3 Social Media Storytelling for Sustainable Destination Campaigns

 3 Social Media Storytelling for Sustainable Destination Campaigns

Journaling during the Library Step. Route-map, Word-count, Channels, Storytelling and Sustainability

To help you and your students complete the first piece of journaling we are going to take notes from the storytelling list shown below. Fist, though, we give an overview of the whole three-step process using this set of PowerPoint slides:

Please download our PowerPoint 1 by clicking on the slide image below 

Slides 1, 2, & 3 are titles for you to edit and CC information.

Slide script starts here:

4. The book Travel Writing for Tourism proposes a three-step process for place-making and travel writing projects. In these lectures we will work in each of the 3 steps to give you hands-on experience of journaling and composing finished written pieces for publication on social media channels for your storytelling campaign.

5. If we look in more detail at the three-step process we can see that by Step 2 the content author can begin to make social media posts on a channel where short texts are expected. For example, by posting about sights seen out in the destination. During the final step, ‘Step 3’, you craft more structured stories. These are for your longer blog posts, LinkedIn articles or for an article in a print magazine.

6. Let’s drill down to our design for individual journaling pages now. Journaling can be as simple as taking notes from a book in the library and then returning to these initial notes later to carefully add your own thinking. The Note Containers that we have put in our Process pages encourage you to take notes when you can, then return to spend time later to combine and create ideas from very different sources. The width of our note containers means that you can open your journaling on your mobile phone to add ideas later, on the move.  

7. Let’s do an activity straightaway so that you can experience what we mean by journaling in your own Microsoft OneNote pages.

Here is a table showing a list of the key storytelling components that you can include in your own writing on destinations for your social media campaigns. These storytelling components will engage your audience with your content.

 

	List of Key Storytelling Components
1.	Create an I-narrator and other characters.
2.	Give historical background to place or a cultural practice or artefact.
3.	Apply imagistic language. Simile and metaphor for affect.
4.	Use verbs to give movement by the narrator, a vehicle, or other agents in the scene.
5.	Build plot. Aristotle defines this as creating reasons, so ask why?
6.	Include dialogic voices. Write to include two or more voices that do not fully agree.
+	Past tenses – please see the section on pp.18-19 ‘The six past tenses in English narrative writing’ in the book.
+	Twill – please see the section on pp.20-23 ‘Twill as research synthesis’, in the book.

 

Please choose just one component to work with, from that list of storytelling components, above. In the OneNote notebook called PROCESS, open the twisty V to reveal the tabbed section that is labelled 1 LIBRARY:

 

Add a new page into the section 1 LIBRARY

And, if you stored the templates successfully, then one of our Dialogue Journaling template pages will appear for you to type into.

Please then copy & paste or type your note from the components list into the new catalyst Note Container, which has the quotation marks icon “. You might prefer to erase the advice text from the Note Container before you start your journaling. Please see the before and after note containers, below:  

BEFORE (From the blank template)

Enquiry, quote or theme

Catalyst for this 'Page' of dialogue journaling.

 

AFTER you have erased and started your journaling.

Enquiry, quote or theme

Create an I-narrator.

 

 

How can you make the I-narrator relate to reducing carbon use? See how journaling gives you a process to combine information from two different, unconnected subjects? In this case storytelling theory and ethnobotany. From these two diverse sources you can construct a response to the question.

Enquiry, quote or theme

Create an I-narrator. Then ‘How can [you] I make the I-narrator relate to reducing carbon use?’

 

Now, please, scroll down on that same OneNote page to the next note container to start to show your working as you do your journaling. Remember, it does not need to be finished writing, just feel free to write ideas, like this:

Again, simply erase any guidance text from the note container before you start your own journaling.

Write positively for your audience. Return here and apply care

 

I-narrator. Asks about food provenance to choose local sources and low food miles. Completes a trip without meat or sugar and records its challenges and effects on the narrator.  Consider using phrases ‘carbon footprint’ or ‘foodmiles’.

 

This is to remind you that as you begin to write about place the I-narrator should ask about food provenance to choose local sources and low food miles. For a longer travel story, the overarching theme could present scenes as the narrator completes a trip without meat or sugar, recording its challenges and effects on the narrator.  To find more ideas on local food and plant use, please look at Table 5.2 The Ethnobotany Checklist on page 83 of the print edition.

Route-Planning during the Library Step as Field Preparation

8. Google Maps or other online mapping systems are useful to you when planning your walking route for your writing at the destination. For a destination town, we pick a point of entry like the railway station or the hotel, then plan 5 more stops along an elliptical route to bring you back to your first plateau. We call these the writer’s plateaus. We explore the idea of writer’s plateaus more on pp.104-106 in the print edition of textbook. We have also indexed the word plateau in the book.  

9. Google Maps also lets you see how hotels, restaurants and visitor attractions have interacted with the tourists who have reviewed their facilities. For a travel writing project on Cherbourg, for example, we saw that the Ambassadeur Hôtel at 22 Quai Caligny was perfectly positioned for a walking route that turned from the quayside into the old part of town. The owners happily entered into dialogue with visitors via their reviews on the Maps and Local Guides system. This responsiveness is valuable to the Dialogue Journaling Process Model because it is likely that the hoteliers will engage with students and travel writers.

10. When you are out in the field, be sure to use all your senses to deliberately experience the places on your route of plateaus. Touch the stone of buildings to activate senses other than simply looking. Focus on how gravity affects your legs, or cobbles make walking more apparent. When you are with others, ask them what they really like about this spot; their dialogue will often surprise you because they have experienced a different aspect of the place. In our book we devote a section on pages 72-73 called ‘Theories of memory for writing enquiries’ that will help you prepare for the fieldwork.  

11. For your social media channels, online dialogues with stakeholders from the destination will give you journaling opportunities and often digital photographs from the hotel itself. The journaling lets you build up assets of short texts and images for your social media posts before you travel.  For a field project we completed in Amsterdam we stopped at each plateau that we had planned during the library step. Our photographs from our stop at each plateau became Instagram posts with the hashtag #SpinozaWalk to promote this area of Amsterdam city for its connection with Spinoza.

 

pp.80-84

Reading for Journaling Section: Pages 80-84 describes our research findings on word counts for blogging.  We designed a three-page feuilleton to help you measure your written productivity. How many words do you handwrite on a single A4 page?

 

Pairing Social Media Channels for your Destination Story Campaign

12. When you are nearing the end of Step 2, and have completed journaling out in the field, it is time to plan your strategy on a pair of social media channels. This is where you will recount your story to a wider public audience. We suggest choosing one of these two pairings of channels: Instagram and LinkedIn, or Facebook and Google Blogger. A pairing like this will provide you with viewer metrics to measure the impact of your campaign.

Set out your editorial calendar for your posts. We have provided tables for this at the end of this section. From your editorial calendar you can see how many posts you need to write. Use ‘Step 3 In the Lab’, within our journaling process notebook to write and refine your posts, each in their own page, and store the image asset with them for reference.

Facebook lets you type or paste up to 63206 characters but that would be too long to act as a push update. That is about 10 000 words, so much longer than an essay. In our storytelling campaign we propose that the longer reads are offered on your travel blog. We use Google Blogspot for our magazine blog called Travel Writers Online (ISSN 2753-7803).  On there we discuss word counts for blogging. A handwritten page of A4 is often about 350 words in length. We suggest you use that word count of 350 for blog posts in feuilleton style. Feuilleton-style means ongoing posts from the field or ‘making-of’ posts to keep your audience updated on your story making as it unfolds in real-time. Three of those 350-word posts would become the perfect length for a complete travel article.

The push posts, though, on Instagram or Facebook, for an ongoing destination campaign should be only one or two sentences, less than 20 words. If one sentence is enough to tell readers what they will find on your blog if they click, then keep the Facebook or IG update as short as that. And, of course, an image will be needed on each of those push posts for Facebook or IG. To create the story of the journey, consider where your readers will travel from to the destination. This journey will act as a story for Facebook or IG, for example, use a photograph from the ferry as it heads towards the destination port, like this: 

 

Editorial Calendar for your Social Media Channels

 

Social Channel & Post Number	CONTENT Image Asset + Storyline CALL-TO-ACTION
Facebook 1	Image: Heading for the destination. Story: Promise of anticipation. What will be the quest. Question to the readers. C-T-A: Follow this Facebook account.
Facebook 2	Image: Hotel, exterior from street. Story: Where we will be staying. Why? (Plot from Aristotle’s theory). C-T-A: Push post to encourage readers to the blog. So, first blog post must be live, too.
Blog post 1	Image: Interior shot of hotel to show you have arrived and entered. Story: Local food or drink stocked by the hotel restaurant. Narrator’s favourite table, and why (plot). What’s next? C-T-A: To follow blog by email subscription eg. using follow.it

 

 

For students another useful pairing of social media channels is LinkedIn and Instagram. Students can join LinkedIn for free or with a university offer, and this project will give them the opportunity to explore how LinkedIn can build networks for their professional careers. LinkedIn offers users a way of blogging longer articles, which we suggest are the best way for the student to build their public portfolio. The option to write an article is offered is the new post screen, along the footer of the text box, like this:

Instagram has been available since 2010 and so the user base is well-established. Again, it is free for students to join, and they may consider opening an account for these professional career posts so as not to mix their personal posts with business. IG allows 2200 characters in a post, but again, for this project it is worth restricting yourself to 1 or 2 sentences of 10 words each. Using full stops and line feeds in the text also lets you give some formatting to the IG text. Personal, free accounts on Instagram only allow you one url address to push your readers to, and that is back in the bio page. It gives the student content author a stimulating challenge to work out how they will move their readers from IG to LinkedIn.

 

Social Channel & Post Number	CONTENT Image Asset + Storyline CALL-TO-ACTION
IG 1	Image: Travelling to the destination. Story: Promise of anticipation. What will be the quest. Question to the readers. C-T-A: To follow this IG account.
IG 2	Image: Hotel, exterior from street. Story: Where we will be staying. Why? (Plot from Aristotle’s theory). C-T-A: Push post to encourage readers to the blog-style article in LinkedIn. So, first LinkedIn article must be live, too.
LinkedIn 1	Image: Interior shot of hotel to show you have arrived and entered. Story: Local food or drink stocked by the hotel restaurant. Narrator’s favourite table, and why (plot). What’s next? C-T-A: To follow this LinkedIn account.

 

13. Test out your text content with peer-group or friendship group in class. Design and write an Instagram post that would make your followers click through to read more about narrator’s story in your chosen destination. Share it for feedback, ask: Would you click through? Why? Why not? What else does it need?

14. Do you remember how this dialogue in class generated questions and further ideas? Keep this in mind to take with you into the field. Find the plateaus that you chose during the library step. Pick a good spot for your inquiry at each plateau.  Take care and give your respondents time when you are at the destination plateaus.  Consider your own well-being. Take care. Take time. Enjoy being in dialogue.  

=END OF POWERPOINT 1=

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To cite:

Potočnik Topler, J. & Mansfield, C. (2024). Social Media Storytelling for Sustainable Destination Campaigns:  A teaching companion with instructor resources. Totnes: Travel Writers Online. ISBN 9781838096458  

You may re-use this Teaching Pack for your own teaching and modify it if required, but please please include the cite Reference from above in any versions you make; this will help others find the complete pack. Thank you.