers want to embrace are in some ways killing the brands they sought to build up - with vast expenditure and effort - over previous decades. Back in the old days pre the social web, big companies couldn't
communicate with all their customers on an individual basis. So they
sought to create 'personalities' - to put a friendly face on the front
of their products and companies so people could 'relate' to them. Sounds weirdly ridiculous doesn't it? But it kind of worked. The
whole discipline of brand marketing was born - humanising a faceless
company. Often they'd use 'brand personalities' - so Michael Jackson
endorsed Pepsi, Rutger Hauer came to personify Guinness and Nicole Kidman is the face of Channel No.5. Here were
real people - people like us (remember the Bisto family?) or else people we'd like to be like.
Absolutely tons of cash was pumped into this kind of marketing. (Interestingly I can think of no examples of travel brands that did this.
Can you?)

But
it was all broadcast. "This is what we want you to believe about our
company and its products" was the message. And your could control the medium so it was no problem - TV, print ads, advertising billboards. But social media isn't one-way... customers can talk back, customers can broadcast for themselves. It's a multi-channel conversation and anyone can join in.

I often think of social media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter) as being a bit like the pub. There's chat going on about all kinds of stuff. It's between like minded people and friends usually, it's relaxed and informal. They could well be discussing how cheap their new mortgage deal is or where the best resort for family holidays in Spain is. But can you imagine some bloke in a suit from say Halifax suddenly intervening with a sales pitch for his mortgages or a travel agent jumping into the conversation to suggest their latest deals for family holidays to Mallorca? (Despite the fact that the information they have to offer could actually be of genuine interest.)

Absolutely not. And that's the problem.

The old days of broadcast marketing, building a brand and pumping out your message could well be over.

So how does say First Choice or Thomas Cook get themselves into that chat in the pub about everyone's next family holiday? Could you ever see a place for a big travel brand to engage in these far more conversational and personal on-line environments?

(I have a few ideas which I'll share... but I'd be fascinated to hear what other people think!)