Response from Eric Beato: Following the Equator Blog

Eric Beato
Editor, Following the Equator
EF Educational Tours
1 Education St.
Cambridge, MA 02141


Blog: http://equator.eftours.com/




1. Why did you get into blogging?


Blogging is a great way to reach a new audience with information, and we started our blog as a way to share our travel expertise with our customers and with anyone else who is interested in educational travel. As a writer, I also enjoy the challenge of writing in this format — making our posts compelling, brief and conversational.




2. What is it about traveling that attracted you to blog about it?


Well, as an educational travel company, it’s the obvious topic for us to blog about. But, in general, I believe that travel and blogs are an ideal match. The format and simplicity of blogging work well with the demands of travel, and the amazing moments and discoveries of travel are a perfect source of content for blogging.




3. Why is it important to keep your blog updated?


I try to post something on our blog every weekday. I believe it’s important to blog often to keep the content fresh and relevant and to give our readers a reason to come back to our blog regularly.




4. What do you do to drive viewers to your blog?


We promote our blog in several places on our company’s website,www.eftours.com, and we include it in regular emails and direct-mail pieces to our customers and mention it in other online ventures, such as our Facebook fan page and application. Also, I’ve reached out to other travel blogs that might be of interest to our readers — such as National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel and About.com’s Student Travel Blog — to have our blog included in their blogrolls, and I’ve found that helps drive traffic. Personally, I talk it up and mention it (in person, online and in emails) to anyone and everyone. We also benefit from a high percentage of traffic from search engines, mainly Google. As we continue to post a wide and varied amount of content on our blog, the chances of our blog being ranked high in organic searches increases. I’ve been amused by one fun (but unintended) consequence of our blog’s name. We named our blog after Mark Twain’s final travelogue, Following the Equator, so our blog tends to show up in Google searches when people search for anything related to the equator.




5. Do you blog for the financial gain or for the passion?


I blog to share our passion for travel and global awareness. Our blog does not make money in and of itself. Our hope is that the information on our blog is useful to our customers and attracts other readers to the wonderful advantages of educational travel.




6. Do you fear that your blog will/can be misunderstood?


No, that is not something that we have feared or really considered. Most of the posts on our blog are aimed at a wide enough audience and hopefully interesting enough for our blog not to be misunderstood.




7. What is the biggest difficulty for blogging while traveling?


Unfortunately, I don’t regularly travel the world. However, I did blog during one trip with a group of our teachers to Paris last year. The biggest difficulty was finding the time — because our days were so packed with sightseeing and other activities, I found myself staying up until 2 or 3 a.m. in order to write posts for the blog. The other big difficulty is finding the proper Internet connections. Our blog platform, TypePad, is completely online, so I really just need a computer and Internet connection. I also was able to blog from my BlackBerry, which proved helpful. Oftentimes, though, you can find Internet access in hotel lobbies and Internet cafes — especially in Europe.




8. Has your blog site been a burden for you or any of your loved ones?


It’s definitely a challenge to keep our blog updated, and it’s constantly on my mind. But because I’ve incorporated the blog into my job, it is not a burden to me nor my family.




9. Do you travel with a laptop or other services to help you blog while you're traveling?


The only time I’ve blogged while traveling I did not have a laptop. I did use my BlackBerry, and I used the computer in the hotel lobby. I don’t think a laptop is necessary — but it sure would be nice to have next time.




10. What is the most important thing, to you, about keeping a blog?


The most important thing about blogging is sharing information with a wide range of people and participating in conversations (through the blog’s comments) about a common topic. Although ours is a corporate blog, it’s not intended to drive sales or generate revenue; its purpose is to promote educational travel and share our belief that travel is critical to increasing global awareness for all students and all people.