Digital Tools and Social Networks for Bloggers

There are many different digital tools and social networks available for bloggers, whether someone blogs about traveling or food, sports or fashion, there is a social network for everyone. Examples of social networks range from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other blogs, to name a few. It is important to know the ins and outs of the tools available when making a blog post, such as tagging, search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM), the read it later tool, and how to be anonymous.

Using other social networking sites within your blog is an important aspect of blogging because it allows readers to visit other sites that the blogger recommends, it gives readers the opportunity to visit new social media sites that they may not know about, and it also can show readers other blogs that the blogger may recommend for certain topics, like traveling or food. Also, posting videos from YouTube on a blog will make it more intriguing for the reader and can also be used when showing a tutorial video. For example, if someone is writing a travel blog, it might be a cool idea to show a video of efficient ways to pack a suitcase for a traveler who tends to over pack (aka me).

A cool way to use Twitter in a blog post about traveling would be to share a tweet about travel recommendations. People love to share their opinions on Twitter, so what better place to look for peoples travel opinions than on Twitter! Users can also follow Travel twitter accounts or they can look up trending topics about travel destinations. It is also a cool way to find out about destinations that you may not have known about, such as this place located in New Zealand that I have never heard of, but is now on my travel bucket list:

A meadow of lupines by Lake Tekapo, New Zealand.

Photo by robertlukeman via Instagram#amitrips #travel #newzealand #lake #sunset pic.twitter.com/ZahsCaSvxV

— Jaato (@jaato_) February 16, 2017

Other useful tools to use on a blog are tagging blog posts, SEO, and SEM. It is important to tag blog posts because it makes it easier for readers to find a blog post they are looking for when the blogs have tags. For example, if I were to write a blog post about traveling in Spain, I would want to tag travel, Spain, and anything else related to my blog post, such as hotel, transportation, and food. When I tag those topics in my blog post, I will hopefully get more readers and I will help readers plan their trip to Spain. The SEO and SEM are important tools to use when blogging because according to Blogging and SEO: A Relationship It Pays to Nurture, “search engines want to provide the optimal user experience for those typing queries into the search bars. To this end, they seek fresh, up-to-date content and websites.” Next time you want to write a blog post, be sure to explore these tools and incorporate them into your blog!

 

 

 

 

Social Networks: Facebook and Traveling

As we all know, Facebook plays a huge role in our day to day life. According to http://www.statista.com there are approximately 1.79 billion monthly active Facebook users. With a population like this, I was able to connect with friends, old and new, about their travels abroad and ask them for advice for my upcoming semester in Europe. Facebook makes it easy to find out where people are traveling to with their ‘Traveling to’ feature. This enables users to quickly share with their Facebook friends where they are traveling to and allows them to ask for tips as well as post pictures from their adventure.   

Another valuable Facebook tool is photo sharing. Photo sharing enables its users to share pictures and videos of their travels in an interactive way. Creating albums for the different places one travels to makes it easily accessible to all of their Facebook friends. After publishing a picture, people are able to like, comment, and share the picture, which could lead to the post going viral in certain cases. I have found many travel blogs and pages from my Facebook friends sharing travel tips and pictures to their Facebook page. When posting a picture, Facebook is able to detect where the location of the picture was taken and will add it to the photo description. In the “describe this album” section, the publisher is able to add a description to their album. For example, on my ‘Barcelona and Beyond’ Facebook album, I have written all of the places that I have traveled to so far in the description section of the album so that my Facebook friends will know where I traveled to and will be able to ask me for any tips if they decided to travel to any of the same places. It will also give them a sneak peak of what they can expect to see when they travel there, or it might even encourage someone to travel to a place that was not on their bucket list. I had never heard of Interlaken, Switzerland until one of my Facebook friends had posted amazing pictures from her trip there. After seeing pictures of the incredible scenery, I knew I had to book a trip there for an experience of a lifetime. It definitely did not disappoint!

Facebook allows its users to follow pages that they find interesting, so since I am interested in traveling, I follow a numerous amount of travel pages where I am able to receive advice on popular places to eat, visit, and stay. So far throughout my study abroad experience, the main travel page that I have been using is https://www.facebook.com/bus2alps.travel/. This Facebook page is designed for students like me who want to travel the world for a reasonable price. Bus2alps provides weekend trips that include transportation, meals, housing, and activities all for a certain price. They use Facebook to promote their company and their trips to college students by posting fun and interactive videos and photos, as well as posting about discounts and free travel opportunities.

Overall, Facebook is a great tool to find travel advice and to stay connected with friends and family while traveling the world. By uploading pictures to a photo album on Facebook, you will have those memories for the rest of your life. Posting your travels to Facebook can lead to many new friendships and allows people to reconnect with old friends by bonding over memories they may have from looking at the pictures of your travels.