S o I’ve just returned from Manchester after an excellent weekend at the Travel Bloggers Unite conference. I thought I’d pause for a moment in the sunshine on my way back from the station in Lincoln to reflect on my takeaways from the event. Lincoln, for the record, is the home Coffee Aroma; rumoured to be one of the top 5 coffee shops in the world. It’s also my office on days like these whenever the weather is nice and I feel like getting out and about.
On Travel Blogging & Bubbles
Travel blogging is a very young industry. They still think social media is awesome magic and haven’t come to a conclusion on how everyone should be making money out of their blogs. Should you get paid by the companies providing the trips? Should you get paid for writing content with links in it? Should you get paid for banner advertising? Affiliate marketing? These questions and more are up for constant discussion, but no consensus.
It’s so easy to get sucked into the details of the industry that you care so much about and forget about the bigger picture. I spent most of this weekend telling people to take a step back, look outside the travel sector at what other companies and individuals are doing. Blogging has been around for a long time and other industries have already paved the way. Travel bloggers: your only job for the rest of today should be to make sure that you watch Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote at the Blog World Expo – it covers so many of the things that were being talked about at TBU, and yes, it really was 3 years ago that he was talking about this stuff. The audio quality is terrible, but the content is really really worthwhile. If you enjoy the talk – you should definitely pick up a copy of his book on Amazon for a mere £6.69 too.
A couple of people asked me this weekend if I’d learned anything – I said “no”. I’m pretty savvy on blogging, branding, freelancing and all the main topics being discussed. And yet, having told everyone to take a step outside of the “travel bubble” and explore the bigger world of the web, I realise (once more) that I too am in a very secluded little bubble. I’m no better. We web designers could sometimes do with spending less time on every minute detail of how the web works, and more time on actually doing something with it.
When I spend time at travel events I suddenly realise how nice it is to get away, even for just a moment, from the nuances of web standards, validation, browser support and whether or not an anchor tag always be wrapped with a block level element or whether it can sometimes be treated as one based on context and still remain semantic.
To any travel bloggers reading this: you won’t have understood that last sentence. To any web designers reading this: I put it to you that you probably shouldn’t care.
On PR & Opportunity Cost
There were lots of things on the table at TBU, but these were probably the the two at the top of the list. I thought the discussion about PR agencies was interesting (and generally positive), but I’ve seen a couple of followup tweets and blog posts implying that the entire conference was all about how travel bloggers and PR agencies should be working together. Please don’t let this be your only takeaway from TBU. There’s plenty of great things to be said about PR agencies, but let’s not get carried away here: they are one piece of a larger puzzle, and not always an essential one. Work with PR agencies if it’s beneficial to you, but please don’t feel like it’s the only thing you can or should be doing. Social media is not PR. Again: watch Gary Vaynerchuck’s keynote above.
As for “opportunity cost” – let’s clarify something briefly: A few bloggers throw this term around a great deal in regard to blog trips. They say that bloggers who go on (unpaid) trips are providing valuable exposure to companies in return for no financial compensation, so the opportunity cost is that the time spent on blog trips could have otherwise been spent on paying work. But opportunity cost, dear friends, works both ways: The opportunity cost of going on a blog trip is paying work. The opportunity cost of not going on a blog trip is all the content, networking and relationships that come with it.
So you choose: a week of paid work, probably sitting at home – or a week of unpaid work where you spend time traveling, getting to write about it, meeting people who may give you paying work in the future, and building your reputation. One is not superior to the other. Decide what suits you best and then move on.
After all, the opportunity cost of wasting time discussing opportunity cost is also time that could otherwise be spent on paying work.
On My Talk
My session was all about WordPress (surprise!). I didn’t plan on writing an entirely new talk for TBU, I was going to cobble together bits from my numerous other WordPress sessions and workshops, but on Thursday night I decided that the audience was going to be so different from my standard range of geeks (love you) to take the easy option. Around 91 new slides and 0 hours of sleep later, I’d put together a session targeted entirely at travel bloggers using WordPress. It was the first time I’d delivered the same talk back-to-back, 3 times in a row, but I think it went ok!
The slides, if you’d like a copy, are embedded below.
Finally – to everyone at TBU: Thank you for a fantastic weekend. It was an absolute pleasure meeting all of you. If there’s anything I can help with, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line :)
Oh, and a special mention goes to the Caliberi crew. It was great meeting all of you ;)
John, would you spend a week doing a job for a client without pay? You could take on a travel client, who could give you some free trips instead of paying you a fee?
The opportunity cost of this discussion is too large for me to want to get into it – particularly as I’m sure we won’t agree. But that’s ok. Live and let live :)
Pity, I would have been interested to see your reply to Karen’s comment; so in essence you have not followed your own advice to travel bloggers. While Gary V makes some very interesting and valid points, that were probably more so 3 years ago, I did not hear him covering the kind of issue that Karen draws attention to. ;-)
I’m not letting Karen draw me into a pointless argument, Thomas, and I’m not letting you do it either. If you feel that makes me a hypocrite then I apologise for that.
Karen I think you’re missing the point of what John is trying to say. If taking an unpaid job with client for a week is part of your overall strategy to build contacts and gain exposure than yes it’s probably worth it.
John was pointing out that opportunity cost works both ways. You have to give up cash now to have the time available to go out and make contacts and actually travel (in order to produce content). Or, conversely, you have to give up the new contacts and the content you would have generated while traveling on your own dime if you choose to stay at home and do other work.
Waiting around at home until you have a client who is going to give you a free trip is like waiting at home for a design or development client to come knocking at your door uninvited. You’re going to be waiting a while, to say the least. At some point building your reputation and content library yourself has to be part of your sales strategy.
Speaking as someone who has, back when I was just starting out as a freelance developer, taken on un-paid work (which lasted 2 weeks) I can say with certainty that it was the right decision for me at that time. The exposure I gained from this high-profile client was more than worth the time that I put into the project.
ps. Don’t try and ask leading blank and white questions when the answer is obviously grey. It makes you look silly.
Yes, your presentation went ok… ;-)
Actually it was very good & I recommend other bloggers to check your slideshow! And I agree with PR. It’s not social media, but may get a part of it. Let’s help each other, but don’t just focus on it!
Thanks for a wicked weekend!
Melvin
Was great seeing you there mate and throughly enjoyed your talk. It’s very easy to get caught up in the pay me to write about you bubble when I’m sure the majority of us started blogging because we enjoyed it, perhaps some might have lost that focus.
Hopefully something good will progress out of this for us we little travel blog folk. If not well we will always have Club 91 :)
Sorry I missed your talk, John – I was only there on the Sunday. (I’m the guy who suggested at the bar that you can see everything in lines of Matrix code. Hai). Your slides rock. Did I say sorry I missed? Yep.
Good points raised – and it’s not the first time I’ve had Gary V’s name bandied in my direction, so clearly I have some reading/watching to do here…
But yes. The blogosphere (gnn, *hate*) is a place primarily for message, influence and meaning, not clocking in and clocking out. As with all vocational passions, that’s the strength of it and also the danger. If I sat down and worked out my “hourly rate” based on all the things I’ve done in social media and behind the scenes to get my output into a fully blogged state, something in my mind would snap and the neighbours would find me hunched at the bottom of the garden, singing about goblins. We do “unpaid work” all the time, because we know it’s *never* unpaid. If you factor in the power of the subconscious to fling great writing ideas into your head when you first awake, then even sleeping is “paid”. Our work is brain-work. Our brains are never off.
All that said, being paid actual shiny money is quite fun. I’m all for that. Right up to the line that’s marked “no fun beyond this point”.
I understand the need to thrash a general code of conduct out for our budding profession. That’s healthy and good and I love watching it happen. But I flinch at the word “rules” – those things creative folk are generally best advised to bend or break if they want to get anywhere. And “creative” means anyone who ever clicked Publish.
Travel industry folk, it’s all so new – let’s not ossify anything just yet, please. Not until we really, truly know what we’re doing – and what we’re *not* doing.
Fantastic comment Mike – I completely agree on all counts :)
Aaaaand that pretty much sums up why I’ve been reading FeveredMutterings ever since I stumbled upon it (without StumbleUpon, mind you) at work.
Mike, you’re a fucking champ.
Oh, and I suppose you are too, John. :P
Stunning comment Mike! And John…. you were brilliant. Thanks for posting the slides – now I can review what you did to my blog appearance and change accordingly. Hehe! ;-)
thanks for the roundup… good stuff-
“take a step outside of the ‘travel bubble’ and explore the bigger world of the web” is great advice. i’ve had the opportunity to do that on a few occasions in the past few months and have learned a lot.
i’m sorry i missed TBU2011 as it sounds like everyone had a great time.
Like you, I often find myself getting absorbed by the bubble of the web and losing perspective. I wrote a lot about it whilst honeymooning in a country that doesn’t have the internet.
Taking a regular break to step back and gain focus is the only way to stop ourselves getting lost in the little details and desperately in need of a boat.
One of the things I got from the weekend was just as I’m new to travel blogging travel blogging seems new to the blogging world.
John, you’re absolutely right about stepping outside of our ‘travel bubble’ and check out what other ‘bubbles’ are doing it. After all can’t we learn from what they’ve done right and wrong?
It seems as a community we have an opportunity to shape the future of travel blogging.
I wasn’t able to attend TBU but I do agree with your point (and Mike’s above) about opportunity cost and press trips. A cost-benefit analysis in this context is extremely subjective – if you think you will benefit from attending a free trip (be it via exposure or the photos you obtain or the ability to see a country in a way you’d be unable to experience otherwise), then it’s worth it. Sure, someone else in your position, perhaps with different long-term goals, might feel otherwise. But ultimately it’s a personal choice and certainly not one that everyone has to agree with. If you’re judicious in choosing the trips that work for your audience and further your goals, I don’t see the harm in participating.
Ciao John. 91 slides?! Didn’t relize that there were so many. Cool.
Wanted to write more, but my wife is calling me she needs the garbage bag she didn’t find at the supermarket… pazienza. Just that: opportunity cost, the term is misleading. PR is not social media, I agree and blogger could get paid, may be not directly, but indirectly through advertisement spendings on their blog. What do you think? Ok, have to go. Ciao.
Jeff – I am not sitting at home waiting at home until the next free trip, I’ve turned down several group press trip recently, as I didn’t judge them to be a good investment of my time and I’d had been writing content very similar to the other bloggers participating on the trip.
I’ve been experimenting with different types of trips, some entirely self funded, some like my recent trip to Cyprus where easyJet provided the flights, as a thank you for taking part in the Blogger Challenge and I paid for the accommodation, hoping to recoup at least some of that outlay through commission on affiliate links, if, of course, the hotels were any good, as I did write honest reviews.
I’m not sure which leading black and white question you refer to, is it “where are travel bloggers heading beyond the next free trip?”. If you actually read my blog post:
http://www.europealacarte.co.uk/blog/2011/03/29/blogging-business/
you’ll see that I do talk about different types of blogs with different aims and I did write “Naturally every travel blogger has to define their own aims and their method of achieving these aims.”
Jodie – I agree that one has to be selective in deciding in which press trips to participate and judge if they will help you fulfil your business and/or personal aims. As I said I’m looking for win-win situations and I’ve judged that the PR company and their client would get more out of the some press trip than me. If your blog is a business you have to treat it a such and literally can’t afford to be seduced by the allure of free trips.
Thank you for your outside perspective. Much appreciated.
I am also amused that Gary’s talk being “3 years ago” makes it old in internet time.
Literally ancient :)
Taking on unpaid work is a tricky decision that creeps into the working life of most freelancers. Even in the “old” world of print freelance writing, writers spent hours pitching letters that never resulted in work, mingled at industry events, polished up their CVs and websites and interviewed people who turned out to be far too boring to ever make it into print.
When I worked as a doctor, I was expected to work for free helping in research projects and looking after private patients in order to get a good reference for my next paying job. Would I have preferred to have been paid (or better yet at that stage, be left alone to finally get some sleep?) Yes. But the benefits I gained by doing that work turned out to be far more valuable in the long run.
When the offer of a free trip comes along, the sensible course of action is to ask yourself whether or not it’s worth your time. If it is, because of the experiences and opportunities it will offer, then go. If not, politely decline.
If all you do is work for free, then your business has problems, whatever it is. If you never take a chance on anything, simply because no-one’s paying you to do it, you’re missing out on some great opportunities.
Not sure why I’ve used “you” throughout. But I hope you catch my drift ;)
Great discussion, guys — and super presentation, John. The do-or-don’t press trip discussion always comes up in my circle for a different reason: Are they too manufactured to have benefit for the reader? I’ve seen them covered in unique and very clever ways, so it’s all what you make of it. Like with anything, taking that extra time to push yourself really goes a long way. Thanks, Mike, for sending me over to check this discussion out! TBU was awesome — what a fantastic weekend with a bunch of fantastic people.
So, hi, John.
1. I wouldn’t assume that (travel)bloggers don’t understand code. In fact, I’d stop assuming any one consistent thing about bloggers at all. We’re geeks too and some of us are hardcore. Come visit us in Seattle some time.
2. I think your remarks about the two way street of opportunity cost are spot on. Sure, I’d love to make a profit on my travel time, of COURSE I would. And it’s doable. But sometimes, I take a hit because, dude, penguins. Elephants. ADVENTURE. And also, sometimes, the pay off is afterwards. Calculated risk is good.
3. I’m looking forward to our paths crossing out there in the world.
Hi Pam,
I agree with you on points 2 and 3, but I think you’ve got the wrong idea on point 1 – Firstly, you absolutely can’t group all bloggers together like that. The subject of the blog is 100% relevant. Web design and tech bloggers generally know how to code (hi, I am one) – travel, fashion, and food bloggers generally do not. I think you are confusing tech/blogging enthusiasts who also travel (like you and me), with travellers who also write blog (like most others). I’ve been blogging and working with bloggers for over 6 years now, so these are passing observations rather than assumptions ;)