Six Scottish travel bloggers, each with a successful online presence, have developed and launched a unique approach to the use of their blogs as a marketing tool. Joining together as a team, they've created a new identity, "The Scotlanders." Working together, they combine their outreach over nine social channels, including blogs, videos, and photographs to bring an in-depth focus to the travel destinations they visit.
The concept was developed, in part, from their frustration at repeatedly seeing foreign journalists and bloggers brought into Scotland on paid press junkets to visit and promote travel to Scotland. Individually, and collectively, they felt they could bring to such a project a far greater knowledge of Scotland and in turn impart to their audiences a deeper insight into the destinations they visit.
Their modus-operandi is also unique when compared to the usual press junket. Typically a group of journalists and/or bloggers are brought together and taken from point A to B to C and they all end up writing, in essence, the same story - because their experiences were virtually identical. By contrast, the Scotlanders go to a destination together, but then, working with the destination, each embarks on their own personal itinerary. One Scotlander will focus on food and drink opportunities within the destination, another may look at outdoor activities, yet another will explore family activities available, another the history of the destination area, and so on. The end result is a much more in-depth look at the given destination.
Another advantage the Scotlanders bring to their campaigns is their combined online audiences that are already "vetted" with a confirmed interest in travel and specifically destinations in Scotland.
The individual Scotlanders and their blogs are:
Susanne Arbuckle - Adventures Around Scotland
Dougie Baird - Great Travel Images
Kay Gillespie - The Chaotic Scot
Nicola Holland - Funky Ellas Travel
Kim Kjaerside - Kim Kjaerside Photography
Neil Robertson - Locomotion Scotland/Travels with a Kilt
For the podcast, Susanne and Kim joined me to talk about their individual blogs and to share the backstory about how the "Scotlanders" team came together and a bit about how they operate. If you have an interest in travel to and within Scotland, you should get to know "The Scotlanders."
•Susanne Arbuckle - Adventures Around Scotland
•Dougie Baird - Great Travel Images
•Kay Gillespie - The Chaotic Scot
•Nicola Holland - Funky Ellas Travel
Kim Kjaerside - Kim Kjaerside's Travel & Photography Blog
Neil Robertson - Locomotion Scotland/Travels with a Kilt
•Scot Bloggers - a website connection to Scottish bloggers on all subjects
•A Glen in Scotland - podcast host Glen Moyer's Scottish travel blog