21: Creating Valuable Travel Content ( Not Just Viral )

In today's episode, I want to bring some clarity on what it really means to create valuable content for your audience.  I have my hot takes such as why I dislike purely inspirational content or why viral content doesn't always mean value and much more as we dive into the episode. We also will end with my rapid-fire content tips along with my favorite way to provide content and the proof it works. 

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Transcript

Laura Haley: [00:00:00] Hey travel creators, welcome back to another episode. if you are somebody who has spent any amount of time on the marketing side of the internet, which I assume maybe you have if you're trying to elevate your creator journey, and look at you, you're right here. You are on the marketing side of the internet.

Laura Haley: I'm so proud of you. Welcome. We're happy to have you. Try not to get overwhelmed.

Laura Haley: Oh my god, But what we're talking about today is a hot topic that people say all over the internet and have no idea what they're talking about. And it is the keywords providing value. Mm hmm. Okay. So, what does that even mean? People say it all the time. I've said it. What am I talking about?

Laura Haley: What do I mean? We are diving into that today. I like to think of providing value as breaking down into specific sections, okay? We can break that phrase down and that means you are creating or sharing content that is [00:01:00] useful, relevant and beneficial. It's not just like fluff and that is why I believe so strongly in evergreen content.

Laura Haley: Evergreen content means no matter the time of year you can share that piece. So if you're not sharing evergreen content, you need to shift to start sharing evergreen content because imagine if you only hopped on trends and then somebody rolls up to your profile and like, damn, you haven't posted in like a month.

Laura Haley: You If not more. Which, like, is not a big deal, by the way, if we work together, because I got you. But, let's say that you're out here on your own, doing content on your own, and you haven't posted in a long time, and the last things you've posted are trends, it doesn't make a good impression. Because now, the people who are rolling up to your feed are just seeing trendy content, and not content that is trending.

Laura Haley: teaches them about you. 

Laura Haley: So, providing value is more than just Trying to promote your brand, or your [00:02:00] offering, or the skills that you have. It is speaking directly to what your audience needs and wants, or is interested in, or has questions about. And, let's dive into some ways you can provide that value through your content.

Laura Haley: You can, of course, educate your audience. You can share everything you know. about your specific travel niche. Maybe that's knowledge, skills, insights, anything that will help your audience learn something new or improve their understanding. Because you can always put yourself in the shoes of somebody who doesn't know as much about you in the topic that you're an expert in.

Laura Haley: And ask the questions like, What do I wish I knew? Or what do I know now only because I've been doing what I'm doing? Or, you can provide value through entertainment. So I'm not saying trendy content can't be entertaining, but sometimes I see trendy content and the caption is just like one sentence.

Laura Haley: Which like, sure, that can go viral sometimes, but is that the goal? Because if we go viral, are we really attracting your target [00:03:00] audience to you? Now you've got a flood of new followers and people, but are they really the people you want? I don't know, most of the time not really. So if you want to do trendy content, you gotta make sure there's other crap on your profile or that the caption is doing its work to offer engaging, amusing content to also teach somebody something.

Laura Haley: Valuable content can also solve problems. You are a travel creator. Your target audience is probably people who don't know as much as you do, and they probably have so many questions. So what can you help them understand? What questions do you get asked all the time? What issues does your audience face?

Laura Haley: What are their roadblocks? How can you make their life easier? Those are the kind of questions you can answer in your content.

Laura Haley: Then of course we have like the inspire category. That you could provide value through. This one always feels, not my favorite. And I think that's just my personal problem because I love, like, writing [00:04:00] for marketing purposes. direct copywriting. Which basically means we have an object or a goal in this writing, and I'm gonna help you get there.

Laura Haley: Rather than writing something inspirational, I can do it, sure, but it's not my favorite thing. So, if it is your favorite thing to do either, like, share your personal story as an inspiring piece, cool. I don't know, though, how valuable that is, so now I'm arguing with my own list of valuable pieces of content, but I am sharing this with you because I want it to, at least, one, get you to understand what's going on a little bit in my brain.

Laura Haley: But also you can take it as a grain of salt. Maybe you'll find something valuable, or maybe you'll find a better way than I can describe to share inspiring content in a valuable way. You could highlight a destination that is not mainstream. to share valuable content, but see how that quickly falls into the category of education.

Laura Haley: Because it's okay, you just inspired me to go to this random place in Iowa, [00:05:00] but now you just also educated me on how to get there. See how I have a little bit of a hard time inspirational content, but I digress.

Laura Haley: And I think one of my favorite ways to provide value is through connecting. Connecting pieces of content or connecting with people on the internet, okay? So you can engage with your audience by asking them questions, responding to your DMs, going out of the way to reply to stories of creators you admire. You can also create pieces of content that encourage your audience to connect with other people.

Laura Haley: In essence, providing value is giving somebody information that they would not have known or discovered without your piece of content. And they might have discovered it, but it might have taken them a hell of a lot longer than it took you because you are already an expert.

Laura Haley: Alright, it's time for some rapid fire tips on how you can provide value in your content through your travel niche. So, you can know more about ideas, [00:06:00] okay, rather than your specific offering if you have one.

Laura Haley: This also means you can provide insight. you can give people a specific path to go along or take them on a journey through valuable content. Meaning, okay, you're starting at X and you want to get to Y. Here is what I would do in between to get there, and you can do that through a piece of content.

Laura Haley: I think most of the time, these tips or providing value probably happen in the caption, but they can definitely happen in on screen text or on graphics, but I'm just telling you that because that's what I think would maybe make the most of an impact.

Laura Haley: Of course, Case studies are really impactful, kind of showing people, okay, here's what this person did, or here's what I did to get to my specific goal, or here's what I did from the very beginning to have a successful trip in Italy. So, showing real world examples will always be helpful [00:07:00] because then people can just swap out Italy for Greece and then there, they have a tangible goal.

Laura Haley: path to follow through your content.

Laura Haley: Of course, we have to address a little bit of an elephant in the room, okay? You can go around and provide, like, educational or valuable content all you want, but it has to be authentic and honest. One, because I think people are getting really good on the internet,haha, there's a lot of gullible people out there.

Laura Haley: But I think your target audience are getting, They are getting really good at being able to decipher if a piece of content is a little wishy washy, or just, like, you're just telling me this just to tell me this so that you can make something for yourself. or just to get some views. No, I'm so over.

Laura Haley: The click bae, I'm so over the rage bae, I'm so over it all. And I think that's a phase of the internet we will always have to deal with, especially as these creators, you are in this space with so many other creators and it can be hard to [00:08:00] sometimes figure out what might differentiate you.

Laura Haley: One, if you're feeling that way, it's time to dig into your brand. podcast episode dedicated to branding. I can also refer you to several experts I know who can help you nail down a brand. so that you can Show up on the internet in a way that is clear to your target audience And then there's no more questioning of like, well, should I talk about this should talk about that?

Laura Haley: This also ties into making sure that your content is authentic and honest, like I said. I would not share tips or things that you haven't done yourself, because what the heck, what's the point of that?

Laura Haley: Another way you can get value across to your audience is through storytelling, which I think, if you're in the travel creator space, is some of the easiest content to create, because There are so many travel stories out there. And this tip is not necessarily like, okay, one time I went, like, hiking in, like, the Alaskan tundra, and, like, I fell into a river.

Laura Haley: That may be from personal experience, that [00:09:00] story. But it doesn't have to be explicitly a story of the time you did this thing. You can just use the tips and experience that you've had and put them into a story. a few years ago, I saw what you were struggling with. person in my target audience, and I developed a service or plan to help you get out of it because I was tired of seeing you struggle with not knowing what to pack or how to navigate transportation in Europe.

Laura Haley: See what I kind of did there? We can paint a story, and storytelling, we know, will forever work, and it always has because that is the basis of communication. I mean, stories have been around forever, and they always will be.

Laura Haley: I hope this little ramble on providing value was helpful to you. If you have questions or even if you want a thought partner to brainstorm some of this content with you or even just give it an overview, I am your person. So I'm a content developer for travel creators and travel influencers, and I am happy to help you [00:10:00] figure out if the content you're creating makes sense for your goals.

Laura Haley: You can find me on Instagram at @travelcontentwriting, and if you really want to stalk me, you can head to my website, www.travelcontentwriting.com, but happy creating, go out there, provide some real value, now that you know what that means, and I will see you next week.