Hey, I'm Ben and I wanted to start a discussion about what people to do attract more readers to their blog.
I run a travel blog ( www.thetravelpocketguide.com/ ) , and we've seen various success through different advertising channels and strategies. I thought it would be both thought provoking and beneficial to share what's worked best for our blog, and see what other people think is the best way to getting your travel blogging content seen by more people!
How do you promote your travels blogs and what works best?
Here's what strategies I've implemented:
1. Facebook groups
Not only am I posting content to other groups but I've created my own two travel groups to grow our own community and future distribution network. Of course, when sharing content to other groups you must follow the group rules and make sure the content is relevant. My two groups are called Beach Holidays, and the other is called City Breaks. I thought the beach focused group would be more appealing...
Comments
I do UGC and would be happy to chat with you about content creation!
Hi Sandra, I have sent a follow request and look forward to connecting!
Sent you a message :)
Where's the location of the hostels? We could always help out one way or the other
Its worldwide but the focus is mostly on Europe and Central AMerica for now
I think it depends on the location of the hostels, I would search on IG to find the right ambassadors that align with your needs and have the right followers for your target market.
Thank you!
There's quite a few hostel owners and hostel bloggers here in the Travel Massive community.
If I understand correctly, your business Hostelmatch is a meta-search, so the customer will book via you through an OTA such as Hostelworld or Booking?
Hostel owners kinda dislike OTAs, so I can imagine it would be difficult to get hostel owners to be supportive of promotion or willing to assist your ambassadors to create content on their premises.
Have you considered offering a direct-book method for hostels? For example, you list the Tradewinds in San Francisco (owned by @darren-overby) which run their own direct booking software. If you included a direct book link then people like Darren would be more likely to get on board.
Thank you for the comment Ian. That is exactly right.
We are however opening up direct bookings with hostels on their websites where hostels provide customers a 10-15% discount and customers are redirected directly to the hostel website for the cheapest price.
It saves hostel commission costs and removes OTA's from the equation and provides backpackers the best deal online.
I'd love to connect with @darren-overby to chat more about this!
See this travel blogger agency site I co-founded more than a decade ago and contact the person listed there. www.360travelnetwork.com
You'd probably have good success attending TBEX or the Bansko Nomad Fest too.