Our Best Face Forward

In order to stay relevant with our base and to provide them with the services that keeps them coming back for more, we need to ensure that we leverage our presence online as effectively as possible. For that we need to contend with two competing trends that have emerged in the online realm: media convergence, or ‘the flow of content across multiple media platforms’ that has resulted in much of our content becoming consolidated into fewer outlets, and the myriad of platforms that have sprung up due to rising tech-literacy and lower barriers to entry. 
 

So we need to cast our net wide; we need a fairly extensive online presence so that we can reach our audience in the places they congregate. As we’ve mentioned previously, we will be using Twitter as a means of facilitating engagement with our audience. Through the use of hash tags we can invite them to contribute their own content by way of stories and advice. But Twitter is also useful because it allows us to drive traffic towards our other online properties. We can also use Facebook for this purpose. These sites are invaluable because that is where most young Australians spend their time. 

Of course, it’s no use funneling traffic if we don’t have a primary destination that will be the base of all our operations. This function will of course be served by our main website/blog. To build the actual site we have decided to use Tumblr because it allows a large degree of customisation and also have a very active community that frequently shares content between users. As for the layout of the site, we can take our cues from other sites. What we’d like to do for our site is to offer a variety of services, such as reviews for different sites and how-to guides. For ease of navigation we’re going with a tab system at the top of the page buttons with leading to the different pages, similar to what Tripadvisor has. 

We could also use a feature used by Travel This World, a travel blog on Tumblr that allows users to choose their destination through dropdown menus. 

Similar to Travel This World and sites like Pinterest, another option we can choose is a canvas layout that is more pictorially dominated. 

Images are more easily digestible and can get our points across more quickly. With each individual post, we will be opening up the comments feature for the readers to discuss each post and add their own thoughts.

The Nitty Gritty II: Types of content

Just to pick up where Emily left off in terms of content, we narrowed our scope of which online platforms are specifically affecting the way people are traveling, and how - before, during and after. Our feature will do so by our 'how-to' guides to these online platforms and other words of advice; in doing so, we are essentially becoming part of the change ourselves, and that's worth analyzing - so meta. 

Essentially, our content can be organized in these categories: 'How-to' guides, interviews / guest posts and featured articles.

'How-to' guides

We're writing our guides on the following platforms (a good selection seeing as they're different from each other): Couchsurfer, Tripadvisor, Thorntree, Airbnb and CoLunching. We should be as unbiased and informative as possible, but also with a sense of lightheartedness and fun! Just as travel should be too. Our guides will typically have the standard 'guide' around its website, its pros and cons, and interviews with people who has participated in the site.

For example...Couchsurfer

"Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."

- Miriam Beard

Couchsurfer has connected people in a tight knit community with a genuine interest in cultural understanding and forming meaningful friendships, rather than shallow (generally speaking), commercial tourism that is so prevalent today. It's really more than just a platform for cost-free accommodation, but really getting the opportunity to explore a foreign place at the heart of it. It's changed a certain type of people to travel in a certain type of way; by this I mean that it's worthy of note that according to CouchSurfing statistics, 'the average CouchSurfer is 28, and almost 70% are between 18 and 29' and are generally known as 'open-minded, hippy, free, ‘Burning Man’ type of people', whilst 'Airbnb, you get more ‘regular’ people, just looking to make a buck or save a buck'.

From there, our guides could include:

- How to navigate the website and to get involved in the community (which is seemingly really 'exclusive', re: Will CouchSurfing Ever Be The Same Again?)
- The risks of using Couchsurfer - particularly for women...? (See: How risky is Couchsurfing in India?)
- Maybe a fun quiz on whether you are suited to be a Couchsurfer? Not everyone can be a sofa/bathtub/hard wooden floor gypsy.
- Etiquette of being a Couchsurfer / first time Couchsurfing jitters
- Some lighthearted videos on hosting an actual Couchsurfer / the adventures of a Couchsurfer (Long read, but worth the skim: I Couch-Surfed Across America—and Lived to Tell).

And this is just Couchsurfing! All these things can be done for other platforms, but using a different approach depending on their purpose.

Interviews / Guest posts

Like Myvawny mentioned, we should interview people (or invite them to be a guest blogger - to give our site a different voice) about their use and interaction with social media, and how that has affected their travel experience (Travel bloggers and writers). These people (who have credibility and an established readership) could give first hand experience and advice, as well as funny anecdotes (as Myvawny mentioned - travel fails, anyone?) that always make a good read.

I think it'd also be worthwhile interviewing someone much older than us (and comparing then and now), about how people traveled before social and online media. My grandma always reminded me of how she walked from Hong Kong to Shenzhen back in the day - no, no Google maps, and definitely no Tripadvisor!

Featured articles

This will probably be on our homepage, a constant flow of blog posts and critical articles about all things social media and travel related - again, informative, thought provoking, but also lots of fun to read. For example:

- We could analyze how social media affects a person's experience, not only before, but while they travel. On one hand, people are obsessed with constantly updating their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram which might 'ruin' (subjective) their holiday experience; but on the other hand, it is a good tool for documenting your experience and sometimes it might serve as a cure for homesickness - particularly for backpackers.
- Thanks to websites like Atlas Obscura and Couchsurfer, people have become more so 'explorers'/'travelers' rather than tourists (Is there a difference?), wanting an actual meaningful cultural experience, which means they sought out more unique places to visit rather than tourist hot spots.
- A fun article on the types of travelers? Here's one:

A not so lonely planet: a unique feature idea

One of the most important aspects of our feature is ensuring we have a point of difference from other travel websites. Obviously, and this is something we established early on, the Internet is saturated with travel websites - whether these are services like Couch Surfing , flight aggregators like Webjet, travel blogs like Ben Groundwater's The Backpacker or travel writing sites such as the one hosted by The New York Times.

Whilst the topic of travel is incredibly popular on the Web, what travelling means to people, how they choose to do it and what they get out of it is an incredibly rich area and one that I think can be mined endlessly for material. New areas of the world are always being opened up to travel, as well as new methods of travelling, so I think it is fair to say there is never a danger of running out of things to say.

Our feature will also differ from all those others types of sites mentioned above because of its impartiality. We have no vested interest in getting people to use AirBnb, for example. Therefore, our feature is valuable because it will offer an unbiased review of these types of services - the advantages, the disadvantages, ease of use and the experiences of other travellers. Whilst other travel websites have occasionally referred to these services, quality review is rare. Another bonus of our site is that we will be reviewing multiple sites - meaning that our site will be a kind of 'one-stop shop' for travellers wishing to find out about more authentic, more sustainable, more off-the-beaten-tracks ways of travelling.

Travel 2.0: Creating travel communities

I thought I would also write a little bit about the necessity to create a ‘community’ in order to ensure the success of our feature.

Everywhere on the web, and more specifically in travel, sites that connect individuals across the world are taking over even the big search engines as the online destinations of choice. This phenomenon has been nicknamed ‘Travel 2.0” (see descrption here)  - a play on Web 2.0- the name given to websites that are all about social networking, online communities, slick technologies and user-powered content.

The success of early 2.0 sites like MySpace and Bebo have spawned a number of similar sites, a lot of which now have a focus on travel. They include 43places.com, where you learn what 43 places that thousands of travellers are planning to visit, their stories, and their reasons for going.

Another popular one is tripmates.com, which includes travel reviews, photos, and blog, and has a useful tool which will put you in touch with locals and other travellers if you may be going solo.

Lastly, gusto.com, aims to connect you with other people who have similar travel preferences and lifestyles.

Even though our site is offering a new service in the form of our how-to guides, I think it is important that we still try to build up a sense of community to ensure our audience’s continued interaction with our site.

The first method of doing so, (which most of the above sites have employed), is to create a forum. Which will be doing. Incorporating social media sites like Facebook, twitter and Flickr will also help achieve this, and we should use these platforms to encourage interaction, participation and feedback from our users. For example users can post tips, questions and photos on Facebook and Twitter when they are on the move. We could also hold competitions (such as ‘Name this city’ or caption competitions) that will further user engagement, increase publicity and also build a sense of community. In doing this, our social networks will not feel like passive, redundant separate entities, but rather complements our feature in a productive way.

The Nitty Gritty: Content for A-Not-So-Lonely-Planet

I suppose one of the most important, difficult but still exciting parts of this feature is deciding what we are actually going to talk about! Our topic is quite extensive, with travel being one of the big crazes on the Internet these days (probably second only to food), so this does leave us at risk of attempting to take on more than we can handle.

In terms of which platforms we are going to cover in our main ‘how-to’ guides, I think it is important to stick with sites that promote/ pertain to the travelling themes that we are hoping to study and celebrate through our investigation. We started brainstorming ways that we felt travel was changing and came up with these three main things…

People are travelling more:

1.     Knowledgeably

2.     Diversely  

3.     Connectedly (creating travelling networks)

And we can see these themes of travel through the online services that are popping up. TripAdvisor is allowing people to travel with a greater knowledge of places- where to go, where to stay, what to do. Couch Surfing is providing a new way of travel, diversifying the travel experience. And CoLunching is an online tool for making connections and networks with other travellers whilst you are overseas. This is why we will include these sites.

It is important that the platforms we choose are not only beneficial as practical guides for consumers, but also to act as case studies for our investigation into the new travel experience (i.e. showing these themes).

AirBnB and Thorntree are also platforms which highlight the implementation of our investigation themes into practical use.

It is for this reason that I believe we should stay away from examining and including information about traditional travel institutions that have moved online e.g. the flight centre website. This is because they are not services that are changing the way we travel in the ways listed above, but instead are traditional services that are being changed by the online world.

When examining and discussing this content however, it is important to give an as unbiased and honest analysis as possible, in order to establish ourselves as credible and ensure that a-not-so-lonely-planet becomes a trusted ‘tool’ for consumers. Whilst we are on the one hand celebrating these new travel experiences, we cannot forget to also take a critical look at the phenomenon too.

For example, we should include this article on the dangers of airBnB, http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/31/another-airbnb-victim-tells-his-story-there-were-meth-pipes-everywhere/ . We could also discuss the way a lot of forum-type travel sites (such as Thorntree or TripAdvisor) are at risk of spamming (particularly from competitors) or using other dirty tactics to get ahead. The founder of AirBnB has been accused of spamming (read article here)  This topic of spamming and manipulation of search engines relates nicely to the lecture in Week 3- this could be something we discuss!

All our other content should be displayed in the form of our main blog, and as we discussed it will be a combination of interviews, articles, posts and infographics that all relate to our overall investigative idea. Having this mixture of content forms will ensure diversity and interest for audience. 

Some ideas for inspiration for this section:

1. I found an interesting article about how the internet mobile is changing travel creating a mobile, connected traveller. This topic fits out investigative themes, and I think it would be really interesting looking at the transition of internet travel ideologies to mobile devices. It's not something we have thought about but definitely worth a look! (read article here). I also found a pretty cool infographic which maps the progression of some of the online platforms we are looking at onto mobile devices, as well as some other interesting statistics

2.  Here is an article thats pretty interesting.... http://ezinearticles.com/?Online-Hotel-Reservations-Systems-Have-Changed-The-Travel-Industry&id=5093459

3.   Another topic I thought of was the death of the travel agent, with sites like kayak and Wikipedia are allowing more consumer control. This topic has been briefly discussed here

Whilst these are only suggestions I know our FABULOUS journalists will come up with a thousand more. Great job guys- lovely ideas coming along

Emily

Our target audience

I am all for Myvawny's idea of writing the feature as a kind of 'how to' guide for travellers using online media.

Bibek's idea of the 'top ten' mistake posts also sounds really interesting, and is exactly the kind of thing young travellers are going to want to read about.

Now, onto our target audience. 

Hint - it isn't the woman in red...

Given the 'how to' interactive style of our blog, I think we need to target young people who are clearly interested in travel  - whether they are travellers themselves, or plan to travel in the near future.

While gender won't come into play, I believe we should target our audience as approximately 18 to 30 year olds. This would take into account the age at which young Australians are most likely to travel for the first time, which the ABS has conveniently broken down for us here as those in their mid to late twenties.

This audience is prolific with social media, but may not have such a comprehensive understanding of online travel platforms, and therefore our 'how to' style will be both practical and interesting.

The importance of targeting a niche online audience has been comprehensively explored,but this article by Ember Television gives a good rundown of how more narrowly defined interests will satisfy a smaller, but more likely loyal and economically productive, following online.

This also buys into the Web 2.0 idea that the internet is increasingly becoming based around - and expectant of - highly personalised experiences.

Therefore, for our purposes of satisfying an appropriately niche audience, we would be best served targeting Australian travellers aged 18 to 30. Given our geography, young Australians, unlike those from other parts of the world,  usually have to commit to spending serious dollars to get overseas in the first place and are thus also more likely to also do some serious planning.

Our peripheral audience could be people from outside Australia who are interested in understanding how online travel platforms have changed the way we travel, as well as the 'how to' guides we will provide. Older age groups could also form part of this wider audience.

Like all successful blogs, we will need to make sure our tone and style reflects our target audience. It should be funny, lighthearted and very conversational. It will be vital our blog doesn't take itself too seriously, or risk alienating our target audience.

Some great examples of blogs that use tone and style to connect with their target audiences are author Zoe Foster's very amusing blog and gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who, love him or hate him, has the fifth most popular blog IN THE WORLD.

Check out the top 15 here if you don't believe me. HuffingtonPost came in at number one with approximately 54 million unique visitors every month.

Of course, I have no doubt that A Not So Lonely Planet will soon be in that league.

Sam 

Telling our story

I’ve been thinking about the media we can employ to communicate our ideas and the form we want our feature to take. With regards to Myvawny’s suggestion about gearing the feature towards the travelers themselves, I’m for it all the way. I think this approach will give our project more momentum; when we decide on something, at the back of our minds we should consider the question ‘Would your average tech-savvy 21^st century traveller want to read this? Would they benefit from it?’ In that vein we could write cheeky articles like ’10 Biggest Mistakes First-Time Back-Packers Make,’ or get a veteran traveller to guest write a post to divulge their years of hard won wisdom. 

It's supposed to look like luggage.

Some possible ways we could utilise video: as we discussed, we could find a couch surfer who is coming down to Sydney and document their experience – from how they got connected to their host and how what the host and guest felt about the whole experiment. We could talk to other people who are involved in the scene – I have an acquaintance that is a serial couch host (not sure what the nomenclature is). She can give us frank insights into the good, bad and very ugly side of this sub-culture and how social media has made this whole thing possible. As a whim, I’m also thinking of doing a short 30-second video about social media and how truly revolutionary it is. It’ll be done in the style of those 1920’s newsreels where they would talk about amazing new technology like the automobile or the toaster. 

An example of said newsreels.

Another thing we could do is use social media itself to tell our story. Perhaps we could start hash tags like #travellerstips or #travellinghorrorstories or #bestadventureever.  Maybe a Facebook page, where we invite people to share their stories and even engage in real time dialogue with our audience. 

Going forward, there's really lot we could do that is within our reach. And I'm pretty stoked to see what we can create.

Online media is changing the way we travel

Based on our group meeting, I think we have all landed on producing our feature as an independent blog on the way online media is changing travel. 

Essentially, our feature will investigate how online media platforms are changing the way we travel, with a specific focus on TripAdvisor, Thorntree, Couch Surfer, CoLunching and Airbnb.

This has been narrowed down from our original plan, where we considered also looking at social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 

Now, instead of using social media in our analysis, we will focus on the online platforms I have listed above, looking at the way in which they have changed the way people travel, engage with travel and connect with other travellers.

Including social media in our analysis would have just been too much content for the purposes of our web feature. However, social media still offers some exciting opportunities to engage with other travelers and attract our target audience to our blog.

By focusing our research on online platforms, we can use case studies, comparisons and interviews to explore how they are changing travel.

We could manipulate an image like this for our web feature presentation?

We can also focus on engaging with travellers, experts and bloggers via interviews and case studies for the purposes of our research, as well as offering them advice through our independent, practical analysis of each online travel platform.

This isn't something that any other travel blog actually does - as they tend to focus on the destination, as opposed to using online travel sites to plan a trip, connect with travellers, and review a trip afterwards. This will be our key point of difference.

Moving on, we need to confirm our target audience, research existing publications and features, develop a plan to engage with our target audience via social media and work out our design plan for the blog.

Given we will be providing independent travel advice via the 'how to' guides, it is vital we also establish ourselves as legitimate travel advisers like they do at the Lonely Planet for example. Here is a link to their author page. We could copy this sort of format and give a background of our own travel experiences and amusing stories as well.

Cheers,
Sam

Our feature: A 'how-to' guide for online travel services

One possibility I wanted to run by you is that maybe we could make the web feature a service in itself for travellers. Obviously there has to be an element of research etc, but we could possibly frame the whole thing around being a one-stop destination for travellers that want to know how to best utilise the Internet to make their travels better. For example, when discussing a site such as Couch Surfing we could write a 'how-to' guide for it instead of just writing a summary of it - and the same for how best to use Trip Advisor, Twitter etcetera. I think this way we would have a much better chance of engaging with our audience and actually getting people to visit and contribute to the site.  We could also interview people who have personally benefitted from all of these networks while travelling. For example, I have a cousin who runs a travel blog called Curious Cat on the Run and I think she would make a really good interview subject. I am sure we would all know other people who have used these kind of travel services or may have used them ourselves. I was also thinking it could be an interesting experiment to 'test out' some of these services. Obviously given the time constraints we won't be able to do any Couch Surfing overseas, but we could definitely give CoLunching a go. To that end, we could also analyse Trip Advisor in terms of what it says about Sydney.

For example, this screenshot of the 'Things To Do in Sydney' ranks Sydney Harbour as the number 1 thing to do, followed by The Opera House Walk, etcetera. One fun article could be to actually do the top ten/top five activities (time permitting) and discuss whether or not the voters on Trip Advisor have it right. We could easily incorporate video/photos into this piece as well.


The possibilities are endless really, I think the hard thing will be deciding what to cut out!