Not that we’re COUNTING the days until our BlogWorld Tourism Track, or anything….
Update: Well, this is annoying, but the “I’m Going” button keeps running into a digital brick wall. Phooey. Here’s the link to the Eventful page instead.
(In our Tourism Currents course – which is now open to new enrollments! – we call your online fans and supporters “online champions.” Please join us to find out more about using social media tools for connecting with visitors.)
Spend some time in the online world, and you’ll rapidly discover that those “online influencers” who all the marketing folks are chasing are only a part of the digital communications story.
Even worse, tourism PR and marketing is often fixated only on travel bloggers because they see them as an alternative to something they’re familiar with: print travel writers. They do not appreciate the possibilities offered by niche blogs, or the Long Tail’s impact on travel.
If you look beyond the Hype-o-Meter, there are plenty of people who blog sporadically, if at all, but have a significant online presence in other ways….
There are even people who are active and engaged in old-school forums and bulletin boards, like this forum on geocaching (and geocachers love to travel to new places to look for stuff.)
If you scoop them all up and dump them in one big “blogger” category like some of your less-savvy marketing peers are doing, you won’t have a complete picture of how to find those online champions.
Be smarter than that; have a more complete picture of the online space where you’re trying to compete for attention.
Some of you may have noticed the orange Alltop banner on my right sidebar, the one that says “Visit MyAlltop page.”
Alltop is a site that aggregates feeds (headlines and the first part of posts/articles) from a huge variety of websites and blogs, sorted by topic.
The founders call it an “online magazine rack,” and it is one of the best tools we recommend at Tourism Currents for finding bloggers in many different niches, from big to very focused.
Travel blogs? You’ll find plenty on the Alltop travel channel.
Skiing? Sure, there’s a Skiing channel.
New York Street Food channel? Yep. Yum!
Board games? Of course; get your chess, backgammon and other board game news on the Board Games channel.
There’s a tourism industry Alltop channel too; I helped to set it up with recommendations from experts like Todd Lucier, Sarah Page and Lara Dickson.
Wondering how to find and connect with relevant bloggers for your destination or attraction? Start with Alltop.
