iCrossing's Travel Editor, Jeremy Head, explains how we worked with Visit Wales to raise awareness of the cultural and natural highlights of five key cities and towns in Wales among their target demographics - more mature couples, families and independent travellers. Check out the presentation from the 2013 World Travel Market to find out more...

1. Visit Wales #blogwales
5 bloggers… visit 5 key destinations
Jeremy Head – WTM, November 2013

2. Some stuff about iCrossing
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3. Some stuff about Visit Wales
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Influencing £150 million of additional spend each year
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Big focus is improving reputation
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Those people who have not yet considered Wales
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New website launched this summer – social really baked in; very flexible publishing platform
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Vibrant social media presence – 400k Facebook fans; 33k twitter followers; on Instagram,
Pinterest and Storify
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Looking to make budget go even further
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Digital seen as increasingly important going forward – keen to try new things
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4. What are we trying to do then?
#blogwales – joining search, social and content together
Objective: to raise awareness of the cultural
and natural highlights of five key cities/towns in
Wales among target demographics – older
couples, families and independent travellers
Secondary goals: to create useful content for
Visitwales.com, to promote Wales to influential
bloggers, to generate links to Visitwales.com, to
create buzz in social media channels
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5. Here’s what we did
Right bloggers, right destinations, right timing
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iCrossing worked with Visit Wales’ external PR agency Four BGB to select 5 UK-based
bloggers from a range of networks we wished to target – in particular family, silver surfer
and budget/independent travel blogs - using SEO, social and influence metrics.
Family Adventure
Project
[Family]
Twitter: 9k
Facebook: 2.5k
PA: 49
DA: 44
Budget Traveller
Mammasaurus
Inside The Travel Lab
Baldhiker
[Budget travel]
Twitter: 13k
Facebook: 1.5k
PA: 53
DA: 45
[Family]
Twitter: 9k
Facebook: 2k
PA: 57
DA: 49
[Silver Surfer]
Twitter: 12.5k
Facebook: 3k
PA: 58
DA: 50
[Silver Surfer]
Twitter: 450k
Facebook: 3.5k
PA: 54
DA: 44
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6. Timings
Right bloggers, right destinations, right timing
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We sent one blogger to each of our 5 destinations for a weekend of exploration.
(Cardiff, Swansea, St Davids, Brecon, Llandudno)
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Bloggers asked to:
Get involved with the VWales Facebook community - solicit ideas pre-trip
Write a pre-trip post for their blog linking to the VWales site and Facebook discussions
Add images to a new Visit Wales #blogwales Pinterest board
Create on-the-move content whilst there which hosted on a new Storify page.
Write a post-trip post for their blog linking to the VWales site
Write a top five to add to the relevant city page on the VWales site
Promote using their social channels - using the hashtag #blogwales
Chat with the VWales Facebook community – post-trip
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Timings
Run the trips one week after another to maximise the exposure potential.
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7. This is what we got
Great content, multiple platforms, nice links, great engagement
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8. Some hopefully… ‘live’ examples
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http://familyadventureproject.org/2013/06/north-wales-visit-llandudno/
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https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151568084891785&set=a.4
37077346784.194341.50488206784&type=1
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http://familyadventureproject.org/2013/07/what-to-do-in-llandudno/
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https://www.facebook.com/visitwales/posts/10151575060391785
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http://storify.com/visitwales/blogwales-blogger-trips-llandudno-breconcardiff
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http://www.pinterest.com/visitwales/blogwales/
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http://blog.homeaway.co.uk/summer-in-the-uk-why-do-the-alps-whenyou-could-do-snowdonia/
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9. So what?
Data sources: Brandwatch, Google Analytics, Majestic SEO
Establishing a benchmark
Objective
Acquisition of
new visitors
Awareness and
Engagement
Activating and
amplifying content
Measures
151 web referrals
10 conversions
7,737 social referrals
751 conversions
10 high-quality links
262 social mentions
69 retweets
2,686,552 impressions
3,182 Storify views
ROI
x14.3
Link value worth ~ £1000
£1.97 CPM
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10. What did we learn then?
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Work across partners for impact – PR agency, digital agency, internal PR
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Have some high level objectives – but mix it up a bit too
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Using the right bloggers offers a cost effective way to connect with target
audiences
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Be prescriptive. Make clear with bloggers what you need from the deal
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Think about all the ways a blogger can bring stuff to the party. Consider all
platforms, all formats
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It’s about conversation (not broadcast). Using the Visit Wales Facebook
community to start the process off ensured it was social from the word go
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Measure your results and use them as a benchmark
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11. Thank you
www.jeremyhead.com – www.visitwales.com – www.icrossing.co.uk