Creating Valuable Travel Content (Not Just Viral)

Hey travel creators. 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.

I like to think of providing value as breaking down into specific sections. We can break that phrase down and that means you are creating or sharing content that is useful, relevant and beneficial. It's not just fluff and that is why I believe so strongly in evergreen content.

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.

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. If 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.

Providing value is more than just trying to promote your brand, or your 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. Let's dive in to some ways you can provide that value through your content.

You can 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. 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.

Ask the questions such as “What do I wish I knew?” Or “what do I know now only because I've been doing what I'm doing?” You can also provide value through entertainment. I'm not saying trendy content can't be entertaining, but sometimes I see trendy content and the caption is just one sentence.

Sure that can go viral sometimes, but is that the goal? Because if we go viral, are we really attracting your target audience to you? Now you've got a flood of new followers and people, but are they really the people you want? Most of the time not really. So if you want to do trendy content, you have to 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.

Valuable content can also solve problems. You are a travel creator and your target audience is probably people who don't know as much as you do, and they probably have so many questions. What can you help them understand? What questions do you get asked all the time? What issues does your audience face? In addition, what are their roadblocks? How can you make their life easier? Those are the kind of questions you can answer in your content.

Then of course we have the inspire category that you could provide value through. If it is your favorite thing to share your personal story as an inspiring piece, then great. 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 you’ll see how that quickly falls into the category of education.

One of my favorite ways to provide value is through connecting. Connecting pieces of content or connecting with people on the internet. 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.

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 lot longer than it took you because you are already an expert.

Now it’s time for some rapid fire tips on how you can provide value in your content through your travel niche. So, you can talk more about ideas, rather than your specific offering if you have one. 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. This could mean they’re starting at X and you want to get to Y. So you show them what you would do in between to get there, and you can do that through a piece of content.

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.

Case studies are really impactful and you can show people “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”. Showing real world examples will always be helpful because then people can just swap out Italy for Greece and then they have a tangible goal.

You can go around and provide 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. But I also think your target audience are getting really good at being able to decipher if a piece of content is a little “wishy washy”, or they’ll think you’re just telling them this so that you can make something for yourself or just to get some views.

I’m very tired of all the click bait and rage bait. One, if you're feeling that way, it's time to dig into your brand. 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 “should I talk about this should talk about that?”

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

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. There are so many travel stories out there.

Your story may be from personal experience. 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. Something like “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.”

We can paint a story, and using storytelling will forever work. It is the basis of communication. I mean, stories have been around forever, and they always will be.

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.