Concept & Overview
The aim of this website is to show the real and unfiltered side of popular tourist destinations across Europe, supported by my own personal travel experiences and photography. It will function as a “myth-busting” tool for people who are in the dreaming stage of planning a leisure trip to Europe. The main feature of my blog, an aspect which is unique to my website, is the “Instagram vs. Reality” page, which details case studies of popular Instagram destinations (which the audience will have seen on Instagram), and displays my unedited photo of that same destination alongside it, highlighting how much editing work has been done to the popular photo, and showing the audience what to really expect. There is also a list of destinations I have personally visited, accompanied by honest advice and reviews on which places lived up to the hype, which fell short, and which were worth the price. The target audience of this website follow other travel blogs on Instagram, often search destinations by their geotag and are accustomed to seeing extremely edited photos of picturesque villages and crystal clear waters. They are drawn to highly saturated images and frequently search for hashtags such as #beautifuldestinations; #travelphotography and #wanderlust.
Visual Communication & Design
I kept the colour scheme of the website simple, in order to make the photographs stand out as much as possible. The site’s logo incorporates a cartoon globe, hinting to users about what to expect from the site. The pink accent colour used for the logo was also used as the selection colour when the mouse is hovered over a menu option or link, in order to tie the site together and unify the branding. I chose a photo-tile menu on my home page to display as much content to the viewer without their needing to look for it, in an effort to catch their attention. Displaying photos in this manner had a less overwhelming effect than showing a large number of blog posts. As Marsh (2015) cautions, the most obvious design is the best, and so I was careful to include a more typical bar-style menu to ensure that users found my site easy to navigate and had the option to use either menu in case the tile menu was not immediately clear.
User Interface Design
The initial landing page of my website is reminiscent of Instagram in design, in order to appeal to users from this platform and to hold their attention long enough to intrigue them further. Using a grid of large images not only makes the transition from Instagram to blog smoother but sets the tone of what can be expected from the blog’s content: photography based posts with minimal writing. This was an important element as the blog focusses on photography. Initially, Instagram was proving to show higher engagement, so that platform was used to steer viewers to the blog. The photo grid on the landing page was consistently complimented and mentioned as an asset throughout the discussion boards and was popular with all those I shared my project with.
According to Tuason (2014), 84% of leisure travellers are now using the internet to plan, most prominently Instagram, Facebook, and blog sites. This showed me that my audience was already active on the internet, and so if I categorised and hashtagged religiously I would have a chance at reaching that pre-existing community. I used categories and hashtags throughout my website to organise my posts in as many different ways as possible and increase the probability of their getting viewed through. For example, a post about Italy will be categorized under “Italy” “Places” “Instagram” and then whatever other tags more relevant to that particular post. Contrary to my reservations, hashtagging posts on WordPress was immediately effective and resulted in the highest engagement I had received on my site.
User Experience Design Across Digital Platforms
I have designed my website to be familiar to users of Instagram without feeling like a repeat of the same content. One element of Instagram that differed from WordPress was that it was clear early on that edited photos, particularly highly saturated and colourful photos, performed better than the more realistic or unedited shots. In was still determined to focus on showcasing unedited photos, so I, therefore, adapted my method for Instagram by posting a slideshow of two versions of the one photo, displaying the edited version first to catch the user’s attention, and then allowing them a look behind the scenes in the second photo. This helped to strengthen my trademark of “Instagram vs. Reality” photos and piqued users’ interest enough to visit my website. The most useful tool on Instagram was actually not hashtagging but geotagging, which I found to be highly effective. Tong (2018) mentions that geotagging or location-based tagging are extra effective at reaching a more targeted audience.
Audience Metrics
Instagram has so many variables that AB testing was extremely difficult to carry out effectively, and I was baffled at why some posts which I thought were great completely flopped and others I was less proud of skyrocketed (relatively). After a little research, I found an illuminating article called “Don’t Edit Your Instagram Photos”. This refers to editing the captions or anything else after they have originally been posted, as the author alleges that this resets Instagram’s algorithm for your post, and thus it will flop. Whilst the author, Itchban (2017), admits he cannot yet prove this, I experimented myself and found it answered a lot of questions about my underperforming posts, as I had lazily been returning to posts 10 minutes after posting to edit and perfect their wording.
This can be seen below: the photo on the left has not been touched since it was originally posted, but to the photo on the right I went back to add hashtags etc. about 2 minutes later.
I found that my best performing posts were those that were highly saturated in colour and that those with specific hashtags performed better than those that didn’t. The hashtags #beautifuldestinations; as recommended by Usborne (2018); #wanderlust, and #lightroom were the most effective, resulting in the highest multitude of likes, however, nothing worked as well as tagging accounts similar to mine in my uploads.
Whilst most of my page views can be attributed to the discussion boards, I will forever cling to this viewer from Romania, who is certainly not a digiplat viewer.
Future Directions & Development
Interestingly, the three likes I gained on a WordPress post felt far sincerer than the multiple ones I received on Instagram. It was highly encouraging to have people value my effort for what felt like more authentic content than the cheap tricks and false attention of Instagram. I believe that building a following through WordPress and then directing them to Instagram, rather than vice-versa, may be the way to go. As I found my niche in exposing the truth of popular tourist destinations, I actually began to really enjoy myself, and this is definitely a project I could see myself continuing.
Works Cited
Itchban. (2017). Don’t edit your Instagram Posts. [online] Available at: http://www.itchban.com/blog/2017/8/23/dont-edit-your-instagram-posts [Accessed 11 Jun. 2019].
Marsh, J. and Marzán, J. 2015, UX for beginners. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media Inc.
Tong, W. 2018, Instagram’s impact in travel decision-making process and leisure travel planning: The Case of Hong Kong. 1st ed. [ebook] Paris: ISC Paris, pp.4-60. Available at: https://iamwilliamtong.com/media/files/thesis-instagram-impact-travel-decision-making-process-hong-kong-william-tong.pdf [Accessed 10 Jun. 2019].
Tuason, S. 2014,. Tweets, trends, and travel: Is social media changing communications in the travel industry in Vancouver, BC?. Graduate Student. University of Alberta.
Usborne, S. 2018, Hashtag heaven: Instagram | With millions of followers and a disruptive media business, Jeremy Jauncey could be the world’s most influential traveller. Simon Usborne meets him USA Region], London (UK).
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