Recently friends and colleagues started to ask me why I write the event management blog. There are several reasons to it and I am happy to share with you my blogging journey and experience.
I always attended trade shows and liked to take photos, listen to seminars and discover new trends. I shared lots of that information on my personal social media networks but I also thought – do I spam my friends who are not interested in events? Who and where are these people who may be interested in this content? So I kept going to events and continued to share content on my social media channels while still keeping in mind that I want to reach out to a larger audience and interact with the international event community.
So once I went to a recruitment event organised by Kempinski at their airport hotel in Munich. Candidates could have face-to-face interviews with hotel directors! I wanted to shout out and recommend the event to likeminded people. At the time I did an event internship in Munich, so I also wanted to share from my event experience. When I started blogging I posted about 1-4 posts per month, some months not at all.
What kept me writing was the fact that I could monitor the traffic to my blog and saw traffic from all around the world, based on key words. That proved me that there is a community of event professionals and business travellers and that I have loyal audience. I blog 3 years. Since May I blog on a monthly and nowadays weekly basis and yes, the aim is to blog every day!
During past years I blogged about different topics related to the event industry, but with the time I decided to narrow down the segment and blog about topics relevant to corporate event planners and business travellers. I could find it out by trial, error and research.
My blog fills two gaps in the market:
Information for event organisers: The moment I realised that there is a gap in the market was when I was invited to an incentive trip to Malaysia. I knew the hotel we were going to stay at and obviously went on TripAdvisor to check out the reviews. To my disappointment the venue had controversial reviews- from families, couples, honeymooners and leisure travellers. Indeed I may not book it for my honeymoon, but I can tell you one thing- I would definitely book it again for an incentive group! When I had a chat with the event organiser he told me that this was one of the only resorts in Malaysia to accommodate a bigger number of delegates. So after experiencing it myself, I really wanted to say my opinion, this time not from a leisure, couple or family point of view, but from an event organiser point of view, and blog seemed to be the right platform to express it. Such post will help event organisers to evaluate the venue suitability for their future events and can provide information to the delegates regarding what to expect when travelling there.
Information for business travellers: when I was in Frankfurt to attend the IMEX I was clueless regarding where to go after the exhibition. I am a person who relies on peer reviews from people with similar interests, in this case business travellers. Especially when on a business trip and looking for a quite restaurant for lunch or dinner with clients or colleagues that I see once a a year I definitely need an advice from a savvy business traveller. Before my friend and I found a quiet place with good food and service for dinner we had to walk (hungry and thirsty) through the entire city centre. Not a fun situation after a long day running around the exhibition floor. (By the way, check out the Long Island Summer Lounge – great atmosphere and view!)
I would love to have your feedback and suggestions on that post. If you are an event planner- based on what do you choose your venues and where do you look for them? If you are a business traveller- where do you get recommendation for after-work?
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