Travel is on hold for an indefinite period of time. Airlines have postponed their services and countless numbers of hotel reservations around the world have been canceled. This impacts not only you as a travel writer, but also your audience: if they aren’t making any travel plans, then your job of providing guides, tips, and inspiration is at a crossroads.
How can you, as a travel writer/blogger, still be relevant these days? Sure, you can share videos, photos, and articles about your recent adventures. But one day, you will hit the wall because the output is greater than the input. If you don’t have new content to share, there will be a moment when you can’t share anything at all. Or at least, I thought so.
I decided to change my course completely and shift my travel blog’s focus from travel content to well-being and lifestyle content (with a hint of travel spirit, of course). I did so to meet the needs and expectations of my readers and followers and to give them what they need during these days: inspiration, hope, and positivity. Here are the three steps that I took to do this.
1. Find out what your readers want
How can you possibly know what you audience wants during this time? It’s really simple: ask them. Ask your followers what they would like to read or learn about. Make it easy for them by asking simple questions and using polls to get the answers quickly. My blog’s main presence is on Instagram and Facebook, so I created polls to get to know more about their situation and preferences.
2. Create personas
Creating personas can help you a lot with shifting your content and creating new, valuable, and relevant content. For our purposes, a persona is basically a character you make up that represents your reader. It gives you a clear image of who your target audience is, what their hobbies are, and how they spend their time.
As for right now, people have more time for their hobbies and lifestyle preferences. A sporty persona will immerse themselves in workouts, spiritual people find their inner Zen through meditation and yoga. And travel lovers? They have more time to do lots of things: going through old souvenirs, keeping in touch with their travel companions, creating photo albums, and so on.
3. Be creative
Of course, what I am sharing are mere examples: every audience is different, especially if you’re focused on a specific niche. Get creative and come up with new subjects that will interest your followers on a daily basis.
Take a step back to look at what’s going around on the internet right now—an abundance of TikTok movies, that’s one thing—but also a lot more well-being, lifestyle, and social-related posts. People are feeling more compassionate, looking for creative ways to spend their time, and indulging in self-care. For travelers, that can mean several things: start a travel journal, make a travel bucket list, cook signature dishes from several countries, etc.
Be inspired by what appears on your daily feed. We are all in the same place now, and us humans are very adaptable to many situations. That counts for your content too: it is adaptable to many situations and that change really works well—if you do it the right way.
Here are some examples of blog posts I shared recently:
The perfect content cocktail would consist of travel inspiration, home inspiration, and self-inspiration (what they can learn and how they can grow from this time). It’s always a good idea to meet your audience in the happy medium, to say a little bit of everything. This way, your readers will be occupied, and you can keep on providing the same amazing content as you always did.
I hope this will help you to keep your own blog active and engaging in this trying time. Stay safe and stay home.