With the rise of social media platforms like facebook and Twitter, the world is quickly learning to interact online in a multitude of ways. The magic words these days seem to be ‘interact’ and ‘engage’. This development has clearly influenced the way online competitions are held nowadays. In the past, competition formats were somewhat limited to participants submitting an entry (a bit of text, a photo, or both) and learning a few weeks later if their entry received favorable marks from a panel of judges. These days, as media becomes more social, it’s the power or rather, the discretion, of the public that counts. Companies are learning that they can create a lot more buzz by not only soliciting entries from the public but by encouraging participants to lobby for votes, thereby spreading the word about the competition. You can count on the contestants to post links to their entries on their facebook pages, emails, blogs, tweets and other social media platforms. This is a brilliant marketing (and link-building) tactic and a powerful new instrument to build brand awareness.

One of the latest competitions to employ this tactic is the new Radisson Blu ‘Greatest Holiday in the World‘ competition. The Radisson Blu chain of hotels is offering a grand prize of 365 hotel nights in any of their 200+ hotels around the world over a 5 year period.

To participate, contestants visit the greatest holiday in the world site and tell Radisson why they deserve the prize above everyone else and upload photos or videos to back their arguments. Contestants are urged to spread the word by asking their friends, family and colleagues to vote for their entry. The contestant with the most votes wins! This competition is only open to citizens/residents of the European Union as well as Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. However, everyone can vote for the entries. It’s that simple! The competition closes on July 24th 2010.

To keep the momentum of the competition going, Radission Blu is offering up to 10 weekly prizes for the most entertaining entries. Winners are selected based on humour, creativity and originality used to present their stories. This is a simple competition but oh so effective in creating buzz around the Radisson Blu brand. All thanks to social media!

Go ahead, submit your entry, start lobbying for votes and who knows, you might be the lucky winner of 365 hotel nights anywhere in the world!

Note: this is a Sponsored Post.

Those who frequently read my posts on Velvet Escape will have noticed the funky-looking pop-up maps, Twitter profiles or Wikipedia notes. I had been searching for a while for a way to effectively integrate maps, videos and photos into my posts. Then, last November, I discovered Apture. I tested it and within minutes, I was convinced that this was the plugin of the year… for me anyway! Apture has since lifted my blog to a whole different level by facilitating an enhanced reader experience.

How I use Apture on my blog

A pop-up displays the Amazon product

Since using Apture, I’ve been able to do many cool things with amazing ease. Here are 6 ways I use Apture (including examples of posts to illustrate how the plugin is used):

• Search for and embed photos & videos in my posts
• Create links to Twitter profiles
• Include maps to my posts (either as a pop-up or an embed)
• Provide extra information sourced from Wikipedia
• Sell Amazon products (e.g. books) from within my posts
• Upload documents (such as pdf’s) that can be viewed by my readers without having to leave the page.

The Apture Search Bar

Apture recently introduced another cool feature: the Search bar. The Search bar only appears when readers scroll down the page. The bar houses a logo of my blog (which links back to my home page), social media icons which allow readers to easily share the post via Twitter, facebook or email, and a search field. Apture neatly organises the search results by source, including a separate header for my blog posts that contain the search term. That way, readers are encouraged to dig deeper into my blog and hence, prolong their stay. Brilliant stuff!

Two more reasons why I love Apture

1. For such an amazing plugin, it hasn’t noticeably slowed down the load time of my blog.
2. Apture’s Customer Support is excellent – they’re helpful, personable and prompt!

I have absolutely no qualms recommending Apture to every blogger.

Note: this post was not sponsored by Apture. I just love this plugin!

It’s in many top-10 lists of things to do to drive more traffic to your blog: promote your blog in your email signature. It’s difficult to track how much traffic one gets from email signatures but I’m convinced it works. Having your blog name and URL as well as links to your Skype and facebook/Twitter pages under each email you send provides your contacts with more options to connect with you. Furthermore, each and every person you email is a potential reader of your blog. In addition, signatures give your emails a distinctive touch.

Until recently, I used Gmail’s built-in signature option to add my name, blog URL and Twitter account to every email I sent. Then, a few weeks ago, I discovered WiseStamp.

WiseStamp

WiseStamp is a brilliant application that allows its users to create customized email signatures. You can include your own text, change the colour and font style, add an image and URLs AND it features a nifty set of social media icons to which you can link your various facebook, Twitter, flickr accounts. These icons are included at the bottom of every outgoing email – you can specify if the signature appears only in new emails and/or in replies/forwards. You can also create separate signatures for personal and business emails.

sample email signature

That’s not all WiseStamp offers. You can also include your MSN and Skype names – these appear as icons as well. The best feature, in my opinion, is the simple RSS feed that adds a link highlighting your latest blog post.

WiseStamp is still in beta and is currently available for a limited number of browsers, such as Firefox and Google Chrome (they’re working on including Safari soon). It also only works with the big names in webmail programs: Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL.

I’ve been using WiseStamp for about a week now and I’m pleased with its many customizable features – the coolest thing is seeing my latest blog post at the bottom of every email I send. WiseStamp certainly gets a thumbs up from me!

Follow WiseStamp on Twitter.

In the past few months, I’ve received a steady amount of traffic from sites like Mashable, ProBlogger and recently, the New York Times. At first I wondered why I was getting traffic from these sites, then I realised that I’d left comments on various articles. The traffic I receive isn’t much – at most 5-10 views a day – but it introduces new readers to my blogs. I once left a comment on a Mashable article that was trending. My contribution to the discussion prompted a modest ‘rush’ (30-50 visits a day during the first few days) to my blog.

This has taught me that leaving relevant comments on other blogs or websites does help to increase the readership base of your blog. Most blogs/sites allow commenters to add their URL’s and that’s how readers find you. Leaving comments on other blogs/sites is now one of my strategies to drive traffic to my blogs. I’m not too particular about which blogs I leave comments on – just as long as the post piques my interest and I have something to say about it.

When leaving a comment, please keep the following points in mind:

1. Read the post!
2. Leave a comment that’s relevant and which adds value to the discussion
3. Fill in your URL
4. It’s ok to add a link to one of your blog posts if you think it adds value (don’t include more than two links)
5. Go back to the post a day later and see if anyone has replied to your comment. If appropriate, leave a follow-up comment.

I wrote an article several months ago about the role travel bloggers can play in marketing travel. My fellow travel blogger, Andy Jarosz recently published an insightful post about travel bloggers promoting destinations. Since my first ‘Marketing Travel’ article, I’ve been on two travel blogger press (or ‘fam’) trips.

Travel bloggers in Barcelona

Travel Blogger trip to Catalonia

The first was to Catalonia, Spain, organised by the Tourism Department of Catalonia. Ten travel bloggers from Spain, the Netherlands (me), France, England and the USA were invited for a four-day all-expenses paid trip to Catalonia. The tweeting started in earnest in the run-up to the trip. A hashtag for tweets #catexp (for Catalunya Experience) was created, making it easy for everyone to follow the trip. The trip itinerary was diverse and action-packed, from a culinary course in Barcelona to hiking and quad-biking in the mountains to a Segway tour of Barcelona. The organisers did a brilliant job and the trip received tremendous exposure by means of thousands of tweets and retweets, and a broad array of blog posts (in English, Spanish and French), videos and photos. One of the participants, Rich Whitaker, compiled a list of the blog output generated by that trip. The amount (30 blog posts, 10 videos & 6 flickr photo sets) and quality of the content is truly staggering. Here are the stats of my three posts:

• Experiencing Catalonia: 940 views, 26 retweets.
• Culinary Journey: Castellar del Riu: 1,081 views, 53 retweets.
• The Delights of La Boqueria: 1,328 views, 85 retweets.

The Catalunya Experience travel blogger trip is a classic example of how tourism offices and tour operators can collaborate with travel bloggers to generate buzz for a certain destination. Using the boundless possibilities of social media (primarily blogs, twitter, facebook and flickr), travel bloggers are able to generate publicity for destinations that can reach thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of people. The best thing about a blog post or online video, as opposed to a newspaper or magazine article, is that it stays on the internet for as long as the blog exists. In addition, social media channels are interactive platforms which allow readers to ask questions and find out more, making it even more appealing as a means to convert initial interest into a booking.

Publicity for City Inn Birmingham, with their iMac-equipped rooms

Birmingham

My second fam trip was my recent weekend in Birmingham, England. The trip was sponsored by Visit Birmingham and bmibaby. Unlike the fam trip to Catalonia, I was on my own this time. I specifically asked for lots of free time so I could experience the city on my own. I tweeted as I explored the city, sending photos and links of places I visited to my Velvet Escape Twitter account. I also wrote two posts on my Velvet Escape blog covering the trip. To provide an idea of the kind of publicity that can be generated by a single blogger on a fam trip, I’ve listed below the stats of my Birmingham tweets and blog posts (all stats as at Feb. 2nd, 2010, though the numbers will rise after this post is published).

Posts

• Experiencing Birmingham (1st post): 667 views, 117 retweets: http://su.pr/2h1l8u
• Ten things to do in Birmingham (post-trip post): 888 views, 48 retweets  http://su.pr/2kOmka

Tweets with links

• 180 views; 11 retweets: And… it’s stopped raining! #brumtwitrip Off for a pint now before dinner at Asha’s http://su.pr/1baAa5
• 139 views; 1 retweet: City Inn has attentive service, good b’fast selection, iMacs/free wifi in evry rm. Bthrms a tad small tho! http://su.pr/2ScyIj #brumtwitrip
• 228 views; 5 retweets: I really enjoyed my tour of the BBC. See my news broadcast by entering code: 012478578 in BeOnTV http://su.pr/5L77Ec #brumtwitrip

Twitpics

• 121 views: http://www.twitpic.com/z6xmo (me & my iMac in the room: City Inn)
• 61 views: http://www.twitpic.com/z9arv (Brindleyplace)
• 26 views: http://www.twitpic.com/z9aym (ferris wheel B’ham)
• 61 views: http://www.twitpic.com/z9bas (curry at Asha’s)
• 47 views: http://www.twitpic.com/zdu4c (BMAG)
• 72 views: http://www.twitpic.com/zducr (the Bull)
• 72 views: http://www.twitpic.com/zdun0 (jelly bean bull)
• 121 views: http://www.twitpic.com/zdux8 (Selfridges building)
• 72 views: http://www.twitpic.com/zdvjo (Baskerville font)
• 57 views: http://www.twitpic.com/zdvvu (Custard Factory)
• 91 views: http://www.twitpic.com/zdwg7 (interior Selfridges)
• 51 views: http://www.twitpic.com/zdz9c (interior BMAG)
• 56 views: http://www.twitpic.com/zj23f (Mailbox building)

A quick glance will tell you that thousands of views and hundreds of retweets were generated by this trip, and it doesn’t stop there. These numbers will only grow as time passes. Moreover, these numbers were generated by a single travel blogger. Imagine what a group of travel bloggers could do!

Velvet Escape (@velvetescape) offers travel writing and travel marketing services while Velvet Connect (@velvetconnect) offers social media advisory, community-building/management and networking services. In addition, I am well-placed to collaborate with tourism offices/travel companies and/or PR agencies to select the best travel bloggers for fam trips as well as to generate exciting ideas to facilitate a successful travel blogger fam trip.