I was on the phone with a good friend recently and he asked about my ultimate goals for the site. When we started, I had no idea how much I would love writing, sharing my stories and connecting with travelers. This love has grown into a passion that cannot be ignored but instead is beaming out of me in everything I do. Some might call that travel snobbery- but I can it passion. I am in love with who I am and who you can be from stepping outside your 9-5 and seeing the world. I am passionate about spreading the “get up and go” mentality that Vagabond3 wants to create. My ultimate goal is to continuing traveling, share new places, and inspire you to explore- all while making a living. That is why I have decided to join some other travel bloggers in the 1000-1000 Challenge! The basic idea is that we want to get 1,000 visitors a day and make 1,000 USD per month off the site. (No one likes small goals!)
When we first started Vagabond3 we made a lot of beginners mistakes when it came to blogging. We had all blogged before, but I never really knew how to attract large groups of people and honestly, I’m still learning. It wasn’t until we actually returned from our RTW trip and started engaging in Twitter and other online communities that people slowly started to follow us and check out our site.
Our growth comes mainly from two audience engagement tactics that we have been working on; streamlining our site and becoming active in the blogging community. To help others skip some of the trial and error period of website/blog creation and direct travel bloggers to strong social networking communities, we are going to outline what we use/who we talk with. This post will be kept up to date as we figure out better strategies and ideas.
We think the most important part of putting together a website is to engage in the community. This is something we are trying to improve on everyday- always thinking about the next connection that could be made. Everyone has heard it before, but it should be repeated: It’s very important to find out the popular tones and topics that others are using, as well as figure out a nitch in the community for your own point of view. For us, that is our Don’t Panic and Global Taco Hunt series. Our ideas kind of developed on their own- we LOVE tacos and knew that we would want some on our RTW trip, thus creating Global Taco Hunt. The Don’t Panic series developed after researching for hours how to do specific things or how to get to hard to reach places without much help online.
Join active communities. Signing up for Twitter is fairly easy and finding people to follow is as simple as reading hash-tags like #TT, #TNI, or just #travel and the city you are interested in. Other ones that have a great following in the travel community are #frifotos and #sunsetsunday. Respond to people, follow new people you’ve never talked to before and start a conversation. It’s not as awkward as it seems like it might be. Most important thing I learned from Twitter, is that people like to be heard, they like to know that someone is listening in this great big world. Making a connection about something, anything- really goes a long way with people. (And, being funny helps!)
Another social network we’ve joined is TBEX. Through hundreds of different groups, it helps connect travel writers and share your posts with people who might not stumble upon them regularly. And speaking of stumble upon- join it. I’m still waiting to see a huge pay-off from it, but even if only 5 more people saw the site, that’s 5 more people!
After we created our blog and twitter, we started branching out to Facebook. Now, the possibilities are endless with Facebook- especially with non-travel bloggers. While we aren’t experts on creating a huge network there, yet, YTravelBlog does a great job interacting with their fans and creating unique content that is only on Facebook. We hope to learn from their lead and start introducing more Facebook specific ideas. Maybe contests, sharing photos- I haven’t figured it out quite yet, but I’m brainstorming. If you have any ideas, add them to the comments!
The other part is website design and usability. The easier it is for guests to find what they want and then tell their friends about it, the stronger the website and its followers will become. We use WordPress because it is super easy to setup but can become as complex as the user wants (also, there are tons of forums and help sites to answer questions). However, the plug-ins available for WordPress easily make a website more accessible. Currently, some of our favorite plug-ins are:
- SexyBookmarks (by Shareaholic) – This plugin allows for the cool twitter, facebook, stumble-upon click-able links at the bottom of our posts.
- Smart Youtube – A super easy way to insert YouTube videos into posts.
- Akismet – Amazing plugin that filters spam comments.
Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure of meeting up with the one and only Jonathan of @EpsteinTravels and had a fantastic time. First of all, Jonathan and I were both born in the same hospital in Jacksonville (I mean- are you kidding me?!) and conversation quickly went from college football to tales from Atlanta and the UK back to travel blogging and creating a community. Besides being a totally awesome guy, it was great to meet up and talk business strategy without feeling business-y. The more people I meet through Vagabond3, the more I know I’m on the right path to creating the life I want to live. I hope you’ll come along for the ride!
