When you use social media networks like Facebook and Twitter to promote your blog, you’re putting yourself in the firing line for people to be negative about you or your brand publicly, and while you may be sensitive and not like people being critical, you cannot hide behind a rock; don’t respond, and people will look at you or your brand differently.

Always evaluate the criticism or feedback

Unfortunately, there are people who are just abusive and I find it is just best to ignore these individuals. As much as you would love to, you cannot please everyone. Bear in mind that one person’s criticism does not necessarily mean that you should make radical changes to your style of writing or your blog, but, you have to evaluate what was said.

Be responsive to critics

For my latest project, My Life in Leeds, I received a few messages on Facebook and Twitter informing me that I was not providing enough information on the event posts. Numerous people also said that we were writing about the big chains, and not smaller independent restaurants.

I took this on board and then made some changes. Probably more important, I informed the people who were critical. Their response was fantastic and since they have all helped promote the guides and blog posts on Twitter and Facebook, so be responsive to critics, don’t ignore.

Using a blog to manage criticism

I have never rented a car in my life, I can’t drive. So I have never used AVIS to hire a car, but, because of their ‘We try harder’ blog, I would use them because they respond to criticism. A few weeks ago, prior to my first Travel Learning Camp, I noticed a few comments on the blog that were from people criticising their service. All of the comments were replied to.

I think you should make sure that your blog is highly visible on your website, this way; consumers know that they can leave comments, criticism, and feedback. Isn’t it better that this criticism is on your own blog where you can manage it, rather than on a high profile travel forum?

Don’t hide your blog

Many travel companies seem to have a link to their blog hidden away at the footer; probably because they are using it to aid search engine optimisation, rather than using it as a way to communicate with customers. Anyway, those are some of my thoughts and experiences on dealing with criticism on social media networks.

Join me on the next Travel Learning Camp

Share your experiences and learn more about social media in travel. Network with people who work in the same industry. Join us on the next Travel Learning Camp in my home city of Leeds; it’s a great opportunity to learn from other travel companies and two experienced UK travel bloggers.

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

This morning I wanted to share with you, how I have engaged with a new community for a project that I am busy working on. When I started using Twitter I never had to promote that I was using this network to promote Travel Rants; people were either attracted by the branding (ranting man! ) or knew me from the blog and followed me.

Interacting with people on Twitter

So, when I started working on My Life in Leeds, the challenge was to engage with people who were my targeted audience and get them following and interacting with me on Twitter.

I like my branding, but I do not think it is as striking as Travel Rants, so I had to sit down and think of a way to get people talking about the site.

Creating a fun way to promote a site

Then one day it came to me. I am promoting my home city, a city that I spend most of my life in, so, why not share what the city has to offer (and the bad bits too!) with people on Twitter.

So for the past two weeks I have used my mobile phone, Twitpic and Dabr (a mobile twitter client) to take photos and then ask the people following on Twitter, where am I? The response at first was small, but then more and more people started to join in.

Every day I post one or two new photos and ask them tell me where they think I am in the city, this got people interacting with me (and visiting the site) and I have found during this period that my Twitter followers has doubled.

Make Twitter fun

Local’s love that they can play the game and test their knowledge of the city and others love looking at photos of Leeds, especially, if they have followed me because they intend to visit.

It’s such a simple game, and idea. So, if you are marketing a destination, or have a blog on specific destinations, think about how you can use Twitter to make it more engaging, but more importantly, fun!

Using Twitter for discussing events

I find that I am using Co-Tweet more as an online Twitter client because I can track clicks to my site easier and also manage searches. For multiple accounts it makes life easier too.

It’s the searching and getting involved on Twitter that has helped raise some of the attention in recent weeks. As a destination many events are happening, so I write about them on my Daily Leeds Blog, and then, interact (without being pushy!) to tell them about my site. I have not yet to come across anyone who has ignored me or told me to go away!

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

This is a guest post by By Sheila Scarborough who writes about Tourism and Social Media at Sheila’s Guide to the Good Stuff and Social Media Training for Tourism Professionals at Tourism Currents.

Let’s say you are a businessperson, or maybe involved in travel industry public relations or marketing. You’ve heard enough about social media and travel bloggers to think that perhaps you’d like to start connecting with a few of them. You know, out in “the wild” online. You do some careful, targeted searches for bloggers on Google Blog Search, you check out some of the members of the Travel Blog Exchange and you are agog at the in-depth list of all sorts of travel bloggers on the Alltop Travel Channel.

Once you have a short list of interesting candidates, how do you know which ones are of reasonable quality? Here are a few suggestions, keeping in mind how subjective it can be to judge someone’s personal writing in a blog.

Look for lively communities

Do a quick review of some of the most recent blog posts, then poke through the categories/archives a bit, to get a feel for writing style, breadth of topics covered, how he/she organizes their thoughts and most importantly, whether there’s good engagement with readers in the comments. A lively community around the blog, big or small, is important.

Use of multimedia

Look for good writing (grammar doesn’t have to be perfect, but excessively sloppy tells you something) plus positive interaction with readers. Use of multimedia like photos/video/audio is a plus, and frankly is becoming a must. Look for fairly consistent posting (can be 5X a week or once a week, just consistent.)

Look at web stats

The downloadable free Google toolbar will tell you a blog’s Google Page Rank, which is good to know but not necessarily an indicator of whether it’s a “quality blog,” especially if the blog is rather new and hasn’t had time to build up the longevity and inbound links that are critical to Page Rank. Try running the blog URL through HubSpot’s Website Grader for more stats.

Impact of the blogger off the blog

Here is what is important to remember: more and more, a blogger’s impact is also measured by his/her reputation and contributions OFF of the blog. Google author names to see what else they’re doing on the Web. Does he/she have photos on Flickr? Video on YouTube or another video channel? How do they interact on Twitter? Do they have a Facebook personal page? A Facebook Fan/Business Page? Do they have a professional LinkedIn profile? A Web site that showcases some of their other sites or interests? Web-wide impact is growing in importance, and is an indicator of a blogger’s overall influence.

Bottom line, though….do you love their style? Do you love their outlook? Get to know them, whether their “stats” measure up right away or not. Things happen fast online, and quality always counts.

Establish a human connection

The blessing of the Web is that you can pretty easily access a ton of info about writers/bloggers before you engage; that isn’t as easy in the print world and it’s a major advantage of reaching out to wired communicators. Leave comments on blog posts that particularly resonate with you. Become a reader of their work – don’t just pepper them with pitch emails and press releases.
Establish a real human relationship; it’s the smart thing to do, both online and off.

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

Over the coming weeks I will be publishing a number of Social Media Q&A interviews with a wide range of people within travel. It would be great if readers could add their thoughts and opinions on the questions asked. Thank you to Tim Hughes who was my first interviewee.

Please introduce yourself and your blog

I work for Orbitz and have a personal blog about the online travel world at the Business Of Online Travel. On the BOOT I look at trends in the industry, make comments on company behaviour and throw in a little about my experiences as a business and leisure traveller.

What is your opinion of Twitter and do you think it is having a negative impact on blogs?

I have not yet figured out twitter (anyone who tells you have is lying). But a couple of trends are clear. First – Twitter is a much more powerful a means of generating buzz about a story that email forwarding. If a post I do is a hit on twitter (ie gets RTed a lot) then the traffic I receive will be much greater than any “pre-twitter” story.

Second – Twitter lets me participate and share in information around an event unlike anything else. The use of hashtags for sharing information and commentary around a conference or event (whether you are there or not) has added a new dimension for interaction (and site traffic generation). Third – If you use Twitter a lot then you blog less and you reach a different audience.

It gives me a means for making very short pieces of commentary and distribute information that I used to translate into a longer blog post

What advice would you give a company who is thinking about creating a blog?

Same advice I would give anyone planning to start a blog. If you are going to do it, be serious about it. That does not mean you have to pay someone to do it (but it helps) but is does mean that you need to invest time, infrastructure and long term planning. Writing a blog for three months with no direction then wondering why it doesn’t work is the classic reason why companies abandon blogging efforts.

In conversations I have had with people at the once mighty Techorati I have heard that the average number of readers of a blog is one. That is, on average the only person reading a blog is the writer. That plus the huge number of dormant blogs (with no readers) means that it is only a small percentage of blogs that will generate any level of readership.

The trick to being one of them is persistence (write often), targeting (write about a particular area), share (find others who write on your area, give them links and join their discussions) and professionalism (write well).

What are your thoughts on social media?

Is it just hype or are consumers and companies really wanting to interact with each other

We don’t understand social media yet but that does not make it hype. Consumers have always wanted to interact with each other. Marketeers used to call it word of mouth and always acknowledged that it was the most powerful marketing channel. Now word of mouth has a means for instantaneous electronic distribution.

We can collect data on what people and saying and what they are doing when they say it. At a recent conference and in a blog post I talked about this new ability we have through the concept of individuation. I have been developing a version of Individuation for marketing and targeting (in and outside travel) called EveryYou.

That is our ability to develop a specific and targeted recommendation of one based on the unique combination of desires, needs and interests of each individual at any moment in time. We could not do that without the commitment of individuals to and usage of social media. I am going to write more about this on the BOOT overtime.

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009