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Family Travel Spotlight: Nichola West, Globalmouse Travels

August 8, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, Blogger Media Database, PR, Press and Bloggers Blog Posts /by Holly Hodges

Nichola West is the author of Globalmouse Travels, which was recently named in the top 10 UK Family travel blogs. Exploring the real side of destinations – rather than the well-worn tourist routes – Nichola and her family travel both in the UK and around the world. We caught up with Nichola to find out about the beauty of Oman, her advice for family travel and how she likes to work with PRs and brands.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
I say I try to inspire other people to keep travelling with their children, while getting to enjoy doing exactly that with mine.

How do different social channels feed into your blog?
They all work really differently, Twitter is good for chatting (and I co-run a monthly Twitter chat #familytravelhour with Lonely Planet Kids and other travel bloggers once a month, which is a fun place to all connect and talk travel); Instagram is like a blog in itself, working as a more immediate look at our travels as they happen; and Facebook is a nice place to share other travel news as well as what we’re up to. I am starting to really get in to YouTube too and enjoy making videos of the places we visit.

How easy is it to get into family travel? Did you have any major concerns?
I was really daunted by family travel in the beginning. We took a couple of trips to France that seemed quite stressful and resigned ourselves, after years of travelling as a couple, to little trips to France, thinking that was as far as we would go. Then we won a competition to travel to the Cook Islands and that transformed our mindset. If we could travel for over 24 hours with a one-year-old, we could travel anywhere. So now we go wherever any of us fancies. It was a moment of realisation that you have to relax and just go with it because anything is possible.

What’s the best family destination in the world?
Our favourite destination is Oman. We all just love it. We stayed in some beautiful resorts with swimming pools and perfect for relaxation, visited deserts for sleeping out under the stars and camel riding with nomadic Bedouins, and went to beaches to watch endangered turtles hatch. The Omani people are so friendly and welcoming and we loved the warmth of the country.

What are your top tips for long distance travel with young children?
My top tips are to relax and enjoy it. Take sticker books, wipes, snacks from home and a camera and you’ll have the best time. Children really do create a welcoming environment and we’ve had such wonderful experiences travelling in new cultures thanks to travelling with them.

How restrictive are term times for the perfect family travel experience?
Term times are definitely restrictive and annoying but then there are plenty of breaks and the key is to plan ahead. Book flights when they come out, as far in advance as you can, and you can get some great bargains. It’s also worth keeping an eye on the holidays of other countries around the world, for example Scotland usually break up before the rest of England and go back earlier so you might find it cheaper to travel up to Glasgow or Edinburgh to fly out from later in the summer when they’re back at school. In the same way, most of the US and Scandinavian countries go back to school before England, in mid-August, so going later in the month will mean more accommodation options and some good offers.

Do you accept press releases?
Definitely. It’s always good to hear the latest industry news.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
I work with a great group of family travel bloggers, The Family Travel Collective and together we have worked on some fantastic campaigns with brands including Hyundai and BenQ and destinations from Durham to Tunisia. It’s a wonderful, collaborative way to work and I love the results we get when we join together to increase reach. I also personally love working with Visit Scotland who really understand what we are looking for on a trip, from a family travel perspective and also with Visit Denmark who we just love.

What advice would you give to PRs looking to get in touch?
Please do! We love to hear from PRs and whether it’s a fully joined together campaign you’d like us to work with you on or you’re looking for ideas of how we can work together we’d love to hear from you and help to create some exciting content.

What other blogs do you read?
I love Tigerlillyquinn, Along Dusty Roads, Mrs O and many other family travel blogs.

Pretty dangerous: how can you ensure the influencers you work with stay safe?

August 7, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, Social Media, Blogger PR, Press and Bloggers, Media Database Blog Posts /by Phoebe-Jane Boyd

Taking risks – and taking pictures of those risks – is what separates influencers from their followers. Sharing aspects of your life online that the rest of us keep private, and investing time in creating a profile with no guarantee of success, is a risk most of us won’t take.

An office job is safer, but potentially not as profitable as, say, being able to sell gamer girl bathwater after becoming popular online. Risk for the online influencer can bring rewards of attention, followers and clout, but badly-planned risk can cause great harm to reputation and personal safety. Scary examples of influencers acting dangerously for their audience now pop up in the mainstream media on a regular basis, so we’ve asked PRs who’ve worked closely with influencers how to keep those tempted by risky shots safe.

Feeling green after visits to the blue ‘Novosibirsk Maldives’
Novosibirsk in Russia has a lake with water so blue it’s almost unnatural… which it actually is, being a man-made ash dump for the local coal plant. Unfortunately, it’s also being used as the location for glamourous Instagram photoshoots. Those who’ve chosen to swim in the toxic water for pictures have reported allergic reactions and skin irritation alongside social success. So, is it worth it?

‘There are safe areas to get beautiful shots, such as controlled viewpoints, safe pools and there are even some lovely picturesque indoor spaces that have been set up now, with their “instagrammability” being their main attraction. If you’re an influencer, perhaps all of your income will come from promoting products and services on your platform. Do you really believe that those said things would be promoted to a heightened extent if you place yourself in a dangerous position to photograph them?’ – Jessica Pardoe, digital PR & outreach executive at Tecmark

‘I’d recommend to any influencers to look elsewhere as you can find plenty of alternatives that won’t involve losing an organ or their sight. Norway offers a number of locations that look incredibly similar, if not better – I would push for them to find an alternative scene for their shoots. As bad as it is to say, a huge amount of influencers images are touched up on Photoshop or via apps, therefore while they might be taking huge risks to get that turquoise shot, the question remains whether it is worth it when you could be paddling in the Brighton sea and with a few flicks of the finger you could make it look like an exotic resort’ – James Carfell, marketing for Collier

Instagram couples pretend to be Spider-Man and Mary Jane
Kelly Castille and Kody Workman of Instagram account positravelty received a backlash after posting a pic of Kody dangling Kelly from an infinity pool during a kiss.

‘At the end of the day we are to hold ourselves accountable for the decisions that we make,’ is what they posted next to the photo. Others held them accountable for promoting the dangerous lengths they went to for a pretty picture. They’re not the only dangerous kissers on Instagram, Camille and Jean of backpackdiariez shared one of their ‘wildest kisses’ in May, taken while hanging out of a train door.

‘The best thing PR agencies can do to make sure influencers don’t put themselves in risky situations is to remind them that they – the influencer – are essentially a role model for their followers. When an influencer does something that is out of bounds or potentially dangerous, they are setting a negative precedent. Brands should be very clear when drawing up contracts about what behaviour is or isn’t acceptable’ – Gabrielle Sarpong, PR executive at Feel Good Contacts

Chernobyl series sparks selfies
Tourism to Chernobyl is up following the success of the HBO series detailing the events of the 1986 tragedy – Instagrammers travelling to the site to take some pretty awful selfies is also reportedly on the rise. As well as coming across as callous and potentially harming their reputation, influencers posing in front of abandoned disaster areas also risk their health.

‘When it comes to talent putting themselves in dangerous positions, we would ensure that their safety is our top priority. There is no point risking a life ‘for the gram’. And if a more particular shot was required, we would ensure that all the right precautions were taken, the conditions were right and we have the right creatives to assist in production. Ultimately co-creating the content (instead of an individual curating the content alone) is paramount to ensure everything runs safely, smoothly and avoids any unnecessary danger’ – William Soulier, CEO and co-founder of Talent Village

Overexposure to idealised images could be harming the mental health of influencers
Just as posing in toxic water, over dangerous precipices and near radiation can result in pretty shots for social, obsessing over the shares they get can harm the influencers posting them. Recent research published in the Psychology of Popular Media Culture journal found that Instagram, more than any other social media platform, triggers comparisons and feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. This has led the platform to trial hiding public-facing stats, in the hopes it will reduce the pressure on users (read our white paper about that very topic here).

‘In the age of Instagram manipulation, photoshop editing and augmented reality, it is hard to know which image is genuine and which has been changed to look so incredibly far from the original shot. Many influencers will take 100 photos before posting a single one, trying to get that ideal shot and forgetting the natural aspect of showing who you are and letting your personality shine through’ – James Carfell

‘When you work with an influencer as a PR, they effectively work for you. I truly believe that those working in influencer marketing know exactly how to maintain relations with their influencers, and how to keep them out of harm’s way when they are promoting’ – Jessica Pardoe

If you’re a PR who’s looking to connect with influencers, but aren’t sure how to help them avoid the risks? You can encourage the social media generation to behave responsibly outdoors and find professional influencers to work with on the Vuelio Influencer Database.

Strategic comms to save the world: an interview with the Natural History Museum’s Kate Fielding

August 5, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, PR News PR, Comms Blog Posts /by Phoebe-Jane Boyd

Kate Fielding is the departing head of strategic communications at the Natural History Museum, with overall responsibility for the museum’s reputation and brand. Heading up three teams – media and PR, Government relations, and special events and supporter engagement – Kate works on integrated comms and strategic messaging.

Since Kate joined, she’s been steering the Natural History Museum through a comprehensive brand extension in order to shift both public and stakeholder perceptions from just a cultural tourist attraction to an authoritative scientific institution.

We spoke to Kate about the challenges she’s faced along the way and how a museum of natural history is the key to saving our natural future.

What are the Natural History Museum’s aims?
Our purpose statement is: Inspiring love of nature and finding answers to the big issues facing humanity and the planet.

Saving the world?
Helping to save the world. It’s a big ambition and it’s about changing the way the museum is seen from a lovely old dusty building full of dead stuff to a scientific organisation, which provides a platform for engaging people with important debates. We want to help the country find the right solutions if we’re to have a future where people and the planet thrive together, which is very much in peril at the moment.

The Natural History Museum and other museums around the world have a very important role to play because our collections are not just cultural but they’re actually a scientific record that goes back, in some cases, four and a half billion years, and span the entire planet. You can look at what’s happened over time and space and see what happens if the climate changes or land is used in specific ways.

It’s something that people generally don’t know about this kind of museum, what we do and why it’s important.

How does communications work across the museum?
Museums are complex businesses. There’s effectively a small university bolted on the back of the public galleries, which has 350 scientists working on research projects and curating collections. Then there’s the bit most people think of as ‘the museum’ which is public facing and needs us to develop public programmes, exhibitions and events, as well as look after the visitors. Alongside that are our commercial businesses, which are growing in importance. Catering, retail, licensing and venue hire are all income streams.

We then have the philanthropic income development, working with trusts, foundations and high net worth individuals for funding. And then all the support structures that go into a medium-sized organisation.

Often, because it’s so complex, the way to manage it has been to work in siloes. For comms, that risks there being no coherent or consistent message and making it difficult to get across those big, exciting messages about what we’re aiming to achieve and why people should want to be a part of that. What I’ve been doing is finding ways to bring that story together within a thematic and strategic framework that’s consistent across the Museum.

Is your message the same for everyone?
The agenda and perceptions of a family coming for a fun day out and a Government minister visiting in an official capacity is hopefully different, so we have a range of messaging. What we’ve tried to do is put the brand at the heart of what we’re doing, the idea of inspiration and action whether that’s through science or otherwise.

I think in the past a lot of people haven’t seen us as a very fun day out, but as an educational destination. We did market research into this and even though we’re free to visit, if you’re coming from outside of London you’re looking at the cost to travel in, buy food and probably one or two things from the gift shop. With austerity hitting families, people are making judgements about whether they’re going to have a really great day out for that investment.

For those people, we need to say we’re a fun place to come, which is why we did the Come to Life campaign with outdoor advertising, having fun with specimens and exhibits in playful poses and accompanying ‘speech’. It also played really well on digital and social.

Down the other end we’ve got Government, who are funders, and philanthropic and corporate funders. For them, it’s about showing the work we’re doing and our ability to make an impact, whether that’s climate change and having food to eat in the future, or children in education and STEM subjects.

This work is based around a visit and events programme, because the museum is an incredible asset. We primarily try to get people in and show them everything on public display and behind the scenes, in the Tank Room, for example.

How do you measure the success of this work?
We’ve just completed a big piece of perceptions research as a baseline for public and stakeholder audience groups. It looks at where are we now, what do they think of us and what do they understand of our remit and key messaging? We’ll then measure that again, probably not annually but every couple of years to see if it’s all going in the right direction.

In the short term, we measure the success of individual campaigns. So, for any of the big exhibitions we’ll do a joint comms and marketing report and how well it’s performed with message cut through. It’s not just the profile and the reach but finding out if we landed the fundamental messages that we wanted to get across with that.

With digital and social now in the mix, you’ve got bits of the picture that are easier to measure, and the commercial parts of the business are easier to prove and link together online. Obviously that’s attractive to people who want to see hard numbers and measure things in a certain way, but that can make it even harder to get across the value of things that are difficult to measure. For example, someone may not have taken immediate action seeing one of our scientists on the News at Ten but we know that’s important, it reminds people that we’re here and it has an impact on visitation but we can’t prove that unless we interrogated everyone as they came through the door.

It sounds like there’s lots of considerations when proving ROI?
Just after a year after I started, we relaunched Hintze Hall with our iconic whale skeleton and hundreds of new exhibits in a spectacular transformed space – it was incredible. We got amazing results in terms of the profile and messaging around that, the media team did a brilliant job, but we can’t put that success or an increase in visitors just down to the media team because people have been working for years to bring the project to life.

On the other hand, sometimes you can see direct cause and effect – we had a Darwin play at the museum and our director of engagement went on BBC Breakfast to talk about it and we could see the ticket sales spike dramatically.

A typical consideration in comms is the competition and here you’re surrounded by other museums. Do you see them as competition?
I’m sure in some ways we’re competing with each other, but we work really closely with the museums and cultural institutions in the area. We recently had the Great Exhibition Road Festival, which brought together 22 institutions in Kensington to mark the anniversary of the Great Exhibition of 1851. We’re in a cultural quarter and there’s a lot of great collaboration between the museums, particularly in attracting international visitors to get them to the area.

Museums in general aren’t competitive in the way other commercial businesses are – there’s a feeling we’re part of a national culture. All the national museums are funded by DCMS and there’s an expectation we work together for the public benefit and across the UK.

But obviously when the annual visitor numbers come out, we want to be near the top…

5 PR tips from Bloggers

August 5, 2019/0 Comments/in Five Things, PR Pulse, PR, Blogger, PR Club Media Database, PR, Press and Bloggers Blog Posts /by Phoebe-Jane Boyd

At Vuelio we talk to bloggers, vloggers and Instagrammers all the time about how they work, what best practice looks like and the advice they have for PRs. From men’s fashion to green content, we’ve hand-picked five of the best tips to help you get ahead in influencer marketing.

1. Build relationships
Grey Fox’s David Evans wants to use brand relationships to show his audience that new clothes aren’t just for 20-year-olds. With any blogger, long-term relationships are more likely to yield positive results as their audience will see a true collaboration and trust that their influencer believes in your brand, rather than seeing it as a one-off promotion.

2. Start conversations as early as possible
This advice comes from Andrew and Emily of Along Dusty Roads, who have to plan their trips months in advance. While not everyone needs such a lengthy lead time, the longer you can give bloggers, the more likely they’ll be able to say yes to a collaboration and then focus on creating compelling and relevant content.

3. Don’t just include or invite us because you feel you have to, include us because you want to
This tip comes from Kate Everall, one half of LesBeMums. Inclusion and diversity should be built in to all campaigns because it’s more engaging, not because it makes you look good (or even worse, doesn’t make you look bad). More diverse campaigns can reach more diverse audiences and lead to greater success.

4. Treat us as creative partners rather than blank advertising hoardings
Slouching Towards Thatcham’s Tim Liew advocates creative collaborations that can produce results again and again. No matter what the medium or channel, influencers are successful because they’ve built their own audience with their own unique creativity and voice. Only those that don’t understand the true value of influencer marketing would ignore that.

5. Treat bloggers as real human beings
This tip is from Jeremy Williams of The Earthbound Report, but it’s one we hear again and again. Make sure you take some time to learn about the blogger or influencer you’re pitching to, ensure their content is a good fit for your campaign and then contact them in a personal, and personalised, manner. One of the biggest complaints we get is bloggers being emailed without their name or with the name of their blog, which inevitably leads to poor engagement and no collaboration.

Vuelio is proud to celebrate influence in all its forms at this year’s Online Influence Awards. Find out how you get involved here.

Stay up to date with the Monday PR Club and comms industry newsletters – sign up here.

Family Travel Spotlight: Claire Hall, Tin Box Traveller

August 2, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, Blogger, Blogger Spotlight Media Database, PR, Press and Bloggers Blog Posts /by Holly Hodges

Claire Hall is the author of Tin Box Traveller, a top 10 family travel blog. Covering family adventures both at home and abroad, Claire writes about tips and tricks to keep both young and old(er) happy on holiday. We spoke to Claire the mechanics of her blog, the joys of holidaying in the UK and how she likes to measure the success of campaigns with PRs and brands over long periods of time.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
Ha! This is always an interesting one. I tell people I’m a writer because ‘blogger’ either draws blank looks or smirks (sad but true).

But actually, I’ve always been a writer. I started my career in journalism. I’m now a blogger, video-maker, freelance writer and social media manager. My background in writing is the foundation for everything I do today, which amounts to a career I love.

How do different social channels feed into your blog?
I am on all the big social media channels and try to use each of them daily. Facebook and Pinterest are the ones that generate the most traffic to my blog but they don’t necessarily take the most work to manage.

Instagram is where I spend most of my time. However, I have a love-hate relationship with it. It’s like a mini-blog for me. I see very little traffic coming from Instagram to Tin Box Traveller when compared to Facebook or Pinterest, but I enjoy writing for it and curating my images. Maybe that will change if I go over the golden 10k follower threshold.

It will be interesting to see how the visibility of likes on Instagram changes this platform in the year ahead.

How easy is it to get into family travel? Did you have any major concerns?
It’s simple really. If you want to travel with your kids, do it. Don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done. We took our first trip with our eldest when she was six weeks old and haven’t looked back.

As long as you plan for things to be a bit different to your pre-kid travels, give yourselves plenty of time, and research the places that you are staying, it can be done. There are so many great family travel blogs now – if you have a question, tap it into Google and the answer will be there.

What’s the best family destination in the world?
We love holidaying in the UK. Cornwall is an amazing destination for families. The beaches, family attractions and scope for outdoor activities are endless.

However, if you are looking for somewhere abroad, I’m a big fan of Italy. The Italian Lakes have so much for families to do. And if you enjoy a city break then Tuscany has plenty to choose from and two easily accessible airports from the UK: Pisa and Florence.

What are your top tips for long distance travel with young children?
We haven’t flown long haul with the kids yet, but we have done plenty of long road trips. My top tip for car journeys is to break the trip up with regular stops so that you can all get a break. I took my girls on a few solo road trips last year and we would have all been totally frazzled without pit stops and overnight breaks.

How restrictive are term times for the perfect family travel experience?
I know they are a major issue for lots of families. We have the extra restriction of my husband being in the armed forces and did take the girls out of school for three days last academic year. My husband was deployed over Christmas and New Year, so the Armed Forces Covenant allowed us to get some family time back when his next leave period didn’t synchronise with the school holidays.

Do you accept press releases?
I receive lots of press releases but rarely use them. Some might spark an idea and there are some seasonal events that I want to know about. However, press releases about research rarely capture my attention.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
This year I’ve worked on some great collaborations with brands that have really got to know Tin Box Traveller before they’ve approached me. Bailey of Bristol, who manufacture touring caravans, asked me to work with them on promoting caravan holidays to my audience.

This is a brilliant brand match for me as I started out as caravan blogger. Since then Tin Box Traveller has evolved to cover all kinds of family travel, but this collaboration made me feel like I had come full circle with the blog. We still love caravan holidays so it’s been great to share this with followers who may not have been with us from the start.

I’ve also worked with Parkdean Resorts and Al Fresco Holidays on campaigns and holiday reviews over several years. It’s great to track the success of these long-term relationships.

What advice would you give to PRs looking to get in touch?
Have a read of my blog and take a look at my social media channels. If our audiences have similar interests then let’s chat.

What other blogs do you read?
I read so many other family travel blogs. The adventures of Mini Travellers, Mummytravels, My Travel Monkey and Travelynn Family always inspire me.

Everything you need to know about The Online Influence Awards 2019

August 1, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, The Online Influence Awards, Blogger PR, Blogger Database, Media Database Blog Posts /by Rebecca Potts

The Vuelio Blog Awards are changing, welcome to The Online Influence Awards.

We’ve unveiled our new look event to recognise the transformed role that influencers from bloggers, vloggers to podcasters and instagrammers have in the public debate. Our awards night will be the only UK event to celebrate the very best in online influence, insight and intelligence.

On Friday 22 November, join us at The Bloomsbury Ballroom for an exclusive awards evening of glitz and glamour.

Why have you changed the name?

We created the Vuelio Blog Awards back in 2015 to celebrate the best in the blogosphere but, we recognised that we needed to evolve as the world of online influence has transformed. This year, we’re unveiling a new look event and awards programme designed to become the UK’s first awards celebrating the very best in online influence from across bloggers, vloggers, instagrammers, podcasters together with campaigners from agencies and in-house teams.

How do I enter the awards?

The Online Influence Awards includes 25 categories that are divided between subject (such as Current Affairs, Fashion or Education) and ‘Best of the Best’ (such as Best Newcomer, Best Campaign). The category awards are shortlisted based on the Vuelio industry ranking methodology with winners selected by our Judging Panel (to be announced). They cannot be entered and this handy blog post gives more detail on how our methodology works. We do though encourage you to enter the ‘Best of the Best’ categories which will be open from August 2019. A shortlist will be produced from nominations then winner chosen by our Judging Panel.

Who will be on the judging panel?

Our Judging Panel will be made up of leading influencers, industry experts and agency leaders. The judging day will take place in October 2019 to identify our winners by each category.

When will the finalists be announced?

The shortlisted finalists will be announced from mid-September and shared on our website, social channels. We will also contact each person shortlisted. To make sure you are in the know, sign up to our newsletters here or follow @Vuelio on Twitter and Instagram.

How do I buy tickets to the Online Influence Awards?

Tickets for The Online Influence Awards are currently on sale at our Super Early Bird Price. We recommend booking your tickets soon. Prices will increase after 1 September 2019.

I run a blog/vlog/Instagram/podcast but it’s not covered by any of the categories?

We’ve designed the Online Influence Awards to cover the most popular subjects covered by bloggers, vloggers, Instagrammers and podcasters but unfortunately, we can’t have a category for them all. If your subject isn’t covered by one of our awards, we recommend you enter for one of our ‘Best of the Best’ categories. We also review the award categories each year and if you’d like to suggest a category for next year, we’d love to hear from you.

Still got a question about The Online Influence Awards? No problem, email Rebecca Potts and she’ll be able to help with your query!

Family travel spotlight: Cathy Winston, MummyTravels

July 31, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, PR News, Blogger, Blogger Spotlight Media Database, PR, Press and Bloggers Blog Posts /by Holly Hodges

MummyTravels has once again been named in the top 10 UK family travel blogs. Written by Cathy Winston, MummyTravels is full of tips for travelling with little ones as well as insight into single parent travel and exploring new countries around the world. We spoke to Cathy to find out how she got into family travel, the community of bloggers around her and the best campaigns she’s worked on.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
I usually call myself a travel writer – I’m a professional journalist as well as blogger so that covers both, but I’d say blogger rather than influencer or content creator.

How do different social channels feed into your blog?
I tend to think of each one as an extension of the blog in some way – Facebook is where I go to chat to fellow travel-loving parents and for day-to-day updates about trips. Instagram is all about the photos (although I enjoy the immediacy of Stories as much as the grid shots… and can have a little more control over whose accounts I see!).

As Twitter is so fast-moving, I don’t often have time to keep up with all the conversations, so it’s more about sharing links and live content on trips, as well as Twitter chats – I’m one of the co-hosts of #familytravelhour with Lonely Planet Kids.

I also have a podcast, Kidventures, which I co-host with my friend and fellow family travel blogger Ting from My Travel Monkey and videos on YouTube which have more standalone content but also complement the blog posts.

How easy is it to get into family travel? Did you have any major concerns?
The fact that everyone told me I couldn’t travel with a baby was what inspired the blog in the first place, and I hope that people reading it will be inspired to see that’s not true at all, there’s really nothing to stop families travelling if they want to. When I started the blog, it was more of a creative outlet for me and an attempt to answer the question of whether I could keep travelling, so I don’t think I could ever have foreseen quite how much it would grow over the years.

There are always challenges to travelling with children, including the practical ones when you have a baby and a toddler – I also often travel solo with my daughter, so I’m very aware I’m the only adult on hand a lot of the time. Safety is still the main concern, I’m much less inclined to take risks when I travel with her, but the more you travel, the more you realise that a lot of the concerns (enduring long-haul flights, jetlag, what food they’ll eat) are always things you can deal with and work around.

What’s the best family destination in the world?
I’m not sure I can choose just one! It would need to have sunshine, a beach and a pool (for both of us!) but also plenty to explore and discover, whether it’s historic buildings and temples or getting to discover another culture and way of life. But we’ve found that in South East Asia, Caribbean islands, Greece and the UK – even if the sun is a little less guaranteed at home.

What are your top tips for long distance travel with young children?
Plenty of snacks and plenty of entertainment. Audio books have worked really well for us, especially when my daughter can’t watch something on a screen (or I don’t want her too), but with short attention spans, more really is more – I’d rather carry a dozen things to occupy her for a short time and keep rotating them than rely on one or two ways to entertain her.

I also try to have a back-up plan for most eventualities (places to stop, extra food for planes, spare clothes, portable powerbank) but then go with the flow as much as possible.

How restrictive are term times for the perfect family travel experience?
There’s no question they are restrictive – not least because prices do rise in school holidays, sometimes dramatically. Some destinations are best visited at a time of year which always falls during term time too, or are simply so far away that it’s difficult to visit outside the longer summer holidays.

But having said that, you can still still make the most of each holiday: school needn’t mean you can’t see the world. Visiting destinations outside their peak season can also work well in holiday time – we went to Cambodia one summer, for example, when it’s quieter and slightly cheaper for green season, rather than the more popular European beach destinations.

Do you accept press releases?
Yes, although I’d rarely write anything based solely on a press release unless it was a sponsored post for example.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
The best collaborations tend to be the ones where both sides are clear on the deliverables and any deadlines in advance, but happy to allow some creative freedom and for me to suggest what will perform best on the blog. The results have to work well for both brand and blogger but being too prescriptive doesn’t always produce the best outcome.

Some great recent ones which stick in my mind were a collaboration with Hyundai, where I could design my own road trip and got to showcase the car as well as having some great content to write about. Similarly, with Ikos Resorts in Corfu, our stay included the chance to explore the island (as for all guests) as well as the hotel facilities, while returning to Stoke-on-Trent where I grew up let me share some experiences I remember from my childhood as well as discovering somewhere new.

It’s also wonderful to be able to give my daughter opportunities through the blog – our trip to Lapland last December is one of the most memorable for her sheer excitement at seeing snow, huskies and Santa.

I’m also part of a blogging collective, the Family Travel Collective, with four other award-winning family travel bloggers – Ting from My Travel Monkey, Nichola from Globalmouse Travels, Kirstie from The Family Adventure Project and Gretta from Mums Do Travel – working on campaigns together. From a personal point of view, it’s great working with four creative, inspiring bloggers who love travelling with kids as much as I do, and for brands, it means they get a much greater reach than any one of us could produce alone, as well as a cohesive campaign across multiple blogs for added impact.

What advice would you give to PRs looking to get in touch?
Please take the time to look at the blog first. I’m always open to suggestions and ideas, but if there isn’t a strong family travel angle, it’s unlikely to work. And for the same reasons, anything aimed firmly at toddlers or teens won’t suit my seven-year-old. As a rule, my daughter will usually travel with me on trips for blog coverage, which also normally means school holiday dates.

It’s great if people can be explicit about whether they’re contacting me for the blog too. There’s often overlap with my freelance journalism but it saves having a conversation to discover where you’re looking for coverage to appear. I’ve got to the stage of discussing itineraries only to discover PRs are hoping I might also be able to pitch the story to additional outlets. And while that’s not an impossibility, it’s easiest to have the conversation at the start rather than holding dates during our limited travel time and it then falling through.

What other blogs do you read?
Mostly other UK family travel blogs – too many to name but I expect most or all of Vuelio’s Top 10 list! Suitcases and Sandcastles always has beautiful photos and tells wonderful stories, while the adventures of Travelynn Family are truly inspiring.

As more blogs focus on SEO (myself included), I love stumbling across anything that really transports me to a destination or gets me thinking about life though. There’s nothing like great writing, whatever the subject.

Cycling blog spotlight: Brian Palmer, thewashingmachinepost

July 30, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, Blogger, Blogger Spotlight Media Database, PR, Press and Bloggers Blog Posts /by Christina Pirilla

Brian Palmer is the author of thewashingmachinepost, a top 10 cycling blog. Covering reviews of cycling gear and equipment, as well as ride routes in Scotland and the Hebrides, Brian’s blog has a loyal following of cycling enthusiasts. We caught up with Brian to find out about the best bicycles, his favourite collaborations and the fear that stops him reading other blogs.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
I write incessantly about road bike culture, hopefully with a soupçon of humour along the way.

How did you discover your love of cycling?
I don’t like driving, so I’ve always ridden my bike to get about, even in atrocious Scottish weather, and it keeps me fit.

What’s the best bike you’ve ever ridden?
It almost seems unfair to single one out, so I’ll mention my Specialized CruX cross bike and my Campagnolo equipped Ritchey Logic. Mind you, the Basso Diamante I’m reviewing at present looks very promising.

What’s the best cycle route in the world?
Anywhere on Islay, but I did enjoy Hot Chillee’s annual ‘London-Paris’ ride.

What will be the next big thing in cycling?
Honestly I dread to think as a confirmed luddite. I’d be quite content if they simply left things alone.

What’s the cycling blogging community like to be a part of?
To be honest I really don’t know. I’m too scared to read other blogs in case they’re much better than mine!

Do you accept press releases?
Yes. Always. But they’re only the starting point. I always rewrite everything in what little style I might have. I never just publish the original.

What are the best campaigns you’ve collaborated on?
I did some work with Daniel Pasley in Portland in the very early days of the North American ‘Rapha Continental’. That was fun.

What advice would you give to PRs/brands reaching out to you?
Please don’t offer me pre-written content. I write thewashingmachinepost because I enjoy writing, so I’m never going to use somebody else’s work.

Expect the unexpected: Crisis comms for terrorist incidents

July 30, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, Communications, Webinars PR, Comms Blog Posts /by Kirsti Kauronen

How do you manage crisis comms for terrorist related events?

A new guide by the CIPR and CPNI explains how the right communications can mitigate the harmful effects of terrorist incidents and in some cases even prevent them in the first place.

We are delighted that the guide’s co-authors Sarah Pinch, Managing Director of Pinch Point Communications and Dan Gerrella, Associate Director at Liz Male Consulting will join our next webinar, Expect the Unexpected – Crisis Comms for Terrorist Incidents to discuss best practice for communication management before, during and after terrorist incidents.

Webinar: Crisis Comms for Terrorist Incidents, 6 August 2019 at 14:00 BST

Join our webinar to learn:

How to prepare a crisis comms plan for before, during and after incidents
The importance of leadership and managing employee welfare
How to work with the police during a crisis
How to deal with different types of terror-related events

Can’t make it? Register and we will send you a recording after the event.

Life as an intern at Vuelio

July 29, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, PR News PR, Comms Blog Posts /by Phoebe-Jane Boyd

Germaine Aboud has been interning with the marketing department at Vuelio for the past month. An Economics and Politics graduate, this is Germaine’s first exposure to PR, public affairs and communications, so we asked her to share what she’s learned about our industry.

For someone who knew nothing of PR and comms, I have come a long way. Before working at Vuelio, I thought PR solely consisted of drafting press releases. I did not expect it to be based so much on strategy and the creation of narratives to align with an organisation’s agenda and achieve your goals.

The use of technology, and specifically tailored software, to manage public relations truly revolutionises the whole industry, especially when one looks at the extent to which it overlaps with marketing agencies and public affairs.

For the past month, I’ve been working on a research project to support the marketing department. This allowed me to interact with different departments in the company and greatly enhanced my knowledge of the PR industry and how it’s using communication and reputation management software. Here are four things I’ve learned about the PR industry:

1. PR is people and social trends

Even a press release is all about people and understanding what they want to hear and how they’ll react. Knowing how to brand yourself, a product or whole organisation is based on observing societal trends and responding to them. Studying these trends and the changing norms is where PR software is essential, especially with the increasing social media presence in societies. Being able to monitor these changes on a large scale on one single platform expedites an organisation’s response to rapidly changing trends

2. It is hard to quantify the industry

The PR industry overlaps with many others, particularly the content marketing industry, which makes it hard to quantify. Many companies combine their PR and content marketing strategies to ensure brand message consistency, to facilitate content outreach and share budgets. However, PR still takes precedence over marketing in crisis management.

3. The Comms in ‘PR and Comms’

It’s a recurring theme in every industry and job description: communication skills. However, in PR it goes beyond that. Communication in PR is how to strategically manage relationships with the public, which consists of multiple stakeholders that your brand/image must appeal to. The challenge is that each one of these stakeholders speaks a different language that PR campaigners must learn in order to respond to their concerns and desires. Again, this is where PR software is essential to map out your stakeholders and study their social needs.

4. Narrative, narrative and narrative

This is probably the most interesting aspect of PR, in my opinion, as it brings together everything mentioned above. Controlling the narrative is the goal. By understanding your audience, social trends and how to communicate your message, the narrative is born and should resonate with your audience.

Ultimately, the PR and communications industry does not have the same reputation internally as it does externally and it’s fascinating to learn how strategic communications can make the difference between success and failure. It’s been a steep learning curve, but I’d recommend this industry to anyone.

Presenting The Online Influence Awards 2019

July 29, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, The Online Influence Awards, Blogger, PR Club Media Database, PR, Blogger Database Blog Posts /by Rebecca Potts

The Vuelio Blog Awards are changing, welcome to The Online Influence Awards.

Back in 2015 we launched The Vuelio Blog Awards, which grew to be the most respected accolades for bloggers across the UK.

Bu the world of influence has changed, so this year we’re delighted to unveil our new look event, The Online Influence Awards, to celebrate the very best in influence, insight and intelligence from across the world of vloggers, bloggers, Instagrammers and podcasters.

Alongside subject categories including lifestyle, fashion, politics and news, in 2019 we will also reward the best B2B, B2C and Cause-Led Influencer Campaigns.

Taking place on 22 November at The Bloomsbury Ballroom, we will be transporting our guests back to the glamour and glitz of the 1920s with a Gatsby-inspired evening of indulgence and celebration.

Greeted with a jazz-era cocktail reception, guests will enjoy a fully-immersive evening including a three-course fine dining experience, culminating in the crowning of the top UK influencers.

Categories are now open for sponsorship; from individual awards to drinks reception and the legendary after party, there’s a package to suit every budget and goal. Sponsors get their brand in front of the leading names in the industry and we’ll even make sure they’re sat on your table.

You’re also invited to take advantage of our super early bird ticket price, which is available until 2 September.

We’ll be announcing the full categories, finalists, hosts and much more over the coming weeks so make sure you’re following Vuelio on Twitter, Instagram and you’re signed up to our newsletters.

Koray Camgoz appointed Head of Comms and Marketing at PRCA

July 24, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, PR News PR, Comms Blog Posts /by Rebecca Potts

The Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) have appointed Koray Camgoz as Head of Comms and Marketing. Camgoz joins the PRCA from the CIPR where he led the communications function as Public Relations Manager.

Camgoz began his career in comms in New York at the communications firm Tiberend Strategic Advisors and with a Masters degree in media and communications, a PR diploma and a Chartered PR Practioner, he will bring plenty of experience and knowledge to his new role.

Camgoz said: “I’m excited to start a new chapter with the PRCA. I’d like to thank the staff and volunteers at the CIPR for their support over the years. I believe passionately in the power of communication and the need for professionals to commit to industry standards. I look forward to supporting the PRCA’s continuing growth in the UK and overseas.”

Francis Ingham MPRCA, Director General, PRCA, said: “It’s my enormous pleasure to welcome Koray Camgoz to the PRCA team. I’ve been hugely impressed by his work at the CIPR in recent years, and I’m delighted he’ll now be deploying his expertise on behalf of PRCA members. His knowledge of our industry, combined with his international expertise make him the perfect person to head up the PRCA’s UK and international communications and marketing.”

Blogger Rebrand: Amuse Your Bouche becomes Easy Cheesy Vegetarian

July 23, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, Blogger, Blogger Spotlight Media Database, PR, Press and Bloggers Blog Posts /by Holly Hodges

Leading food blogger Amuse Your Bouche rebranded earlier this year to become Easy Cheesy Vegetarian. Still a top 10 food blogger, author Becca Heyes spoke to us about the process of rebranding, the ethos of her blog and the way she works with brands and PRs.

Why have you rebranded?
I felt like I’d outgrown the name Amuse Your Bouche. Lots of people didn’t understand what it meant, and it didn’t actually give any information about what you’d find on the site. Easy Cheesy Vegetarian is a real ‘does what it says on the tin’ kind of name – if I saw that name, I’d immediately want to browse the site, as that sounds like just the sort of recipes I’d love to see.

How big a project is it rebranding a blog? Any major challenges?
It was quite a big project, but luckily I had a great developer who designed a fantastic user-friendly site for me, and set up all the redirects from the old site perfectly. I definitely wouldn’t have attempted that aspect of the rebrand on my own, as it’s so important to get the redirects right.

Changing social handles was actually easier than I thought it would be – most social networks allowed me to make the switch with no problems.

What’s the Easy Cheesy Vegetarian ethos?
My recipes all tend to fit three main criteria:

They only use straightforward ingredients that you could easily find at your local supermarket. I find a lot of vegetarian recipes use ‘weird’ ingredients that can be hard to get hold of and seem pretty alien to a lot of people.
They’re simple and easy to follow, with no unnecessary steps.
They’re hearty and filling – I don’t do tiny portions of fussy food.

My recipes are (hopefully!) really accessible, and easy for everyone to enjoy, whether they’re a vegan, omnivore or anything in between.

What kind of people do you write your content for?
Just normal people like me! I could try to write for specific kinds of people, but really all I can do is to write content that I would enjoy, and hope there are enough people like me who will enjoy it too. So I suppose, if you’re a slightly busy (but also slightly lazy) person who just wants to enjoy some good, straightforward vegetarian food, Easy Cheesy Vegetarian is the place for you.

What’s the best cheese?
That’s the hardest question in the world! I suppose it depends what counts as ‘best’. Halloumi is definitely one of my favourites – the rich salty flavour is amazing, and you can’t beat it when it’s gooey in the middle and crispy on the outside. But I probably use a good old cheddar more than any other cheese, as it’s just so versatile. My fridge would feel empty without it.

What’s your favourite recipe from your own repitoire?
Ooh, it’s so hard to pick. I’ve spent the last seven and a half years years coming up with new recipe after new recipe, and there are hundreds to choose from! I suppose my cheesy bean bake is one of my favourites because it’s hard to think of anything that could be better than a rich, hearty casserole topped with plenty of cheese! Or, the lentil and halloumi curry I shared recently was pretty incredible too. Halloumi in curry is a real revelation.

What’s the best vegetarian restaurant/option at a restaurant?
To be honest, I don’t go to vegetarian restaurants very often. I find it overwhelming when there’s too much choice, I’m so used to only having a few different things to choose from, not a full menu. I’m actually pretty predictable when it comes to eating out, I like to choose something I know I’ll enjoy, and that I rarely make for myself at home. I find it hard to resist a good veggie burger and chips.

Has the rebrand changed the way you work with brands/PRs at all?
Nope! Luckily, everyone seems to have realised that the site content is the same as before, my readers are the same as before, and I am the same as before, so very little has changed in that respect. I still love to work with brands to bring new and interesting products to my readers.

What advice would you give to brands looking to work with you?
Be good communicators! It’s frustrating when I’m talking to a brand about a new project, and they stop replying to emails for a few weeks. All it takes is a two-sentence email letting me know that I can expect to hear from them in a couple of weeks’ time, and everyone is happy.

Food & Drink is a supersector as identified in the UK Bloggers Survey – how do you feel it fits in with the rest of the blogosphere?
I think there will always be food and drink blogs because everyone needs to eat. So, it’s an important category that can reach all sorts of people from all walks of life, rather than more niche categories that may only be relevant to certain types of people.

Food & Drink can also command some of the highest prices for posts and collaborations, but it’s by no means consistent – do you feel there should be standardised pay?
I definitely think that everyone deserves to be paid equally for their time, nobody should be working for free. But it’s also important to remember that brands are not only paying for a blogger’s time, but also to reach their audience, which can obviously vary greatly in size. Therefore, I do think it’s fair for a blogger with a huge reach to be paid more than a blogger with a small reach. There are lots of factors involved.

What other blogs do you read?
I have very little time to read other blogs these days, with a toddler to look after alongside blogging, and another baby on the way! So, I wouldn’t say there are any blogs I read consistently at the moment. But, I do think it’s really important to know your industry, so I do try to keep up with general trends in blogging, and to keep an eye on how other people are doing things. I’d say I read a little bit from everyone, rather than reading any blogs in particular.

How metrics are helping us prove the value of PR

July 23, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, media measurement, PR, PR News Media Analysis, PR, Media Monitoring Blog Posts /by Phoebe-Jane Boyd

This is a guest post by Sarah Evans, senior digital strategist at Bottle.

It’s no longer acceptable to say PR has a measurement problem. As an industry we’ve been (fairly) challenged to demonstrate what value our campaigns, our work, that piece of coverage had in real terms. How does that feed into business objectives?

At Bottle, we believe brands grow when their stories flow. To measure the effectiveness of that, we need a blend of short- and long-term metrics. A regular flow of stories being published – audience-first content and coverage, both on and offsite – builds a momentum that cumulatively shifts a larger dial over time that indicates brand growth.

Are your stories flowing?
We still need to keep sight of things like coverage itself, for example: how many pieces, the quality of the sites that are linking, how many unique referring domains link back to your site? These help us keep on top of the momentum and frequency that we’re building. In previous reports, we may have stopped there, however now we know we’re influencing behaviour beyond that initial burst of activity.

Next, we need to look at the immediate impact of that activity. Indicators that our coverage is valuable to its intended audience are things like social shares and comments. If there are any links in the piece, did anyone click on them (and if they did, were they ‘long clicks’ or did they bounce?). If coverage doesn’t have a link, and people like what they see, they’ll have to either Google you or come directly to your website to find out more. Google Analytics (or other website tracking software) can tell you all of this, and more.

How is your content performing? Are people reading and engaging with your content? You can look at this through pages per visit, bounce rate and time on page. Is your content doing the job it set out to do? And what do people do next on the site?

Is your brand growing?
As well as short-term metrics, we also need to balance that by zooming out and understanding how all that activity is laddering up into wider marketing objectives. We may not have sales-led objectives, however a common KPI we look at is site traffic (as a whole, or specifically from channels that we’re most likely to influence with ‘brand building’ activity, like organic search or direct).

These metrics by their nature can take consistent, sustained activity to shift (which is why we set the pace with the shorter-term metrics). Things like the number of people searching for the brand, direct traffic and positions for target keywords, topics and products are all key indicators that your brand is growing in visibility and authority.

Branded searches are a proxy for awareness, and even loyalty if someone already knows who they want to buy from. Direct traffic (although a bit of a messy, catch-all channel) indicates how many people have been to your site before, have you bookmarked, or type your URL in as their destination. A growth in search visibility (or how many times Google has served up your site as an answer to someone’s question) tells us that Google is confident that people will get what they need from your site, in turn driving more organic traffic.

Reporting is empowering
As the boundaries between PR, marketing and SEO activity are merging ever closer, there’s no excuse for PR to shy away from measurement any longer. It’s empowering to demonstrate the value of your work; it unlocks budget, helps us plan the next campaign and sometimes it even makes great case studies. We’ve been influencing these metrics all along, without taking any of the credit. We’re not a direct acquisition channel, but a valid and vital part of the journey. Understanding and articulating the role it plays, both long and short term, is the key to PR’s digital evolution.

Dos and don’ts of networking

July 22, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, PR Club PR, Comms Blog Posts /by Rebecca Potts

For some people, the idea of attending an industry event fills them with dread. It’s the fear of what to say and who you might meet, or, most terrifying of all, what if no-one talks to you. Networking at events doesn’t need to be a chore, instead it should be seen as the enjoyable part of your job that helps you get ahead (plus these events often come with free food and drink!).

Vuelio hosts, sponsors and attends a large number of industry events throughout the year and along the way we’ve picked up top dos and don’ts of how to network. Whether you’re at an industry awards kitted out in black tie, casual post-work networking drinks or a three-day conference, these tips should give you the confidence to blossom into a networking pro.

Research. Try to find out who else is going to be at the event so you can plan who you want to speak to. This will be easier for some types of events and with any awards ceremony the shortlist is your key to finding out who will be there on the night.
- Top tip: find out the event hashtag and follow it on Twitter, it’s a great way to see who’s engaged and talking about the event and gives you the chance to have pre-event interaction
Be open. Keep a couple of open-ended questions up your sleeve; remember, if this is your first interaction keep it light and friendly but most of all make sure you listen to their answer.
- Top tip: read the signs when it’s ready to bring the conversation to a close, are they looking elsewhere or checking their phone? Smile, say you enjoyed talking to them and that you’ll catch up with them soon.
Follow up. Not only is it good manners but it also makes sure you stay at the front of their mind. Whether you connect on LinkedIn or send a short email, thank them for their time and suggest getting in touch again soon.
- Top tip: make it personal if you can, refer back to the event you met at or a topic of conversation you discussed. This shows that you listened and puts you in the best light.

Don’t

Speak to colleagues. Chances are you’ve gone to the event with a colleague and while the temptation may be to stick to the people you know this doesn’t help you meet new people or expand your network.
- Top tip: look for other people on their own, it’s easier to have a conversation one-to-one than break into a group.
Be late. Allow yourself plenty of time to get to the venue, being late to events reflects badly on you and the company you represent. It also means you may miss vital networking opportunities.
- Top tip: check the route before you leave for any potential travel issues.
Be unapproachable. Your instinct may be to go to your phone and check emails in an uncomfortable networking situation but this sends the message that you don’t want to engage with others. Grab a drink and keep the phone away!
- Top tip: Stood on an exhibition stand? The temptation will be to fold your arms but this is a big no, keep your arms behind your back and you’re body language will go from unapproachable to open in seconds.

Expert Industry Advice

Andrea Sexton, director of Andrea Sexton PR had these three failsafe tips: ’Be in it for the long term! Networking works best when you build long term relationships then you can refer with confidence and with professionalism. Follow up straight away. I block out time in my diary after each networking event in order to have the opportunity to follow up with people properly. Stick with it and take it seriously – it will be worth it.’

Holly Pither, MD and founder of Tribe PR shared this networking don’t: ’I once saw a guy pull out his iPad at an industry event and start showing his sales creds to a poor chap. I can’t tell you how awkward it was. In sales, the aim isn’t about what you have to offer, it’s about listening to the other person and understanding what they need, and this is exactly what you must do when networking. So, leave the sales pitch to the follow up meetings and instead use this time to really genuinely understand the person you are talking to and connect with them.’

Debby Penton, managing director at technology PR consultancy Wildfire shared her top networking advice gleaned from over 20 years’ experience: ‘The key to good networking is reciprocity. Don’t go for the hard sell and look only for opportunities for yourself. Ask questions and listen. Find out what people’s challenges are and think who you can connect them with in your network. Then follow up, make those connections and keep in touch. Do this persistently and in time contacts will start to repay the favour.’

Happy networking!

All external comment was sourced from our network and via the ResponseSource Journalist Enquiry Service.

‘PR and communication is more important than it’s ever been’

July 19, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR Media Database, PR Blog Posts /by Phoebe-Jane Boyd

Businesses are not reacting fast enough to the changing demands of society, according to Professor Andrew Burke, Dean of Trinity College Business School.

In the latest interview for the CIPR’s #PRPays series, Professor Burke urged businesses to proactively shape the values of their consumers to create a more positive environment for all stakeholders. He stressed that PR professionals have a vital role to play in communicating those values to stakeholders.

Professor Burke, who is also Chair of Business Studies at Trinity College, revealed a step change in the skills and characteristics demanded of leaders by modern businesses. He said: ‘In the past, businesses looked for the brightest students by IQ and build up their analytical.

‘Now they want a broad-based individual with emotional intelligence, they want someone with values and a conscience’.

He also emphasised how authenticity is vital to any communications, and business should be embodying the messages they’re delivering.

The interview is the fourth instalment of the CIPR’s #PRPays series, which aims to demonstrate the value of PR to the business commmunity.

Travel Spotlight: Andrew and Emily, Along Dusty Roads

July 18, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, Blogger, Blogger Spotlight Media Database, PR, Press and Bloggers Blog Posts /by Holly Hodges

Along Dusty Roads was created by Andrew and Emily back in 2014. Now a top 10 travel blog, Along Dusty Roads covers slow travel; living, breathing and falling in love with every destination they visit. We caught up with the travel couple to find out about their lives as bloggers, use of social, the best places in the world and how they work with brands and PRs.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
With great difficulty.

We wear many hats in this job, literally and metaphorically. There’s a bunch of creative stuff (writing, photography, design), lots of admin, lots of logistics and planning, lots of website and tech things, areas that are akin to marketing and advertising, and then all the day-to-day jobs that come with running our own digital business.

It’s the travelling that’s the easy part, but most people perhaps don’t realise everything else we have to do to keep Along Dusty Roads ticking over.

However, the golden thread running through absolutely everything we do, and motivating everything we do, is trying to help people to travel more, and travel better.

That can take many forms, but primarily it’s about writing personal guides and tales based only on our own experiences and adventures so that others can read reliable, realistic, and relatable writing to inspire or plan their next trip. And taking pretty pictures along the way while trying to raise awareness of a travel style that’s more responsible, considerate and curious!

How do different social channels work with your blog?
We try to maintain a consistent voice across them, but it’s difficult as each social media channel lends itself to a different type of content and a different type of attention. Simply cross-posting the same things or pushing out old blog posts each day isn’t what our social media is there for – instead it’s somewhere to show our personality a little more, build a community outside the more static medium of the blog and share different stories of our travels or a destination.

There’s no doubt that Instagram takes up more of our time and attention than we’d like, but it’s also the social media that most clients care most about. We were slow starters to Stories, but absolutely love it as a creative space and way to interact better with our followers. We struggle with Twitter as a forum for travel, but recently have found our audience actually really enjoy images, which we previously thought weren’t a good fit for the medium. Facebook is comfortable and we have a lot of people there who have been with us since the beginning, but sometimes being a bit more personal or longform on that platform doesn’t feel right.

Do you think travel blogging will be your job forever?
We certainly hope so.

The dream is to grow Along Dusty Roads while always keeping it true to our core principles and travel philosophy. There are various projects, improvements and innovations we’d like to do based around the blog, but the trouble is finding the time to develop these.

Where’s the best place for street food in the world?
Based on our own experience of the world (there are so many places we haven’t visited), we’d go for Mexico.

Which country has the friendliest locals?
Every country has friendly locals who go out of their way to make you feel welcome, but every country also has people who may not. Thankfully, we’ve experienced more of the former rather than the latter on our own travels.

What’s your favourite mode of transport?
Due to our travels across Latin America, we’ve probably spent about two months in the last five years solely travelling on buses (which usually had a Fast and Furious movie on, or anything else from The Rock’s back catalogue).

When it isn’t packed or ridiculously expensive though, there’s a gentle romanticism to train travel – and as a traveller it is the sort of environment where conversations different to the ordinary with a new person are possible. It’s also less stressful and more sustainable than many other modes of transport.

Do you accept press releases?
We write everything on Along Dusty Roads, and we only write about places that we have personally visited and experienced. We think that’s something core to what distinguishes a travel blog from any other travel-oriented website out there – and readers value that. This means that we don’t accept or publish press releases.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
We’re very selective on collaborations.

That travellers trust us, and respect our opinions, which means the absolute world to us, and we take that responsibility incredibly seriously. We would never jeopardise it or take it for granted. This means that any collaboration has to be a great fit for our audience and our travel style, and something or somewhere that we can genuinely and wholeheartedly support or recommend.

Thankfully, this focus on suitability and quality means that the campaigns and collaborations we do work on are pretty great. For example, we’re Wanderers for G Adventures, a small-group adventure company that does great things to lead the conversation on responsible and sustainable travel.

What advice would you give to PRs/brands reaching out to you?
The main advice is to start conversations about working together as early as possible. We have to plan out our travels months in advance, and having things sorted earlier rather than last-minute helps massively.

Also, taking the time to look into who we are and what we do at Along Dusty Roads before getting in touch makes a world of difference. Generic queries waste everyone’s time, but we love discussing how we can work together when it’s clear that somebody has taken the time to actually think about whether we’re a good fit for them (and vice versa) and contacts us with a clear idea about what they want to do together.

We only really work on bespoke campaigns now, so the final thing would be to trust our experience as travellers and bloggers so that we can create a campaign together that doesn’t simply visit the same places mentioned in every single other article about a destination, and understanding that free time on an itinerary is a good thing, not a bad thing, when it comes to travel writing.

What other blogs do you read?
We like to get our travel inspiration and travel journalism from a really diverse set of traditional and modern media, rather than only reading blogs, but we are big fans of The Common Wanderer, This Battered Suitcase, Jungles in Paris, Budget Traveller and Flora the Explorer (to name just a few).

Celebrating research and insight at the Think Tank Awards 2019

July 18, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR PR Blog Posts /by Rebecca Potts

We were proud to be the headline sponsor at Prospect’s Think Tank Awards 2019 which took place within the House of Commons last night and celebrates the role think tanks play globally in providing research and insight into complex political issues.

Hosted in The Churchill Room, the awards began with a welcome from Baroness Neville-Jones, the room sponsor, who thanked all attending for their hard work over the past year. Our CEO, Joanna Arnold then spoke on the important role think tanks play in helping make sense of constant political change, from Brexit to climate change.

After an introduction from Tom Clarke, editor of Prospect magazine and host, it was onto the main event. Winners from across the world including the Peterson Institute for International Economics, last year’s winners of the One to Watch; Instituto Igarapé, Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Bruegel; the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Centre for Business and Policy Studies.

From the UK, winners included the IPPR taking the award for Science, Health, Environment and Energy; the Institute for Fiscal Studies who were award winners for Economics and Financial Affairs; The UK in a Changing Europe in the Foreign Affairs category; and the Centre for Social Justice in UK Social Policy.

The Think Tank who won the most awards on the night was the International Institute for Sustainable Development. They took away awards including the top prize for World Science, Health, Environment and Energy and Foreign Affairs as well as being the ‘Think Tank to Watch’.

The final prize was the most important, ‘Think Tank of the Year’, and went to the Institute for Government. While they had been shortlisted for four awards and narrowly missed out, they were recognised for the excellence of their output through the year.

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to Prospect for organising the event which gives think tanks the recognition they deserve for their work to improve global politics and policy making. We are delighted to be able to support.

Travel blogger spotlight: Kach and Jonathan, Two Monkeys Travel

July 17, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, PR, Blogger, Blogger Spotlight Media Database, PR, Press and Bloggers Blog Posts /by Holly Hodges

Two Monkeys Travel has been one of the leading travel blogs since its launch in 2014. Written by Kach and Jonathan Howe, the blog contains extensive travel advice for countries across the world. We caught up with the pair to find out how their blog has evolved to mirror their lifestyle changes, the best places in the world and the greatest PR collaboration they’ve ever worked on.

How do you describe what you do to other people?
It all depends on how much we feel like explaining! ‘Travel blogging’ always invites a list of questions about how it’s possible to make money doing it. We don’t mind that at all but sometimes we’re just giving our brains a break from work talk for a few hours. On the other hand, it’s usually simpler to say, ‘online marketing and social media management!’

How do different social channels work with your blog?
Facebook and Instagram work the best for us, with Twitter and Pinterest close behind. Facebook and Instagram have the highest engagement for us, most likely because they allow the best balance of photos and descriptive text to explain where we have been and what we have been doing. We have always had the best connection with our readers through our personal stories and experiences.

Do you think travel blogging will be your job forever?
It’s hard to say exactly what it will become in the future, but we know that it has to be able to evolve with us as our lifestyle changes. We tend to change our lifestyle around on a regular basis anyway, having been expats, backpackers, English teachers, live-aboard sailors and now back to being expats in Europe. We do seem to be edging further towards ‘settling down’ year-by-year, so we’ll just have to see what happens there!

Where’s the best place for street food in the world?
We’d have to say Vietnam, although we’re clearly biased having lived there! We love the fact that no matter which street you walk down, there is always something interesting to eat and it rarely costs more than several pounds!

Which country has the friendliest locals?
It’s just not possible to pick one, because every place we go we meet amazing people and they seem to be happier and friendlier than the last!

What’s your favourite mode of transport?
We have two favourites, sailing and motorbike. We just sold our own sailboat after living aboard for two years so we are now on the lookout for a new motorbike. Since we’re now based in Montenegro, we’re in the perfect place to explore Europe at a slower pace and then maybe some more adventurous bike trips to countries in Central Asia.

Do you accept press releases?
We don’t have a fixed rule as such. If something is relevant, useful and interesting for our readers, then we’ll consider sharing it with them.

What are the best collaborations you’ve worked on?
There have been so many great ones but of course, our favourite project is still our expedition cruise to Antarctica with Hurtigruten! In general, though, we love working with brands and PRs who match our own travel style and of course the type of travel our readers are looking for. This tends to be a blend of luxury and adventure travel, with the luxury being in the accommodation and the adventure being in the activities. We still love to be outside hiking, horseback riding, cycling and motorbiking, but we also love to collapse into a fancy hotel at the end of the day!

What advice would you give to PRs/brands reaching out to you?
After an initial email, we love to talk directly on the phone or even in person if it’s possible. We find that it really helps to get to know each other and what everyone needs and expectations are on all sides. Once we have that kind of relationship then everything else falls into place very easily.

We also really like working with the same brands more than once, because once we’ve built a rapport with a company on one successful campaign, there is always so much more we can do together, and this demonstrates a greater level of brand trust to our readers.

What other blogs do you read?
It’s a shame to admit that we really don’t have time to follow any other blogs out there on a regular basis! Of course, if we need to know something then we search online like everyone else and we most likely end up finding what we need in a blog of some kind.

What’s next for YouTube and influencer culture?

July 17, 2019/0 Comments/in PR Pulse, journalism, PR, Media and Entertainment, Blogger Media Database, PR, Press and Bloggers Blog Posts /by Phoebe-Jane Boyd

VidCon, the annual video conference to celebrate YouTube and its stars, hit its tenth anniversary last week. Much has changed since the early days of the event – the big personalities of a decade ago have moved on to other careers, making way for younger YouTubers – but a major difference this year was the attitude attendees and panel members showed towards the platform they’d gathered to discuss.

A new sombreness was reported during panels focusing on the reality of life with YouTube, its negative impacts on the news cycle, its audience, and its vloggers. But is it time to abandon the platform for the other mediums and the creators competing for market share, user numbers, and influence?

YouTube, Facebook, Twitch and TikTok are subjects freelance journalist and author Chris Stokel-Walker [pictured] has been steeped in since the age of 17. Now 30, Chris is an expert on digital video media having written about it for outlets including BBC News, Wired UK and The Economist, and now reporting on the online video space as editor of FFWD. His book YouTubers: How YouTube shook up TV and created a new generation of stars tracks the rise of the platform, its celebrities and the controversies that have sprung up in recent years.

‘I saw the shifts in society caused by the rise of YouTube – its pervasiveness attracted me – and it wasn’t being covered in a literate enough way,’ Chris said of his work on the subject. For a platform that’s intrinsic to so many facets of the media – brands, bloggers, vloggers, influencers, multimedia journalists, marketing and PR firms – the lack of reporting on YouTube and its workings in mainstream media is curious.

That this is an area particularly important to PRs and the clients they work with makes Chris’s book vital reading for those in the industry who need a crash course in its benefits. A study from Nielsen and Carat Global, cited in the book, found that in comparison to traditional celebrity endorsements, YouTuber collaborations led to four times as many viewers becoming familiar with a brand.

If you’re a PR who works regularly with YouTube influencers, impressive stats on their effectiveness for campaigns won’t be a surprise to you. What might be is the way influencers view working with PR companies and brands. Chapters of the book highlight the hesitancy some YouTubers (stars featured in the book include Jake Paul, Grace Helbig and Dodie Clark) can have signing up with PR firms after projects have gone bad.

How can PRs avoid giving a useful collaborator a bad experience? For Chris, the right kind of support is key: ‘Marketers and PR people tend to treat influencers as if they’re traditional celebrities, when they’re not. Their stock in trade is their authenticity, and any bad decision an influencer makes to support or endorse a product will be picked up on very quickly. It’s important that PR people fully appreciate who they’re representing, their personality and what is a good or bad endorsement for them. Influencers need smart guidance.’

While the rise of influencer culture has had some high-profile stumbles – opinions on Zoella and Alfie Deyes’ efficacy as brand spokespeople may vary these days, and Jaclyn Hill might struggle to secure future lipstick collabs – Chris believes it has a good future. He said: ‘I still think the positives of influencers outweigh the negatives, in large part because of the way in which influencers present themselves. There’s a difference between a mainstream traditional celebrity and a digital celebrity. Parasocial relationships – that feeling of closeness and authenticity – mean that smaller influencers can take the time to interact with their entire fanbase in a way that people will millions of followers just can’t.’

And YouTube’s dominance in the digital video sphere? ‘When I started writing the book, it looked like Facebook could stand a chance at taking over video supremacy, but now we’re seeing that TikTok, which has more than 1.2 billion users already, and Twitch (which has the financial backing of Amazon) could threaten YouTube.’

Whichever platform reigns supreme, online video creators will continue to be a good opportunity for PRs to work with, and for journalists to write about. For Chris, it’s brought democratisation along with the fresh opportunities – ‘I see the rise of YouTube and influencers as a net positive: we are seeing the flattening of the media industry and benefitting from everything that provides. Of course, there are some big issues in the minority that need to be tackled with that, but there’s lots of good from having more people accessing the industry. You can get jaded towards some content creators, but ultimately YouTube is such a massive space that you can find anything you want.’

More about YouTube and its creators can be found in Chris’s book ‘YouTubers: How YouTube shook up TV and created a new generation of stars’ as well as his just-launched Medium outlet FFWD. Chris tweets @Stokel.

Find top influencers, vloggers, and bloggers on the Vuelio Media Database.

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