Blogs & Brands: Walking a Fine Line into the Future of Social
A blogger since 2000, former CEO of social influence platform Kred, and now Global Partner, Social Business at IBM, Andrew Grill will look at the fine line that brands and bloggers must tread when working together, what social means for bloggers and brands today, and what the move from social media to social business will mean in the future. After examining the decline of the “Klout score” as a measure of a bloggers true influence he’ll explore how to be an authentic blogger to protect the value of a blog’s brand so that it is of optimal value to travel brand clients. Ultimately, it’s all about the challenge of continually inspiring people to travel.
Andrew’s experience as an entrepreneur running 6 start-ups over the last 12 years will also be used to look at how brands need to think like an entrepreneur to engage with bloggers. An avid traveler, Andrew has been to 106 cities in 33 countries since 1993.
From Neuromarketing Strategy to Social Media Tactics: How to Get into the Minds of Your Audience
Building the bridge between neuromarketing strategy and social media tactics, this session will explore general findings in neuroscience and how you can use them to improve perception, attention, engagement, loyalty, recognition, and demand. Topics to be covered include content planning through neuroprofiling, honing brand resonance and impact, the power of multichannel/multimedia content, what to include in your social content, and how to structure social content during a campaign. The talk will be fast-paced in order to cover all of the material and provide actionable takeaways so do be aware, you will want to take notes.
From Engagement to Conversion: 4 Simple Steps for Stronger Online Results
Most DMOs and travel sites invest a huge effort into acquiring traffic and suffer from a weak conversion rate. André Morys identifies 4 crucial points in the user’s journey that every marketer needs to know to increase conversion rates. Whatever your conversion objective may be – from downloading tourism brochures to booking hotel nights to getting newsletter signups – this presentation will provide insights for better results.
The Think Tank – Navigating the Future
A key objective of The Social Travel Summit is to improve and expand the ways in which bloggers and the travel industry collaborate. The “Think Tank” is a session in which delegates from both sides of the equation brainstorm and discuss the challenges of collaboration and identify solutions that will benefit all.
At STS Leipzig 2014 the Think Tank involved approximately thirty delegates who were asked to discuss five specific topics and come up with recommendations, suggestions, or solutions. Their discussions, findings, and recommendations are presented in the STS Think Tank Report that can be downloaded here. A report on the 2015 Think Tank will be published following the Summit.
Bloggers to Bloggers Panel: Business Models
Professional bloggers, like all small business owners, are constantly searching for ways to refine their business models and improve their success for themselves and their clients. All of our panelists have successful travel platforms and will give a brief overview of their business models and monetization strategies. Then we’ll break into small, informal groups for Q&A so that participants can dig deeper into the strategies that are of greatest interest to them.
Industry to Industry Panel: Working with Bloggers
There’s an art and a science to blogger collaboration projects. Bloggers each take different approaches to travel, have unique platforms, and offer different value. Understanding how to get the most out of a blogger and his/her platforms is an art. Doing so in a cost-effective manner is a science. After a quick round with each of our panelists giving an overview on their strategies for working with bloggers, we’ll break into groups for Q&A so that participants can dig deeper into the strategy of greatest interest to them.
The Fine Art of Pitching and Negotiating: Blogger/Brand Relationships
What travel blogger fulfilling their dream of writing and traveling ever thought that they would be in sales? Well, pitching a project or campaign and closing a deal that financially supports a travel blogging career takes sales skills. In this session, industry will reveal what they like to see when being pitched and bloggers will share their most successful techniques for closing a deal.
SEO in 2015: How to Earn Your Ranking
Over the last 10 years, SEO has gained a negative reputation. Most SEO tactics have been about manipulating Google by spamming with backlinks and keyword density. This will become a huge problem as Google punishes sites that use such tactics. But SEO doesn’t need to be a bad thing.
Maximilian D. Muhr practices a rare kind of totally white hat SEO. In this basic SEO session you will be inspired to care about Google and do things right. We will have a quick look at SEO that works, including relevance for users, snippet-optimization, rel+Author (Google+), structure, and quality. Max will explain how Google knows if content of a specific URL is relevant for the searcher and will suggest what WordPress plugins are needed for SEO success.
Plus: In-depth Site Clinics
Max will review up to 12 blogs from participants and meet with a select few of the bloggers one-on-one (others can listen in) to explain how they can improve their SEO results.
Public Speaking: It’s Easier Than You Think
With a completely updated presentation building on his public speaking workshop at The Social Travel Summit in 2014, Shane will demonstrate how everyone can become a competent public speaker. Proper speech structure, writing, rehearsal, and delivery are the keys to easily delivering an effective presentation. Shane will provide you with the tips you need to know to move from the computer to the stage.
From Smartphone Video Strategies to Cutting Edge Storytelling Campaigns
With YouTube.com commonly recognized as the second largest search engine on the net, there can be no doubt that video will continue to grow in importance for online travel influencers. But not just any video will do. A successful video transmits emotions via imagery – it is visual storytelling. In this session two video makers with completely different styles will share secrets of smartphone video production and collaborating with industry on video storytelling campaigns.