Are you ready for STS – the Social Travel Summit?

In a few weeks delegates will arrive in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, for the fifth edition of the Social Travel Summit.

STS sticks to their motto, that less is more. It’s about the quality, not the quantity, though the reach of the attending bloggers will be massive again.

The Social Travel Summit has a deliberately low number of attendees, which keeps it an intimate and highly productive conference; everyone is an important part of STS.

130 delegates are expected this year, including 54 top travel influencers from 17 countries.

Preparations are in full swing to realise the best STS edition yet in terms of the conference programme and the fringe events.

The main themes this year include demand generation, growth marketing and optimising content marketing strategies.

In addition to the Keynotes, one session we’re particularly looking forward to is ‘Pulling Back the Curtain on Influencer Marketing’ held by VisitBritain. In this session, VisitBritain will share their insights and (internal and external) challenges they’ve faced from years of working with influencers.

Furthermore, we’re introducing an innovative data project to track the consumer journey on travel blogs for a year.

iambassador and VisitBritain are embarking on an industry first audience tracking pilot with tech partners Travel Audience and Amadeus Video Solutions.

This project will study the consumer journey from the moment they land on blog posts, how much time they spend on the post and their ensuing actions. This will give an understanding on the effect blogging has on travel consumers and conversions, and bring insight to the collaboration process between a tourist board and content creators/influencers.

What to expect from the Speakers at STS Belfast

Janice Waugh, STS Conference Director at iambassador, has been thinking a lot about growth marketing, goal setting, what truly delivers long term results and how to measure them for continual improvement.

STS will tackle these topics throughout the conference starting with rock star content marketer, Jason Miller delivering the opening keynote on Demand Generation Marketing. Jason will break down what it takes to acquire, nurture, and convert the traveler into a customer and advocate for your blog, social platforms, website, destination, and/or product. Jason is global content marketing leader at LinkedIn by day, and a rock ‘n’ roll photographer by night. You can expect an interesting and entertaining session.

Closing STS will be Nick Westergaard. Yes, he will be back at STS, but in quite a different role. He’s going to help the delegates to focus on take-aways from the Summit.

He’ll introduce the plan at the opening keynote and pop-in with his take-aways from time to time throughout the two days. At the closer of STS, he’ll facilitate a Take-Away Workshop. He’ll help you get more out of every single session of the Summit.

In between these two sessions there is so much more:

Chris Marr, founder and driving force behind the Content Marketing Academy will speak about the strategic intersection of content, SEO and revenue.

Ian Cleary, founder of the award-winning blog and content marketing agency, RazorSocial, will speak on the 5-step process for optimizing content for outcomes.

Erik van Erp of Around the Globe, will speak on setting goals, defining outcomes, executing campaigns, and how to measure them.

Dana DiTomaso, President & Partner at Kick Point, will teach how to tie together the strategies, tactics and tools we’ve learned into a realistic action plan.

Sorcha Mackenzie, conversion copywriting expert who has worked for Disney, Marvel, and LucasFilm will co-present with Dana on realistic strategies for a pay-to-play social world.

The peer-to-peer sessions for bloggers and industry will be back as well as the popular Think Tank, facilitated by Peter Jordan.

There will be workshops designed especially for industry on DMO management and Destination Marketing Beyond Europe and North America. Other sessions have been developed for the bloggers/influencers on revenue streams that don’t involve travel and how to get out of the trenches and hire the support you need to grow your publication.

The networking part is another priority of STS!

In the evenings, you will have more opportunities to network, socialise or just relax with like-minded professionals after a busy day learning and collaborating.

The Social Travel Summit aims to be at the forefront of developing professional standards while also providing a fun environment for gainful networking and in-depth learning.

Delegates benefit greatly from information exchanges, collaborative discussions and exclusive access to the world’s top travel bloggers and influencers.

Author

  • Melvin

    Melvin is the founder and CEO of Travel Dudes, co-founder of the Social Travel Summit and the former COO of iambassador.