The world of travel blogging looks really fancy from the outside but it isn’t all mountain roads and beach parties. For many, travel is their passion and they go miles to explore new places. They have to work hard to fund their travel, engage with their audience, live out of a suitcase and multitask on the go. However there are various tools that can make things less challenging if not exactly butter smooth and here we have listed down some of them:

1- Trello

Travel bloggers don’t always write about travel experiences. Often they talk about other things that relate to travel and the ideas come at the weirdest of times. However when it comes to writing on those topics, most people can’t recall the details or even remember the exact topic. This is where Trello comes in. It allows you to organise your ideas in lists and makes the job of managing an editorial calendar very easy. You can add cards under these lists and write down all the ideas there. It can be accessed via web or through its neat mobile app.

2- BuzzSumo

Being a travel blogger, if you are dependent on website ads to generate some money, you need traffic. And to get that you need to tell interesting stories and share exciting ideas. But along with that you also need to understand what people are reading and sharing. BuzzSumo helps you with the same. You can enter the topic and find out what kind of articles people have shared around it over a specific time period. This helps in getting inspiration for title and also gives a perspective of what else the readers want to know about.

3- Egg timer

It is hard to find time for writing long stories or editing videos on the go. Bloggers have to squeeze in time to write when they are travelling and that is where a tool like egg timer can be of great help. If you think you will need an hour to finish the blog post, you can set the timer for the same and it will notify you when you are out of time. While it might not appear to be something that would make a significant difference, being against the clock forces you to ignore the distractions and focus on writing. If it doesn’t work for you, there is ‘The Most Dangerous Writing App’. You select the time you need to finish your writing and start typing. If you take a long pause in between, it will delete everything you have written and you would have to start fresh.

4- Grammarly

No matter how long you have been writing for, there will be something that you can fix or improve in the first draft. However it is hard to spot them immediately after you have finished writing. On top of that, if you have tried to finish your write-up quickly, there will be errors like missing punctuations and typos. Grammarly makes it easy to edit text when you are trying to squeeze everything in that 1 hour you got in the hotel lobby before you set off for rest of the day. It easily spots certain elements that one might miss and if you get the paid version, it goes full proof-reader on your text.

5- Pixlr

Good travel stories need good images and the photos that come out of camera or mobile phone aren’t always at their best. They require some tweaking and that poses the need of an image editor. No doubt Photoshop is a great tool in the right hands but it requires time and a powerful laptop. It is better to have a simpler tool, probably cloud based, that would run seamlessly on a less powerful device. Pixlr is a web based image editor that offers good number of editing options to the user. If you are looking to handle the job on your mobile or tablet, you can give Pixlr a pass and use Snapseed. You can find more photography tools here.

6- Buffer

What good is a story without the readers! While it is important to post updates from your blog on your social media accounts, it is also important to do it at the right time to gain maximum visibility. Buffer allows you to schedule your social media updates for the right time so that they get maximum visibility even when you are not available to post them manually. Hootsuite is also a good alternative to buffer.

What other tools help you keep your blog running seamlessly while on the go? Do share with us.

The post 6 amazing tools that will simplify the life of travel bloggers appeared first on TravHQ.

Earlier this month, Dave Brett, popular British travel blogger organised Travel Blogger Retreat on the tropical island of Koh Phangan, Thailand. The idea was to bring together like minded travel bloggers so that they share their experiences and learnings with others.

Travel Bloggers have a very important role to play in our industry as they drive inspiration for a large number of travellers. At times they also serve as a channel between destinations and target audience. We got in touch with Dave to know more about the event. Here is an excerpt from the conversation:

What was the whole idea behind Travel Blogger Retreat?

The whole idea behind travel bloggers retreat was to create a collaborative learning environment where we could pin a space to gather like-minded travel bloggers who were looking to learn, network as well as having a lot of fun exploring a new location all over the course of one set week.

7 days is a lot of time. What can one expect to take away from the experience?

The idea was to create a sort of hacker camp, a space where we could all live in one location which means it would make it easier to network together, many meetings were held in the pool! Each day would remain flexible (nothing was compulsory to attend so you could work on your blog in your beach front bungalow room if you wish to). Having one lecture, one round table discussion and then one activity each day that you could attend over one week was enough so that it wasn’t overwhelming but remained useful. This creates a relaxing retreat atmosphere and allowed those to learn when they wanted, relax when they could, focus on their travel blogging business where they can and party when you wanted to let your hair down, a program that seemed to work for everyone rather well.

It happened at a time when Thailand also had #TBEX2015. What’s the connect?

This has been a great year for Travel bloggers and Thailand, so much happening and Thailand is now on the map as a popular Digital Nomad, travel blogging location to be based, it has so much to offer.

October is low season here in Thailand, local Thai businesses are always open at looking into creating something unique to bring visitors over and make the most out of all year round Thai smiles. I was lucky to notice a lot of my close travel blogging friends were heading to Thailand and wanted to enjoy the islands way of Thai life for a few weeks before arriving and I noticed the two opportunities and put them together. This is normally how these crazy ideas come about and I’m happy that it all came together so nicely, always good when a plan comes together.

What was the driving factor for Travel Bloggers to participate in Travel Blogger Retreat?

Travel blogging can be a lonely world, especially when you’ve been backpacking and running your travel blog alone. It’s a good idea to reach out to other bloggers and form a close circle with other bloggers you like to network with.

I’ve noticed from my past experience that when you sit down with other bloggers and discuss the issues that you’re facing it’s quicker to resolve these issues, it’s quicker to work out things together rather than alone. I had been blogging on my own since 2-3 years in Holland and never met another travel blogger but when I finally flew over to Chiang Mai and networked with other travel bloggers I quickly discovered smarter new ways of doing things and this helped my travel blogging business excel quicker.

How was the response to this year’s edition?

This year we were overwhelmed to gain 35 attendees at the Travel Bloggers Retreat, which is fantastic for the first edition, we hope to increase this number in 2016 but only by a little to make it more exclusive and still retain the Retreat vibe.

Can guest speakers nominate themselves to speak on various categories or was it an invite only thing?

I’m a big fan of carefully selecting the guest speakers to retain value in the speakers, that’s why this year all the speakers were close friends of mine and I specifically selected them not based on the level of their following or engagement, but because I knew they had passion in the area that they wished to teach and that I knew that they would have time to help the attendees and to offer value in them being in a smaller more exclusive one on one focused retreat. It also allowed me to gain confidence in the event that it would be of high value as the speakers themselves have inspired me personally and I knew we would form a good fun team that would make the event purely awesome. In the end, this was a good move and worked well, I’m so happy to have had a great selection of guest speakers and a good bunch of attendees that all shared the same vision in the event.

However the round table discussions were based on an open mic voting system and anyone could step up to the table to host a discussion, this went very well and created a different learning environment. This created some great discussions and were completely off the wall and interesting to be a part of, such as Todd hosting the Periscope discussion. Now I see all the attendees taking part in Periscope, it’s fantastic!

There were plenty of interesting workshops taking place – Is there a place where one can access these presentations or recorded videos?

I am currently working on creating a blog post resource to find all the lectures and talks online with all the notes, you can start by visiting http://traveldave.co.uk/ebook for my talk on how to kick start your first ebook, November is the writing month, so join in the fun and get excited to write your first ebook, a great passive income way to bring revenue to your travel blog.

Lastly, why Koh Phangan?

Koh Phangan is world famous for its full moon bucket parties, but the island has so much more to offer so it was a fun destination to explore this side with travel bloggers, the island needed some discovery, promotion and makes a perfect relaxing location to be for a week, its tropical paradise with stunning sunsets, beautiful beaches, great tasty local food and fun parties when you want to let your hair down, Koh Phangan has everything to offer.

You can read more about the event on Dave’s blog here. For more questions, you can tweet to him @traveldaveuk.

The post TravHQ Talks: TravelDave shares his inspiration behind Travel Blogger Retreat appeared first on TravHQ.

Travel brands host various events and meetups to bring together influential people associated with the industry. This gives them an opportunity to network with them and leverage their following for spreading the word about the brand. Not only that but such events bring them meaningful input about the brand and industry. We guide you on how you can get the most out of your bloggers meet.

If you are a travel brand, there are good chances that you have hosted a bloggers meet sometime in the past. Even if you haven’t, you must have come across the news of some other brand hosting a meetup and maybe even considered doing the same. Such events are a great way to connect with people and take your brand to a large number of audience. Bloggers also love to be a part of such meetups because they get to meet like-minded people, expand their network and learn from other people’s experiences. So clearly it is a win-win situation for both the parties involved. But there is lot more involved in hosting a bloggers meet than just inviting some people for a chat over lunch at a fancy hotel. Here are some pointers to consider before you host your next bloggers meet.

(Image: writing by pedrosimoes7/ CC BY 2.0)

Get bloggers involved

That sounds a little obvious, isn’t it? Getting bloggers involved is the whole idea behind bloggers meet but that isn’t exactly what we mean here. We are suggesting that you get bloggers involved even in the planning process. Going out trying to figure everything by yourself is a definite way to burn your time and energy. You might have some blogger friends, guest bloggers who write for your website or maybe bloggers you know from the past bloggers meets. They can provide useful inputs for the meet you are planning to host and might also help you with the list of invitees.

What’s your bloggers’ mix?

You are a travel brand and cater to travellers (and tourists), so inviting a good number of travel blogger makes perfect sense. But you need to make sure that your list includes other types of bloggers as well. That fancy restaurant in your hotel would get more love from a food blogger than a travel blogger. Who knows, a mention on their blog might bring in more local customers rushing to your restaurant. Maybe you can learn a thing or two to serve your customers better. Even when it comes to travel bloggers, you will come across different kinds. Some might have a strong following on Instagram, some might have a YouTube channel with amazing videos while some might be experts at wordplay. Make sure you don’t miss out on the relevant ones for your brand.

Marketing bloggers can provide inputs on the serious side of your business. They take the market trends seriously and associating with them would definitely do some good to your brand. Some of them might be avid travellers too. Travel and photography go together so obviously some photo bloggers have to be a part. You don’t want every blogger to write the same thing about your event and this is how you can ensure that.

Social following isn’t everything

If you are tempted to invite some bloggers because of their following on Twitter or Facebook, think again. What is more important is their content niche and how well they connect with their community. Some of them are just contest freaks who post hundreds of tweets around a particular brand and then switch to some other one. If they keep following this pattern, a good number of followers start ignoring their posts (or is it just me?) and maybe even stop engaging. A quick look at their followers will also reveal how many of them are genuine and whether the followers themselves have some reach.

(Image: Social Media apps by Jason Howie/CC-BY 2.0)

Major brands usually associate with travel bloggers having a strong following and thus they are writing lot of sponsored posts and guest posts. There is an obvious point here. If two people expect us to do the same thing and the first one is paying, he will sit higher on our priority list. You will have to consider the fact that the super famous twitter stars might not go back home and write about your event or brand. We are not saying they would not, but they might not.

Avoid using platforms

Go to Google, type in ‘bloggers meet’ and you will find many blogger platforms that will let you connect with bloggers and easily host a meetup. It is tempting for sure but might not yield the best results because they have a huge pool of bloggers from across categories which is why there are good chances of a spill over. Nothing can beat your own research and outreach. The relationship that you will establish with them will have a long term sustenance. You need the bloggers to have a personal connection with your brand, not with the agency or platform you used.

Hashtag

You must have decided on a particular hashtag for the bloggers to use while they live tweet during the event. Create buzz about this hashtag well in advance. This will involve the bloggers and the audience who can follow the event. Apart from responding to your invite, request them to RSVP via twitter as well using the hashtag. If you do this, the guests will be able to find out who will be present at the event and will have a chance to connect with them before or after the event. This will make the meet more interactive.

(Image: Twitter Buttons by garrettheath/CC BY 2.0)

Make sure you use a single hashtag and make it consistent for all the event related activity, keeping it short & simple for obvious reasons.

Define expectations

What do you expect from the bloggers? Do you want them to live tweet? Do you want them to write about you after the meet? It is advisable to clearly define what you expect from the bloggers that are a part of the event. They understand the fact that you want to reach more people through them and that is why you are putting your resources into it. Mentioning the same in your invite would be good.

Ensure presence of your key people

It is very important that the key people of your company are present at the bloggers meet. This would definitely increase the conversations at the event and your takeaway from the meet. Try to have a personal connect with the guests and make sure the meet doesn’t turn into a boring formal one.

Follow up

Make sure someone from your team gets in touch with the guests after the event and thank them for being a part. Ask about their experience, share some pictures from the event and ask them for pictures. Avoid sending bulk mails for that. This would also give a chance to follow up with them and know if they posted on their blog about the event. If they haven’t, this could serve as a reminder to them about the same.

Follow these little tips and you are sure to make the most out of your bloggers meet. Have anything else to add to the list? Do let us know.

The post Here is how you can host the perfect bloggers meet appeared first on TravHQ.