Corporate blogging

by Mark Frary

I have often spoken at conferences about the value of blogging for travel companies. Setting up a blog is simple on sites like WordPress and Blogger and can be done free of charge. You can even spend a little money – and I mean little – and get something looking really professional.

For example, you can host WordPress blog yourself (see wordpress.org as opposed to wordpress.com – see the difference at this link) and buy a premium theme to make your blog look really sharp.

A blog is not a blog without content. That means thinking about something to write about. Let us say you are a small company with a handful of dedicated staff selling adventure tours to Costa Rica. Or a travel company, setting up a blog is all about establishing yourself as an authority on what you are selling and sharing the experience that your customers have. It is also, crucially, about SEO.

Blogs, if they are regularly updated and are relevant, tend to do very well in natural search listings. It may sound obvious but if the potential customers of your Costa Rican tour operation are searching for “adventure holidays in Costa Rica” on Google then that is exactly what you should be writing about in your blog.

Who is going to write this, you ask? You have some great resources available to you. First, there is you. If you are the managing director of a small travel company, it is likely to be your enthusiasm and knowledge that has helped it flourish. Share that enthusiasm for your destination on your blog.

Next, there is your dedicated staff. They probably know nearly as much as you (possibly more) and market your destinations every day. Get them to write an occasional, short blog post which doesn’t detract from their everyday activities.

Finally, there is the biggest resource of all. The happy customers who are your greatest asset. If you can convince someone who has enjoyed the holiday of a lifetime with you to share their experience, what better advocate could you have?

The trick – if it can be called such - is not to make them think they are doing you a favour by writing up their trip. It is something which Ramblers Holidays has managed remarkably well.

It has created a community of storytellers – they are not called bloggers , oh no – made up of previous guests who are hand-picked to document the experience they had.

The initiative has been remarkably successful and the blog by Ramblers (see left) is now a great place to learn about what to expect when you go on one of their holidays.

They have found that their storytellers are also quite keen to share their published efforts with their friends. So that’s a tick in the SEO box and a tick in the word of mouth box.

So, when are you going to start a blog?