Starting up a travel blog is something everyone can and should do if they have dreams of traveling the world full-time. Getting the blog up and running, while time-consuming, is the easy part. Afterward comes the arduous journey of penning your thoughts and stories to paper so to speak – writing the articles. But if you’ve come that far then it’s a testament to the fact that you’re probably a fairly gifted storyteller and have a certain flair for writing. The final battle, however, is the one no one tells you about – marketing. You’ve got your stories written, but how do you get them seen?
Luckily, thanks in large part to the fact that something like a quarter of the world’s population is active on social media, you have pretty much a direct link to every reader you could possibly hope for. But engaging them isn’t as simple as it seems at first glance. It’s doable, but will require a certain amount of know-how and savvy, and we’re perfectly happy to provide you with some insights which will help you market yourself well.
Instagram – the visual marketing goldmine
It’s no secret that Instagram is hot right now. With over 800 million users, it’s the coolest platform to be using, eschewing Facebook despite the fact that they’re owned by the same person. It’s for good reason, too. Instagram’s ultra-visual format makes it ideal for sharing photos of your travels and engaging with your followers. All you need is a somewhat decent camera or a good smartphone, an eye for a beautiful image (this can be learned if you don’t have it already) and the penchant to think up some funny and catchy captions (and maybe some prowess with emojis).
Email marketing – that is, the act of sending a message via email to a group of respondents – is one of the oldest methods of marketing, at least as far as the lifespan of the internet is concerned. It’s also still one of the most effective. All you need is a good email address, which you’ll generally pick up from your web provider when you start your blog. Once you have your email list (or subscriber list), you can upload it to your social networks including LinkedIn and Twitter. This will allow you to follow your email subscribers on social media and begin to nurture and sustain relationships.
Ensure that everything you write is SEO optimized
This goes for not only social media, but the actual content of your blog too. Every post, every caption, all the metadata and the actual words you write should all be created with an SEO perspective in mind – that is, when writing you should be cognizant of the fact that this content needs to be found on social media. Optimizing your content will ensure that it ranks higher on the listings of search engines such as Google, meaning that it will be found more easily by prospecting readers.
