Archive for: Press and Bloggers

Emma Neachell writes The PHD Runner, which was recently ranked in the top 10 UK running blogs. Emma is a hydrologist by trade but uses the blog to share her running adventures (and misadventures!). We caught up with Emma to talk about the joy of running, how simple it is to start and what’s she’s looking for from PR collaborations.

What makes your blog successful?
I personally don’t think my blog is very successful. However, people who read my blog on a regular basis have said they appreciate my honesty and my willingness to share my unflattering running photos.

How do you plan your blog content around your runs?
When I’m training for a target event, for example the Cambridge Half, this is relatively easy as I’ll produce weekly training updates. I also really enjoy writing race reviews as every race is unique. As a runner, I find race reviews really useful, so I try to include as much information as possible. I’m unfortunately injured at the moment so, although I can’t run, I’ll be able to write about how I deal with being injured.

What’s the best place to run in the UK?
Sutton Park in Sutton Coldfield. It’s one of the largest urban parks in the UK and has some amazing trails.

What advice would you give to new runners?
Running is quite hard to start with but it does get easier. Don’t compare yourself to other runners and most importantly, have fun!

How important is the right equipment/outfits for successful runs?
One of the reasons I love running is the fact you don’t have to invest in a lot of running kit when you start out. All you need to start with is a pair of running shoes, some decent socks and a sports bra. If you find you enjoy running, invest in more equipment and running kit. The expensive GPS watch can wait. In my opinion, comfortable, correctly-fitting kit can make or break a run. I’ve actually had to cut training runs short due to kit related issues.

What’s the best race you’ve competed in?
I feel that I should say one of the three London Marathons I’ve completed, but I won’t. The best race I’ve competed in was the Cathedral to Castle 10 mile run. The course was quite challenging but I loved every second of the run. I’ve already entered next year’s event!

What one thing should PRs know about you?
That I exist and love writing! I haven’t had many blogging opportunities this year.

What’s the best campaign you’ve collaborated on?
This is actually quite a tricky question to answer! I was thrilled to be asked to join the Decathlon Bloggers Community and can’t wait to get involved in some exciting campaigns later this year. I think it’s a case of watch this space.

What do you call yourself?
I don’t think I’m an influencer. I’ll always call myself a running blogger.

What other blogs do you read?
I don’t have as much time as I’d like to read blogs but my favourites include: AnnaTheApple, HelsBels, A Healthier Moo, Maria Runs and Deutscher Wanderwolf.

The PHD Runner is listed on the Vuelio Database, along with thousands of other bloggers, journalists, bloggers, MPs and SpAds.  

Paula Holmes is the author of The LDN Diaries, which recently ranked in the Top 10 UK London Lifestyle Blogs. Covering everything awesome about London, Paula writes the blog with her partner Danny and gives her audience top tips for things to do and places to eat. We spoke to Paula about the best places in London, having a successful blog and working with PRs and brands.

What makes your blog successful?
Over the six years of The LDN Diaries, I haven’t been afraid to take risks with my content, however, I also know what works well and what my readers want to see. I would also credit my high standards of the content I produce and being proud of ensuring my audience would want to see, read and engage with it.

I am always looking for ways to constantly improve, whether it’s photography or a new series on the blog. It’s good to have a mix of consistent posts but something fresh too to keep people coming back and I am confident that is what makes it successful.

I’ve also developed great PR and brand relationships over the years, which has enabled me to work with some amazing brands and keep growing.

What’s the long-term aim of your blogging?
To continue doing what I love! I don’t think a day goes past where I don’t think of the blog. I’m constantly planning content, social media and collaborations. To be honest, each day of blogging changes, one minute I could be at home typing up my next article, the next I’m in Saint Lucia. I’d love to continue to have amazing opportunities with brands that I love.

Long term I would like to develop out my brand and create my own product that people really love.

Where is the best place in London?
Hard to choose, but I do love Sky Garden and I recommend everyone visiting London to go. I just love the view over London and it’s free to enter.

Where is the best place to eat in London?
There are so many great places to eat in London, but my personal favourite is Hakkasan because the food and service is always outstanding.

What’s the best attraction?
As a tourist I would recommend Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and the London Eye, but I do love the Natural History Museum. It is so grand and there is so much to see, I could easily spend a whole day here. I also have done a helicopter tour over London, which was amazing.

If not London, where would you like to live?
New York! I just love the vibe of the city, it’s very like London but more fast paced. In complete contrast I also loved LA, it was very chilled and I could definitely see myself enjoying the sunshine every day.

How do you work with PRs and brands?
I enjoy building good relationships with PRs and brands directly, it’s great to be able to share more of your personality with someone so they get a better understanding of what brands or products would fit better. I enjoy working on campaigns and I love when I can put my own input and spin on the collaboration, to make it work better for both parties and create something great for our audiences.

What campaigns have you worked on that you loved?
I loved working with Sandals at the end of last year. They flew myself and Danny to Saint Lucia to create content for social media and their microsite. We had an amazing time and the campaign was very well organised and put together.

What do you call yourself (blogger/influencer/content creator/writer etc)?
All of the above! I started out as a blogger but as the industry has grown, I would definitely see myself as a content creator and an influencer.

What other blogs do you read?
I love getting travel inspiration from blogs, some favourites are The Londoner, The Travelista and Clutch & Carry.

Paula and The LDN Diaries are both listed on the Vuelio Database, along with thousands of other bloggers, journalists, bloggers, MPs and SpAds.  

Nichola West is a top family travel blogger and journalist, who writes for a range of national press titles alongside her blog, Globalmouse Travels. We spoke to Nichola about the importance of social media, planning trips with the kids and ongoing relationships with leading PRs.

What makes your blog unique?
We always say we love to get off the beaten track and not be tourists. That’s not to say we don’t do some of the obvious stuff too but we’ll visit a witch’s weigh house in the Netherlands, a chocolate museum in Havana or go on a night time search for Colugo in Langkawi, Malaysia. We’re always trying to find fun, different things to do.

What’s the best place you’ve ever been too?
Oh gosh that’s so difficult, I absolutely loved the Cook Islands and I’m desperate to get back there, so maybe there. As a family our trip to Oman was something special though, it had everything from beaches, to interesting food and wonderful wildlife and just the friendliest people so it’s up there with the best trips.

Which destination haven’t you visited that you want to?
There are so many – Indonesia, Japan, Costa Rica, Argentina, Texas and more of Russia. I could go on but I’ll stop myself there.

How do you plan your content with the kids (do they help?)?
I love that my kids are getting strong ideas of where they want to visit, my six-year-old’s current dream is to get to New York. We try and build a good mix in all our trips with museums and art galleries together with water parks and playgrounds. We do sit down before going on trips to read a bit about the country, look at photos and get excited about it together. I love that wanderlust seems to already be in their blood.

What’s the best day out as a family?
The best day out is one that has something for all of us to enjoy – a large dose of fun, learning without realising it, watching my children’s eyes turn wide with delight and everyone dropping in to bed exhausted at the end of a jam-packed day.

How do you use video content?
We love making videos, both for brands and destinations and I also love watching them back and remembering all the happy times we’ve had. We embed them in to our blog posts and also share them on social media.

We’ve discovered that for many bloggers, social media has become the new comments section. How important is social media to your blog?
Social media is integral to my blog. I adore photography and so Instagram is a platform I particularly love and I post daily when I’m on a trip. It’s a great way to keep in touch with my readers and acts almost like a second blog; a preview of everything we’re up to. It really is a great place for a conversation too.

What are the best PR/brand collaborations you’ve worked on?
I adore working with Crystal Ski as they have some amazing destinations that fit in to our love of somewhere a bit different and they’re always great at reciprocal sharing. I also love working with Universal Studios in Florida (our happy place) and also P&O Cruises. I really like building up relationships with brands and PRs that go further than a work exchange that ends there. Recently, we worked with Four Seasons Fairways in the Algarve which was wonderful, they helped us get the best out of the region with some quirky festivals they thought we’d be interested in (we loved them) and some restaurants and experiences we would never have found.

What do you call yourself (Blogger/influencer/content creator)?
I write for the national press too, for The Telegraph, Wanderlust and The Guardian amongst others, so usually I say I’m a travel writer.

What other blogs do you read?
I love Tigerlillyquinn, Mums do Travel and Five Adventurers amongst many others.

Suze Renner is one half of the Luxury Columnist, a top 10 luxury travel blog that also features Suze’s husband Paul. Created to document the couple’s experience of luxury travel, the blog has grown a huge following online and provides regular reviews of destinations, restaurants and hotels. Suze gave us some travel tips, suggested some amazing places to visit and told us how she likes to work with PRs and brands (including country tourism boards!).

What makes your blog successful?
When someone says they’ve found our tips helpful and tried somewhere new thanks to our recommendations, we feel successful. We’re continually learning from others and we try to integrate that on the blog. Insider knowledge is priceless and we get great suggestions from our readers and followers. We’re also members of the Travel Bloggers Influencer Network, with a collective reach of over 6.5 million followers.

What makes luxury travel better than other types?
I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily better but for me, luxury travel is synonymous with quality and being unique. That could mean a behind the scenes tour of an attraction or a stay in a stylish boutique hotel serving produce from their herb garden. Attention to detail and personalisation are key factors.

What destination would you suggest to first time travellers?
For a city break, Amsterdam is a good choice. It’s fairly compact so you’re unlikely to get lost, you can walk almost everywhere and most locals speak English. In terms of countries, Switzerland stands out for its amazing scenery, safety and language skills of the Swiss people.

What about seasoned travellers?
Tanzania is an incredible country for the charm of its people and its amazing wildlife. It is suitable for first time travellers as long as they’re fairly organised. You need to choose carefully what you pack as many of the safari camps are reached by small planes where luggage is limited. However, once you arrive, you’ll be rewarded with completely unspoiled landscapes.

Is there anywhere on your bucket list you’ve yet to visit?
So many places! Costa Rica for eco-luxury, Galapagos for the wildlife and Australia to see friends who have moved there.

If you could only take three items with you when travelling, what would they be?
My camera, my mobile phone and sunglasses.

What should PRs know about you?
I do quite a bit of background research on the places that we visit. We find that people want to read about the destination as well as the hotels that we stay in. I often travel with my husband who’s a dab hand at vlogs and drone photography, so it’s great when PRs incorporate him into the mix!

What’s the best PR/brand campaign you’ve worked on?
We’ve got a soft spot for Florida as we have an ongoing relationship with the PR and the region. They really tailor each visit to our readers’ interests and build in time to edit photos. We also did a campaign for a Swiss hotel and restaurant group who told us that several people had mentioned us when booking, so that was nice to hear.

What do you call yourself (blogger/influencer/content creator)?
Content creator for sure, as influence is all relative and blogger doesn’t cover the videography aspect of our work.

What other blogs do you read?
Some of my favourite UK-based blogs are London Kitchen Diaries for delicious recipes and London tips, Fitness on Toast for healthy inspiration and Miss Gunner for style suggestions.

The Luxury Columnist and its writers are both listings on the Vuelio Database, along with thousands of other influencers including journalists, bloggers, MPs and SpAds.  

Abigail King is the blogger behind Inside the Travel Lab, which is among the top luxury travel blogs in the UK. Abi was a doctor before she started travelling the world and now writes about the culture, history and food of amazing destinations for an audience that cares about the people and places they visit.

Abi told us about the best destinations for both new and seasoned travellers, the importance of her iPhone and her favourite way to work with PRs and brands.

What makes your blog successful?
Now there’s the million dollar question… Who knows, really!?

I think it’s because I write for an underserved audience and show the world from a different perspective; it’s luxury travel but for people who want to understand a place. Readers are professionals who are passionate about travel, reading, watching and consuming content but they’re not always the chattiest kind. Many of them work in fields that explicitly forbid them from commenting online and so many travel blogs ignore them.

What’s better, luxury travel or travel on a shoestring?
It’s not the price tag that matters but the quality of the experience. So, often that does mean luxury travel is better but of course, as the cliché goes, the best things in life are free.

What destination would you suggest to first time travellers?
America. You’ve half travelled through it already on screen and you don’t need to worry about water or healthcare.

What about seasoned travellers?
Ooh, now that’s a different one because by then people have really honed the kind of things they like to do. So, in part, I would challenge seasoned travellers to try something new.

Madagascar remains relatively unexplored yet its wildlife and landscape are exceptional and the history is fascinating, especially around World War Two. The beaches are beautiful, too, which always helps…

Is there anywhere on your bucket list you’ve yet to visit?
Plenty of places because the list keeps growing the more I travel!

I long to see polar bears in Churchill, hike across Iceland, taste the flavours of Bali and peer into a volcano on Hawaii.

There are the salt lakes of Djibouti and the rock churches in Ethiopia. The swirling rock in Arizona and the quiet water of Kerala.

Then the old cities I love like London, Paris and New York keep adding highlights to their itineraries and former trouble spots like Belfast reinvent themselves!

I’d better stop. I could go on and on…

If you could only take three items with you when travelling, what would they be?
iPhone, iPhone, iPhone.

Or iPhone, charger, spare battery. Maybe a scarf.

So many travel details live on my phone, together with entertainment for long journeys, top editing software from Adobe, music, translation apps, currency conversion tools. It contains about half of what my luggage used to be.

What should PRs know about you?
Inside the Travel lab reaches an affluent, educated audience who love to travel and do so frequently. It’s been described as one of the best travel blogs in the world by Lonely Planet and National Geographic Traveller, and celebrates its 10th year in business next year.

As for me, I used to work as a doctor so I’m used to tight deadlines and getting things done – accurately. I love to work by email instead of phone so that I can work more flexibly around travel and my young daughter.

Oh, and my media kit and case studies live here.

What’s the best PR/brand campaign you’ve worked on?
Happily, over the last seven years, I’ve worked on so many good ones that it’s difficult to choose. However, the stand out one remains a project with Eurail where they acted as ‘artistic sponsors’ and invited me to create a trip to inspire other travellers.

I travelled from Istanbul to Berlin, zig-zagging back and forth across the former Iron Curtain, trying to understand the past and exploring and enjoying the present in each of the modern cities.

What do you call yourself (blogger/influencer/content creator)?
I’m old enough to still be saying ‘writer’ but as I now professionally create photos, videos and broadcast for Lonely Planet, a broader term is definitely needed. All of the above?

What other blogs do you read?
Again, too many!

I like Girl Tweets World, As The Bird Flies, Eat Like A Girl, Geotraveler’s Niche, Atlas and Boots, Y Travel Blog, Landlopers, Adventurous Kate, The Travel Hack, A Lady in London… and many more!

They certainly don’t all fit my niche but I find something interesting or inspiring in each one.

Abigail King and Inside the Travel Lab are both listings on the Vuelio Database, along with thousands of other influencers including journalists, bloggers, MPs and SpAds.  

Michael Huxley is an author, nurse and founder of travel blog, the Bemused Backpacker. With hints, tips and advice for travelling the world, particularly those on gap years, Bemused Backpacker has built a loyal following with its stunning destinations and travel reviews.  

We spoke to Michael about travel blogging, particularly how he likes to work with PRs and his personal pet peeves when it comes to PR/blogger outreach.

What makes your blog successful?
My audience without a doubt. There are other factors of course: integrity, tenacity and sticking with it for a long period when many others have given up; treating it as a business and not a blog; and trying to differentiate myself from everyone else out there! But I wouldn’t be anywhere without those who read what I write and say every single day. I have built up a lot of trust and a strong relationship with a good core of my regular readers and that just keeps growing.

How easy is it to become a great blogger?
It isn’t. It is easy to start a blog and call yourself a blogger, but there is a vast difference between that and being successful at it.

What’s the best destination for new travellers?
I used to say Thailand, because it was such a traditional go-to backpacker destination with all the traveller infrastructure any backpacker or traveller would ever need, and it still is to a large extent, but now I would say Indonesia too. Or Malaysia. Hell, just south east Asia in general really!

What’s the best destination for seasoned travellers?
Anywhere they haven’t been yet!

Where haven’t you been that you’d still like to visit?
I’m still waiting for that opportunity to trek across Antarctica!

If you could only take three items with you when travelling, what would they be?
My camera, my notepad and a pen. I’m assuming I still get to keep my passport with me!

What should PRs know about you?
That I am not just a travel blogger, I am a professional with a business. I have set – and fair – rates for a variety of marketing services and offer a strong ROI for all of them. And I never work for free, so please don’t ask.

What are you favourites campaigns you’ve been part of?
I have been part of so many good ones it is hard to choose. One of my all-time favourites was the RIGHT tourism campaign with the charity Care For The Wild International. I absolutely loved that because it was a cause that was so close to my heart, and ethical wildlife tourism is something that I still campaign for today.

And I was one of the first bloggers to work on the Trip Of Wonders Campaign with the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and that was an amazing trip, but I am proud to have worked on it because of how successful it was, and continues to be.

I have worked on many more but those are two that really stand out. At the moment I am currently working alongside Bug Off, a national campaign to promote awareness of insect-borne diseases and how travellers can protect themselves, and as a nurse as well as a blogger that is something I am passionate about too.

What shouldn’t PRs do?
There are so many things that PRs do that immediately get bloggers backs up (I am sure there are just as many unprofessional bloggers who do the same for PRs) and I could create a very long list, things like spamming us with endless and largely irrelevant press releases (we are not traditional journalists who need copy and it is not our job to report news/product info in that way); sending irrelevant mass phishing emails (we really don’t care if the initial email isn’t personalised, we understand that you need to send it out to a lot of people but at the very least do a little research. My travel blog is not going to be interested in a fashion show in London or a book on how to cook the plants in your garden!); moving jobs and disappearing halfway through a campaign; approaching us for campaigns and then never responding when we answer back; or getting snarky when we ask for payment and trying to tell us how to do what we do.

And please recognise that our websites are our websites. We are very careful about what we put on there, what we link to and we control how things work. We don’t care if the brand has a list of demands and expects their logo to be front and centre on our homepage; we decide what services we offer and how we execute those services. Our readers trust us, we do not give that influence up easily, and we know how to market to them, so please trust us to do that.

But the primary thing is do not approach us without a strong budget in place to pay us (we know there is a budget in place, that is how you are getting paid, you or the brand just don’t want to allocate any of it to bloggers), and do not expect us to work for free. Or tell us any part of our hard work is at ‘no cost to us’.

Many professional blogs are run as businesses now, mine included, and we expect to be treated as such. Bloggers are experts in what we do, we have built up strong and highly engaged audiences (in many cases as large as a lot of traditional media and in many more cases a lot more targeted with higher reach and engagement), we know exactly how to market to that audience and can give a strong ROI for any brand that we work with. The blogging world IS changing and this is becoming the norm. The freebie grabbing hobby bloggers will always be around but ask yourself what value are you really getting from them?

And please just show us a little respect too. We are the ones at the end of the day that you need to complete the brief from your clients. You know the power of influencer marketing, you know the reach we have and just how powerful a marketing force we can be for the brands you work with, so respect that. Bloggers want to work with you and brands alike, so please build up relationships with us, develop those relationships, and work with us to promote your clients.

What do you call yourself (blogger/influencer/content creator)?
I call myself the founder of a travel website/business. I hate the term influencer (if you have to call yourself one you probably aren’t), but do use blogger occasionally, especially within the industry because that is just a widely recognised and easily generic term. But to be honest I don’t think any of those labels describe fully what professional ‘bloggers’ are any more.

What other blogs do you read?
I read so many blogs from a whole range of different genres and interests, but sticking to travel blogs I read Teacake Travels, TravelBreak and Nomadic Boys amongst many, many others.

Mike Huxley and his blog Bemused Backpacker are both listings on the Vuelio Database, and include detailed requests for how he likes to be contacted by PRs.