When it comes to travel blogging, there are so many pieces out there advising those starting out how exactly they should write and perform in order to boost their visitor numbers and get paid partnerships with big brand names.
However, a lot of these pieces miss out one key thing about travel blogging and travel marketing: the audience. If you don’t have a genuinely enthused and interested audience, your marketing strategies will fall apart – and fast. That’s why we wanted to create this guide to travel marketing and give you 7 ways to engage an audience.
- Make your posts frequent
One sure way to make your audience disengaged is to post infrequently and sporadically. The best way to engage an audience in terms of content is to make content frequent and scheduled.
For example, nominate three days of the week where you’ll post something for certain, and pick a time to post them at. This provides an audience with some kind of routine and also the incentive to comeback to your blog and keep reading it.
2. Make your posts about unique places/areas
If you really want to engage an audience, you’ll need to have some unique ideas for the topics of your blogs or posts. No reader wants to keep reading the same content about one place of the world (Rome, for example) and all of the top attractions there.
Pick out some cool places that are a little off the beaten track and you can create amazing travel content, like this site in particular. Before you know it, you’ll have reader comments and shares because they are engaged with this new information you’ve provided.
3. Incorporate a range of media into your posts
Readers easily get bored. In a world where anything and everything is available at the tip of your fingers, reading words off a page is no longer enough to keep many people interested. You need to be even more creative and incorporate a range of media formats into your posts.
Include visual content such as photos,videos and podcasts in your posts and on your website in order to engage an audience. The more variety there is, the more engaged they will be.
4. Make sure you use a light, humorous style
You’re not writing a serious news article for a national newspaper, so you don’t need to be using some sophisticated style of writing when posting. When it comes to travel audiences, readers always enjoy alight, friendly style of writing. And they like a bit of humour too, so humble them and write in this style.
Don’t think that you have to sound intellectual in order to engage your audience and make them digest what you’re saying. Be conversational in your writing and you’ll have a relationship built up with your audience that you’ll be engaging them without even realizing.
5. Give away all of your secrets
One tried and tested way to engage an audience is to give them all of your secrets. Audiences love it when they get let in on information not many people have access to. So, all of your top travel tips will have to be shared, and any embarrassing travel stories must come to light also.
This is a way to engage your reader with you as a writer too, not just your content. By doing this, you’re more likely to receive a larger following on social media and have returning readers as well.
6. Make your descriptions rich
When it comes to modern travel writing, a lot has changed from the past. Nowadays, it’s all about what you saw and what you ate on what day. Travel writing (in many cases) has become like a diary. This isn’t the best way to engage an audience who enjoys travelling.
Instead, you should make your descriptions of a destination rich and clever. Make them deep and allow them to capture the essence of a city, town or country. Don’t be afraid to be creative and write flowing paragraphs on the beauty of a view. It’s worth it and will get more engaged readers than anything else out there.
7. Invite fellow travel bloggers to feature on your blog
Finally, one more way to engage an audience is to invite other travel bloggers to write for you, or blog with you. It will show them someone new, or indeed bring over new readers to you. It’s a great way to add to your site’s ability to engage with an audience as it shows yet another unique part of your blog.
Good luck!