Week 305 - Presentation of the Travelogue - 06-17-2012

Presentation of the Travelogue:

(Creating travelogues Part II)

Okay, you’ve got a lot to share, how will you get it to your readers? We use email and a website. You could also use a blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other mediums.
Some form of all the above methods were available in 2006 when we began to travel. Like any other invention, it is always surprising to learn when things were first created or ideas were first proposed. For example, production automobiles switched from flathead V8 engines to overhead values in the mid 50’s. But, Chevrolet built overhead value V8 engines in 1917 and 1918.

Computers have been around since the early 50s. The Internet since 1962, the Web 1979 (commercial usage exploded in1992), email 1992, blogging 1994, LinkedIn 2003, Facebook 2004, Twitter 2006, Pinterest 2010. So why did we choose email? In 2006 it was the most prevalent method of online communication. And in 2009 we created our website www.BigRigBible.com to archive all of our travelogues and other full time RV living research articles.
Today, you have hundreds of choices of media for travelogues on the Web. In June 2012, the top four social media tools are Facebook (7 billion visits per year), Twitter (182 million), Pinterest (104 million) and LinkedIn (86 million). We have created accounts on all these to show examples of what you can do. Let’s review them.
Blog:

Using a blog (web log) you can post your travels with pictures. There are many free blog sites. Two very common sites are www.WordPress.com and Google’s www.Blogger.com. We did have a WordPress account for BigRigBible but rarely updated it, so we deleted the account. This brings up a great point. If you want readers to follow your travels, you need to post at least weekly. Less frequently and your readers may lose interest. We occasionally skip a week when we have nothing worthwhile to write about. But, believe us, we hear about it!
With a blog you have many choices as to who can participate. Obviously, you will write and your readers will read. You can allow others to blog if you want and you can allow others to comment on your posts. If you disallow all others, your blog would look similar to our archive of travelogues.

We created two blogs recently, to learn about the current features. These are Google blogs. The result is a good looking site, quick to setup and post. The posts are automatically put into the table of contents. We do not allow others to post blogs or comments.
Blog advantages: Free, easy to use, automatic table of contents, multiple format templates, readers can sign up to your blog without your involvement. Disadvantages: You are limited in the maximum size of your photos, you could be limited to total pages and the blog host controls your content and may delete it without your confirmation.

NewBigRigBible.blogspot.com MattsonExpress

Facebook:

Most everyone knows of Facebook. This is a blog, but with very unique features. It automatically connects your blog with those whom you have invited to be friends. With all of the options and Facebook’s constant enhancements, the learning curve here can be quite extensive. In it’s simplest form, it can look like a limited blog. However, as of 06-2012 you cannot block comments. So, if like us you want to totally control the content, Facebook is not a good choice. Ellen does use Facebook to communicate with her invited friends.
Facebook advantages: 900 million possible readers, free, lots of interesting features added weekly. Disadvantages: lots of interesting features added weekly, Facebook has total control of your data and can delete it if they like, limited width of screen for your photos and text and you will have advertisements on your display. Also, your readers must have a Facebook account to view your pages.

Ellen's Facebook

Twitter:

An interesting little critter. It took Pete years to find the value in Twitter and it is still questionable. Each post in Twitter is limited to 140 characters. It was designed to be updated by texting from your phone. Therefore, you can post your activities and locations from anywhere allowing your readers to track your every move.
Advantages: Post every minute and if you crash your motorhome, the whole world will know exactly where to find you! Your readers do not need a Twitter account to read your posts. Disadvantages: Not enough text space to say anything worthwhile. No photos, only links to other pages. There are some great uses for Twitter but travelogues are not one of them. Our website business has a Twitter account. We use it to let our potential future website clients know when we are in their area.
Twitter Alternative: If you can't understand Twitter, just buy a megaphone, run around and randomly says things. That's pretty much the same. You might get some followers.

www.Twitter.com/USAMotorhost

LinkedIn:

This is a site similar to Facebook but with the intention of connecting only to professional associates. We recently created an account for our company www.MattsonExpress.com. We received an invitation from one of our clients to connect to their LinkedIn account. And since we are the “computer specialists”, how could we refuse? We are still searching for the value here. Most likely, over the years, we will be connected to many others in our website design field. These connections will provide answers to questions, support and possibly new clients.
LinkedIn: Not for travelogues.

MattsonExpress LinkedIn.

Pinterest:

This is the newest of the bunch and has already passed up LinkedIn. The concept behind this site is to “pin” photos of products, services, locations and opportunities that you like. No photo, no pin. We created a Pinterest account to test out this newest media. We have pinned a few photos from www.BigRigBible.com. You pin a photo, add a caption and choose a category. Readers that find your photo can then access the website it came from. And they can re-pin it onto their account in the same or different category. For our first test we pinned a photo of the Telesteps extension ladder that we carry in the Mothership. Another Pinterest user saw the photo of our motorhome by a lake and pinned the photo under Dream Vacations! Hmmm!

Pinterest Advantages: Free, you can blog a “pin” in seconds and people love photos. We can totally relate to this as www.BigRigBible.com is a site with over 7,000 photos. Disadvantage: Not usable as a travelogue as you only get one photo / caption per pin.

That brings us back to Email. Email is easy and everybody has it. You control the total content: size of photos, text and who receives it. There are two types of email programs: web-based and email clients. Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Gmail and many other free emails are web-based. This means that your emails start and are forever on the web (not on your computer) until you delete them and your host company also deletes them.

Two of the most popular email client programs are OutlookExpress and Thunderbird. These programs allow you to create new emails while not connected to the web, save them to send later, or send now if connected to the Internet. Therefore you can write emails in remote non-connected locations or write as you travel, not worrying about whether you will lose your connection as you move.
With your own email address e.g. YourName@YourDomain you are in total control of the content, nothing is added by the email host. With web-based emails, you will get certain phrases added to your text or even advertisements.
Using email, your travelogues will require more work from you to have the “cool look” of a blog. If you learn how, they can be just as flashy with no ads or extraneous text.
Email Advantages: You have total control of format, can create off-line, no limit to photo size, you control who is on your viewer list. Using an email client your emails are on your computer, saved for the millennium. Disadvantages: Learning curve will be higher if you try achieve “cooldom”.

WhereInTheWorld email for Week305

website: We created www.BigRigBible.com as a repository for all things motorhome. Each week we send our travelogues by email. Then, we add the travelogue to the website. Don't try this at home, leave it to the professionals!

www.BigRigBible.com

Recommendation: If you want an archive of all your travelogues, we recommend a blog. They are free and fairly easy to set up and use. We like Googles Blogger.com. It is simpler than WordPress with not as many options, which equates to being simpler to set up. If you are using WordPress and understand it, don't switch; it is a great blog tool and very popular.

Helpful, maybe not, but reading this kept you from working!

Love, Pete, Ellen and the always sticker-filled Mandy

By Pete . Ellen Mattson