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3 - Alexandra Korey from Arttrav.com Live Interview
A Direct Experience Working with a DMO
Alexandra from Arttrav.com
Ā Alexandra focuses Arttrav.com on Art and travel in Italy and Europe. Her goal is to make Art accessible for everyone. In 2003, she moved from Toronto, Canada to Florence, Italy to finish up her studies. During her stay, she found that her passion and love was in Italy.
Alexandra discusses the process of getting from a Historian to a Social Media Manager and make them work in complete sync and how her blog was the door opening for multiple opportunities.
By the end of this interview, you will take with you the following:
Why having a personal blog and authoring your posts will give you an advantage on your blogging journey
What makes Arttrav.com stand out from other blogs and how your blog can stand out too
How DMOs (Destination Marketing Organizations) structure large marketing campaigns
Alexandraās best advice for beginning bloggers (very important message)
I encourage you to listen to this episode and subscribe to the Before Travelling Podcast. You can also subscribe to our Youtube Channel in which we publish this and other interviews.
Ā About Atrtrav.com Story
Technical wise, when did you get started and how was it back then?
āI started Arttrav.com in October 2004 ā Iāll be celebrating 10 years of Arttrav this year and therefore, have to come up with a way to celebrate it! At that time, blogging didnāt exist yet. There were lots of websites out there and it was still a time when people talked about the difficulty of finding quality content online (because this was really a problem). Technically, up until 2007, hand built in HTML using macromedia dreamweaver and frames was the first version of Arttrav.ā
āIn a trip to Rome, I was researching for my PhD in art history. I spent a month there looking for materials related to the topic of my dissertation, while also trying to get simply better knowledge about Rome and its art. Since I was not able to find any guidebook or resource that was organized the way I wanted it, I started writing my own. Arttrav.com started as a guide on a free hosting platform (Tripod!) and was called āOne Month Romeā, which was not at all forward thinking of me!ā
āWhen I came home to Florence, my husband said I should continue it and start one for Florence. That was when the name came up ā Arttrav ā which stands for art and travel. Honestly, it was a terrible name. If I knew about SEO back then, I would have called it āart-travel-italy.comā and I would be set for life. Over the years, we found an early blog platform by an Italian that never took off, and then WordPress where the blog has remained ever since.ā
Is your blog your main source of income?
Did you plan to get where you are at right now?
āMy blog is not my main source of income, though blogging and social media are. I intended to have a career in academics ā a professor of art history. However, the blog became my business card to obtain a job in a totally different field. Back in 2009, Tuscany saw my blog and hired me to write about art and history as they were setting up the first social media team in Italy for a DMO. It was hard to keep up a blog while doing this job, but nonetheless, I still posted once or twice a week. The experience was great.ā
āAfter the job contract in Tuscany ended, I applied to The Florentine, the cityās English language newspaper since 2005. The owner was happy to hire me as a writer and strategist for the paper, but their communications company, Flod, hired me to do social media project management for their clients as well as write for the paper.ā
āNewspaper writing is different from blogging, but blogging introduced me to the world of press conferences and of local news. In Italy, a journalist has to have a special certification and exam, so I cannot use that title, but essentially that is what I do.ā
āI still write for Arttrav.com, but not as often as I like. It still remains an important business card not just for me, but for the company I work for. if I get a larger job offer through the blog, I can bring it over to the agency and work on it with the rest of the team. Travel blogging may not make enough money as is, but your experience in it can easily be turned into other jobs in closely related fields.ā
Ā About Travel Blogging Jobs
Travel-blog related, what was your first job offer?
āIt was Tuscanyās big campaign called, āVoglio Vivere CosƬā. To be part of a multi-million euro project with very high visibility was amazing. We had an analyst, a web designer, and a budget to grow Facebook fans. A team of eight people worked full time on four blogs and a large network of content and social media.ā
āI learned how a ārealā blog project should be set up. For example, the analyst would listen online and relate to us what topics the audience wants, and then suggest keywords to use. This is a strategic way of building a website plus a good one if youāre building a website business that āBrings home the numbersā. In this job, I also learned how to write what the audience wants to read, some of the tricks of the trade, and the article formats that are easy to do. It was the beginning of the explosion of travel blogging, especially in Italy where weāre a bit behind. Although things have evolved since then, all I have had to do is keep an eye open for changes.ā
Ā I have a goal: to make art accessible. Other than that, I have a well defined niche ā art and travel in Italy.
Ā About your blogging routine:
What is your strategy in terms of content, social media, etc.
āI have a goal: to make art accessible. Other than that, I have a well defined niche ā art and travel in Italy. If I had a strategy, I would plan to write articles that cover Italyās many regions, and comprehensively list and review all the temporary exhibitions, museums, churches and cultural things to see and do in the country.ā
āSince I donāt have a plan, I write about whatever I manage to see or get information about. The blog is heavy with Florence-related content because in my job I end up going to see just about every exhibition that takes place. If I am not reviewing it for the newspaper, I might review it for my blog if I like it. But sometimes I write about other things related to life in Italy, because I have other interests (like snowboarding, for example), or because I just want to share some observations about this crazy country. Although these posts often do quite well, I am considering trying to make the focus of the blog more clear in the future.ā
āAs for social media, I donāt follow a rigorous plan here either. I share my articles on Twitter and most of the time on Facebook, but I prefer if somebody else shares it for me before I do. I log in every day, and converse with various people. I ought to be more rigorous about this. I also ought to use Google Plus more ā hey, wanna follow arttrav on google plus? The fact is, I know what good social media practises are because I consult in this field, but as time is limited I tend to do the right thing for my clients, but not enough for myself.ā
āIn my job experience, I learned a lot about statistical-based strategy, but real life blogging has shown that sometimes going totally against those rules is what works. They say you should not write more than 500 to 700 words. In December my most popular post was a 1700 word post summing up 2000 years of Italian art history. They also say you shouldnāt post long and intellectually challenging articles on a Monday, but yesterday I published a biting critique about temporary art exhibitions in Italy that has gotten 500 readers spending an average of 7 minutes on the page over the past two days. Knowing the rules and mechanisms is important, but knowing when to break them isā¦ Italian! You have to follow your instinct and write what you think people will want to read.ā
About your blogās audience
How would you define your readers?
āI know who my return readers are. My readers can be characterized as Italy lovers and fellow expats. Many of them are women, at least the ones who comment frequently are. They are usually university educated, and many mention having done study abroad in Italy. But my readers could equally be anyone looking for information about art in Italy.ā
āThose are the ideal readers, though I do get some long tail keyword traffic for articles that I consider less relevant to my core topics! Two of my top articles are a hipster itinerary to Barcelona (that I wrote when I took a trip to that city), and instructions on how to make coffee with the Italian Bialetti coffee maker (practical information, but totally not about art!).ā
āEvery once and a while I get to meet a reader. I am not the kind of blogger who receives a ton of email from people asking for advice. Only a few people have really reached out to me, and I have appreciated it immensely.ā
āOne was a fellow art history blogger in Australia; we became brilliant friends over the years. Another is a woman from Ottawa in Canada who commented on many of my posts. She comes to Florence often and we meet up for lunch or dinner, and itās weird because she reads everything I write, so she knows me better than I know her! I always feel rewarded when people get inspired to go see an exhibit I recommend, or share their experiences back on the blog. It doesnāt happen every day, and when it does happen, it reminds me why I am doing this.ā
Ā What is your best advice for someone who is just starting out on this process?
āIf youāre just starting out, you have a great opportunity to craft a blog that responds to your goals. Do you want to make money, to get free trips, to write about something youāre passionate about, or maybe to learn about something while writing it? In the video I said āfind your nicheā because there are so many blogs out there, you have to find the angle that will make yours stick out. This is especially true for places like Italy which is really over-done!ā
āBut I think your niche also has to relate to your goal, and that if you have the ability to think it through, you probably should also consider what kinds of beneficial relationships youāll be able to build with a blog about x. Itās harder for an older, more established blog to change niches, though for example, I started expanding my blog to the rest of Europe because frankly, Iām interested in being invited to blog about art in other European cities, not just in Italy. Had I thought about it in advance, I might have structured my blog very differently.ā
