Review of Social Travel Britain Conference

Review of Social Travel Britain Conference    

Over the last few days UK destinations, social media marketing specialists and travel bloggers came together in Bristol to discuss Social Travel Britain. More than twenty speakers analysed how destinations and social influencers are working in an ever changing digital landscape to capture the attention and budget of worldwide travellers. Trips100 Editor Kirstie Pelling reviews the conference and its themes…

Bristol is an expert at grabbing people’s attention. It regularly whispers and sometimes shouts its political, social and cultural messages from its rooftops and walls, through the creative hand of Banksy and those who came before and after. So you’d perhaps be hard pushed to find anywhere more suitable to host the second ever Social Travel Britain conference. Organised by Steven Keenan and Mark Frary from Travel Perspective, (the team responsible for a large part of Social Travel Market at London’s WTM,) the two days looked at what we are doing, what we should be doing and what the possibilities are in the future for people who market, sell and facilitate travel. If you wanted a quick snapshot of the state of the travel blogging industry at the moment then this was it

It’s hard to pick out one or two highlights from a relevant and engaging conference that threw up images of everyone from The Pope to Wallace and Gromit and steered us through a landscape studded with bridges, balloons, drones, scopes, and pods. But here are a few things I took home from various sessions that enabled bloggers to connect with DM’s and PRs at more length than they often do at WTM or TBEX. If you are interested in the nuts and bolts of the debate then you’ll be able to find speaker presentations from the conference at on the Social Travel Britain website in due course.

An audience with my idol

Arriving a little late into a full conference hall I was obliged to take a front seat immediately opposite the podium and found myself about a metre away from Instagram.  Yes I mean THE Instagram. Keynote speaker Gord Ray is Brand Development Lead at the app. He immediately broke it to the room that we have no chance of being the platform’s top users any more now that the Pope has joined @Pontifex. “Another milestone on the journey of this app,” said Gord.

There have been quite a few milestones for Instagram in the latest stages of its journey including the introduction of paid advertising and plans to reorganise content in the streams of its users in a non linear fashion, like its parent company Facebook. 400 million users to be exact, who generate 3.5 billion likes and 80 million photos a day. (14 million monthly active UK users.)

Advertising meets art

While delegates had a few points to make about the importance of the community and serving loyal followers, Gord was here to talk about strategies for using Instagram and its advertising functions to build your brand.  He showed successful campaigns ranging from TAM airlines to Herschel backpacks, (#welltraveled.) and told us how 200,000 businesses now use Instagram.

If you find yourself charging brands to reach your followers and want to make sure you deliver value then he recommends putting the brand name within the image as that’s where the eye is drawn rather than the text. He stressed the need to make posts well crafted. (Real time posting is not the thing any more.) And if you can get across your concept, get people to remember the advert and get a favourable response within a few seconds then you should be “batting it out of the park.”

Exposure through video

Video is important to the platform’s strategy for the future. And when advertising a brand (or for travel bloggers showcasing a destination) Gord recommended putting any branding in the first three seconds of the video to ensure maximum exposure. He predicted that action based ads would become the norm. (-Learn more, buy now, sign up) and reminded the room that unlike some advertising platforms Instagram has no minimum spend.

And despite a mixed and sometimes hostile reaction from Instagram users to the proposed new algorithm that will reorganise content in your stream he believes it will be helpful to users. ”Having more relevant content will make the experience of seeing it more enjoyable.” The new algorithm will be rolled out in phases to the Instagram population and we can also expect new developments in the ‘search and explore’ features in the future, with ‘trending hashtags’ features helping us navigate.

He did not explain how I was ever going to get myself celebrated by Instagram on its own account as one of the daily ‘featured user’ posts and it seemed a bit too needy to ask. I was still a bit besotted about finally meeting my crush to be honest. (Btw I am still talking Instagram not Gord….!) His final word of advice to the bloggers in the room was to be authentic, use your influence, and engage about issues that matter to your followers like politics and the environment, “Send a message that’s not just about travel.”

#OMGB

Several tourist boards took to the stage during conference including Cornwall and Bristol. Visit Britain’s Emma Mead introduced #OMGB (a genius name for a social media campaign) and showed us examples of recent work using Minecraft gamers to promote Wales to a German audience. Meanwhile Peter Jordan from destination marketing agency Toposophy also looked at how to attract young people to a destination, with research on the travel trends of Asian Millennials.

Several bloggers gave useful talks. Keith Jenkins used examples from his iambassador network to show some of the more innovative ways bloggers are making a splash online and in the real world; including the use of 360, virtual reality, traditional media, books, beacons and podcasts. And also how they are developing and marketing new products from the very large (a hostel in Austin, Texas,) to the very small  (a fridge magnet.) No one is yet combining both in the shape of a virtual reality fridge magnet so there is a gap in the market if you have ideas.

Meanwhile Budget Traveller Kash Bhattacharya looked at the brand perception of Britain and highlighted some new trends within the budget travel industry. His message was that bloggers are the future tourist brochure. “Bloggers create, DMO’s curate.”

From intellectual to practical 

Two practical sessions got everyone outside for some fresh air. Nigel Camp from Devil Boy Productions led the video march into Bristol’s Millennium Square while photographer and former Times picture editor Paul Sanders said  “You need to get out on your feet and explore,” before sending us out to focus our cameras on small details rather than the big picture. And the conference drew towards a close with back to back sessions on the use of different technology to promote destinations. These included drones and gaming as well as podcasts with entertaining speaker Michael Turtle and video with Bristol based partnership Bridges and Balloons. By the time Saturday came we had discussed pretty much every form of modern communication apart from writing messages on the wall with a spray gun. And then we took a tour of Banksy street art sites to look at that too.