How Cool Would it be? A Crowd Sourced Trip…
This is Part One in a two part series called “How Cool Would it be? ACrowd Sourced Trip… In post number one I will share my ideas, while in post number two I will take your ideas as well as mine and show how this could be implemented strategically.
In about three weeks my wife and I will be heading on our delayed honeymoon. She is a teacher and we wanted to wait until she got out of school to do our traveling. So this post is an idea that hit me. Not one that I will obviously put in fully during our trip, but an idea none the less.
A Crowd Sourced Trip
How cool would it be to do a fully crowd sourced trip? Say for instance I am heading to Montana. I have always wanted to visit montana as I am an avid outdoorsman and fly fisherman (See above pic). What would the possibilities be for not only crowd sourcing where I will eat, fish, sleep, and sightsee but also for advertisers and local businesses in the area?
Possibilities
So lets continue on this dream trip to Montana. I’ll set up a blog or maybe even do it here on this blog of the things I like to do, the foods I’d like to eat, and so on. I would keep a digital log of the events as well a take crowd sourced suggestions as to where I will head next, how I would get there and what there is to do. Tools like twitter would be amazing for getting instant feedback, meeting possible locals and making friends.
How about the commercial possibilities?
Would this crowd sourced adventure become a meme? Would people be interested to check in and view photos, comment, and live vicariously through me? I know that if one of you was taking a flyfishing adventure to Montana that I would be checking in at least daily if not more often to see photos and read about the State they call Big Sky Country. Here are some other commercial possibilities:
- Gear that would be sponsored by Orvis, Sage, LL Bean or any of the other large suppliers.
- Local restaurants, hotels or outfitters that might be interested in putting me up knowing that I will be very public about what I am eating and how I am fairing.
- Local Fishing Guides that might want to gain publicity through media created via short video clips or photographs.
- Local and State chambers that might want to add valued content to the site to help sell the experience and possibly gaining targeted travelers to their state.
The list is really endless! I have never seen anything like this done besides on sites that were 100% dedicated to travel and had a semi-famous host. Is this a good idea? Or am I off my rocker on this one? Do you have any ideas on how this would be useful to targeted advertisers?
Who will send me to Montana??????
Keith Burtis is a social media and digital marketing professional. If you or your company are looking to REV THE ENGINE on your digital efforts contact Keith today! Specialties include: Blog design/Integration, Custom Facebook Pages, Social, Digital and Interactive Content strategies.
Comments
Hey Jim! Thanks for the comment and of course consider yourself invited my friend. If I remember correctly your adventure was just after SXSW. Am I correct on this? Yea, I think something like this has a lot of potential and maybe something that could be done yearly, maybe even bring in some tweet-ups and social media events. Who knows…possibilities are endless.
-Keith
Love the idea! It’d be perfect for me, too, as I already travel a lot and cover what I’m doing/seeing/eating quite thoroughly (though less at the moment as I have a lot of that real paying job stuff to do as well). I expect to go on a US southwest road trip with my husband in August – I’ve spent so much of my life outside the US that I’ve missed a lot of the classic sights right in my own country. Wonder if anyone would like to sponsor “a foreign American visits her native country.” ; )
Keith – I love this idea and to a certain degree lived it earlier this year. The Innovators Road Trip was the brain child of mad social media scientist Colin Browning (@crbrowning). We secured several corporate sponsors (including Ford) and headed out on a road trip from Detroit to Austin, TX, uncovering innovation in the heartland.
We blogged, podcasted, videoblogged and took photos along the way. In hindsight we really just scratched the surface of what this sort of project could really be. I think it’s got a lot of legs.
More info on the trip here:
http://innovatorsroadtrip.com/
Last week at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston I sat down with Tim Hayden from Gameplan (@gameplanhayden). They’re doing some really interesting work in the area of experiential marketing (where this sort of project falls). He’s another good guy to talk with.
Of course, I’d love to work with you to pull something like this off. As an fly fisherman who once prowled the Snake River in Wyoming, your picture makes me jealous.
Have a good one.
Jim | @jimstorer