I remember the first time I saw Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe-Zambia border. This massive body of water just falling over the edge of the cliffs, splashing everywhere and creating rainbows as sun rays catch in her spray.

How overwhelming, I thought. And beautiful. Constantly changing.

That image came to me last night as I was moderating our WITNext panel on “Creating Content to inspire travellers”.

The Internet is like the Victoria Falls of content. It’s sent this huge body of content gushing into our face. As consumers, it’s overwhelming – content anywhere, any time, any device.  As content creators, it’s even more overwhelming – how do you navigate the flow without plunging over the edge?  Ok enough of the wet puns …

I cut my teeth on reporting.  I recall my interview with the managing editor and he asked why I wanted to join the newspaper. I said, “I want to write.” He told me reporting had nothing to do with writing. First hard truth. Reporting is about taking the facts and structuring them into a story.

Today it’s not so much about writing but about creating content and stories which you slice and dice according to the media. So while you tell everyone what you did on Twitter, you tell people what you like on Facebook and you show everyone what you did on YouTube and so on and so forth …

Last night’s panel (pictured above) gathered a diverse array of content creators – print man Luke Clark, editor of Discovery Channel Magazine, TV anchor and producer Steve Lai of Channel News Asia, blogger Jacylnn Seah, social media agency Koay Yi Ling and boss of travelmob, T Fuad, who needs content to inspire users first to travel and then to buy his products – in that order, he insists.

“Crazy people have great stories”

Luke is inspired to travel because he likes crazy people, he says. You meet crazy people when you travel and crazy people have stories to tell. “There’s nothing more rock and roll than travel.”

Give structure to your stories, he advises. And make them personal, tell the story as you.

His concern with the new world of user generated content is not that “‘everybody can write or think they can”, his concern he says is to get “everyone to read”.

And as far as he is concerned, we spend so much time on screens these days that print has become nostalgic and it’s making a comeback, just like vinyl is doing in the world of music.

He tweets while he sleeps

Steve Lai, who got his first broadcasting job with ESPN by winning an online competition and then got his job with Channel News Asia through LinkedIn, thinks social media’s the best thing to have happened to newsmen like him.

Twitter allows him to create immediate content and he uses tools that allow him to “tweet while you sleep” when asked about how he manages his time and productivity.

He now produces a travel segment every Friday and wants to tell travel stories that are not just about finding the best sunsets but help unearth insights and issues about travel and opens people’s eyes to current trends that are unfolding in the industry.

“Don’t be afraid to make a fool of yourself when you tell your stories,” he said, referring to the online competition he won by he reconstructed himself from a Singlish-speaking character to a suave proper English-accented anchorman.

Regular tales from a deskbound blogger

Jacylnn Seah started her blog, the occasionaltraveller.com, to relate to other deskbound Singaporeans and to remind them that they need time off to travel and get away from work.

“I try and write as a regular deskbound worker who likes to travel. I don’t think I am special but I have regular issues that other people like me also have and so I hope I create some form of connection with them,” she said.

She started it as a hobby but now finds herself being approached by travel companies and “it’s a fine balance between writing what I want and what they would like”.

Managing a fulltime job and a blog is hard work but she’s learnt now to “write whenever I can” – she take notes along the way instead of waiting to sit down somewhere and write the whole blog.

Mobile has definitely helped this “write as you go” approach.

“Give more meaning than you receive”

Koay Yi Ling of Circos Brand Karma calls herself an accidental writer. She didn’t set out to be a writer but somehow found herself creating content as an intern in the social media agency and before she knew it, she’s “the writer”.

Now she creates content on social media channels to get people to buy her client’s products.

Asked how she felt about people saying it’s folks like her who are turning social anti-social, she said, “When are we not being sold to in our lives – from the moment we wake up to bedtime – we are constantly being fed sales messages? The important thing is to add value to your content – give more meaning to people than you receive.”

She says it’s a fine balance between brands wanting to make it about them rather than making it about the customer. “We try and tell them that it should be about the customer and not them.”

While she doesn’t want to be a fulltime writer, she believes writing is a critical skill to have in life. It helps you think critically, and synthesise. Content today is more than writing, though – it’s also about images, videos and any form of media – visuals convert better than text, she says.

A mob looking for the B side of travel

T Fuad has an inhouse team which creates content as well as engages with bloggers to create content. He’s looking for people who can share the B-side of travel, as it were, given Travelmob’s positioning of “travel like a local”.

While he comes from the school of search – where everything has to be discoverable ie search-optimised – he says inspirational content has its place as more savvy travellers demand more from websites.

There is technology today that allows bloggers to be paid a percentage if their stories lead to conversions and this model, he said, is a good incentive for people who create content.

He admits that as a brand owner, it’s hard to get out of the way on social media when it comes to wanting to have the brand mentioned – but he knows that’s the right approach. By the same token, some bloggers have their egos and can be difficult “like not allowing us to see the draft” when the assignment is commissioned.

Don’t pooh-pooh their adventures, tales from two kids

One highlight of the evening was when we introduced brother and sister Ryn and Wyn (pictured right) who’ve started their own travel blog called Our Poo-Poo Rocket Adventure.

The blog captures travel through their eyes, both are under 10. They started it because they wanted to write about their trips and they said the best story they’ve written so far is of the AirAsia captain who was a former beauty queen.

Reading their latest blog on Langkawi, I am impressed by how grown-up they sound and how well they write, and their story has an interesting tale of a lizard with two tails.

The consensus of the night – great content, however it is created and delivered, has to bring out the “you in you” – ie the audience. We hope we did that last night.

Now go forth and create.